Nude Recreation Week 2007 in Everglases National Park

Mike and I headed down to the South end of ENP this year, so he could see Carl Ross Key, and so I could visit it again.

(Carl Ross had been closed due to hurricane damage, then park officials announced it was being designated as a bird sanctuary. Florida Bay has several hundred islands, all but 3 of which are bird sanctuaries. Apparently the park officials reconsidered their decision. The ENP website showed Carl Ross was once again a campsite when I looked it up this Spring.)

However, when we got there, the reservation book showed Carl Ross Key unavailable, and the map on the wall had a post-it note next to Carl Ross, also showing it unavailable. The trip planner brochure showed it available, though.

A ranger showed up before we left, and he told us that Carl Ross was day-use only (which means the website and trip planner both are giving out misleading information).

If we had known, we would have saved driving time and gas by going to the North end of the park instead.

We made reservations for South Joe River Chickee, Graveyard Creek, Highland Beach, Graveyard Creek again, and Oyster Bay Chickee.

I had my 14 ft V-hull and 25hp motor with 18 gallons of gas. It should have been an easy trip. After loading the boat, I changed into a breechcloth (the only clothing I took), and we got started. It was early Saturday afternoon.

The first part of Buttonwood canal is a no-wake zone. Once we got out of that, I revved the motor, and the boat wouldn't go up on-plane. I assumed it was the combined weight of Mike, Myself, 12 gallons of water, 18 gallons of gas, our food, etc.

Once we had some manuevering room, we shut the motor down and redistributed weight to bring up the bow a little. We still couldn't achieve planing.

We motored on to South Joe River Chickee at a screaming 6 mph. After unloading most of the weight on the chickee, I moved the boat away and restarted the motor. I still couldn't get it on-plane. Something was wrong with the motor for sure.

I checked the fuel tank and found it nearly empty. We had blown through 1/3 of our fuel just getting to our first campsite!

We had a nice stay at South Joe. I got to try out my jungle hammock, while Mike did the conventional tent thing. On Sunday morning I went to the backup motor (a 3.5hp Nissan). It ran between 4.5 and 5 mph, but used a small fraction of the gas the 25hp used.

At first I was a little surprised at how much damage the recent hurricanes had done to Graveyard Creek. It appeared that the whole site was altered. But looking back at my 2001 pictures of the site, I find that the main change is that there is now no beach left. (And also the sign I posed by in 2001 is gone, and now there're two port-a-johns instead of one.)

I was last there in 2001. This was only my second visit, but the no-see-ums were horrendous this time. I don't know what's normal for Graveyard Creek, but they weren't nearly as bad last time I was here.

These no-see-ums had no regard for insect repellant. I even used 100% DEET and it didn't even slow them down.

I didn't want to go 10-12 miles up the Gulf coast Monday morning with only the 3.5hp motor, so we decided to skip Highland Beach. We stayed another day at Graveyard Creek. By the end of the day we'd had enough bugs. We didn't want to spend another day there so we decided to go to Oyster Bay a day early.

While we were hanging around Graveyard Creek, I found that one of the sparkplugs on the 25hp motor was not firing, but had no spare plugs (need to take care of that!).

As soon as we had enough tide to float the boat Tuesday morning, we headed to Oyster Bay. The trip to the Oyster Bay Chickee was uneventful, but when we arrived at the chickee we were quite surprised to find a tent there! (In 14 years of Summer time trips into the Everglades backcountry, I have never found anyone else camping there. (One person found me in 2003, but this was a total surprise to us.))

Oyster Bay is a double chickee, and the tent was only on one of the platforms, but wilderness etiquette stipulates you don't move in on someone's campsite without asking unless it's an emergency. There was no one 'at home' to ask (they were probably out fishing). That tent was set up with cots, carpet, a foot locker, ice chest, etc.! Obviously not someone out canoeing or in any other way 'roughing it'.

Since 1, it would be rude to just move in; 2, we didn't have a reservation to be at Oyster Bay until Wednesday; and 3, we were camping naked and didn't want to possibly offend them (I didn't even BRING clothes); we decided to try another chickee. If that one wasn't occupied, we'd stay there. If it was, we'd come back to Oyster Bay.

The Watson River Chickee was only 5 miles away, and I'd never stayed there, so we decided to try it.

Watson River Chickee is not only a single platform, it's small at that (comparable to Plate Creek Chickee). It gets the brutal afternoon summer sun until nearly sunset with no shade after 4 oclock or so. I do not recommend it for Summer use.

A rope broke on my hammock, and when I hit the deck I dropped one of my digital cameras in the water.

This was the last picture taken before the rope broke.

I quickly removed the batteries and thoroughly rinsed the insides with fresh water. I left the camera in the intense sun for the next two days. When I got home, I put new batteries in, and so far it still works. Most of these pictures came from that camera.

Wednesday morning, we headed for Oyster Bay before the breeze got strong (Watson River is at the Northeast corner of Whitewater Bay, which gets rough in the wind.

Our 'neighbors' at Oyster Bay had moved on, so we had the chickee to ourselves. This chickee is in deep enough water to dive off of it. I took advantage of it, but Mike decided not to. This chickee was so much nicer than Watson River as far as shade went, but the no-see-ums were just as bad. (In my 14 years of Everglades Summer camping, I have never known the no-see-ums to be bad at the inland chickees.)

With our 3.5hp motor and dizzying 5 mph pace, it took some time on Thursday to get back to the truck in Flamingo (about 4 hours). I was able to stay nude until the last hundred yards or so when I put on the breechcloth that I had departed in.

I walked up to the truck barefoot (should have worn sandals on the rough hot pavement), and brought it down to the boat ramp. The winch rope broke trying to winch in the boat, but I was prepared with new rope in the truck.

So while we didn't hit Carl Ross Key (or Highland Beach for that matter), and it was buggier than I've ever experienced, it wasn't a bad trip. (North end of the park next time, though.)
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