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Kayaking, February 2007
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19 miles in 7 hours, plus 3 hours to portage 3 miles.
During the previous night, as forecasted, the winds shifted from N to SE. The forecast has said 16 mph, although I think the winds were stronger. When I entered Tampa Bay, the chop was noticeably higher with swells of around two feet. I had a good run to the southern tip of St. Petersburg, about 14 miles from my start, although I had to keep the sail half reefed and had to reset the rudder every 20 seconds or so. Over the course of the run the wind increased to approximately 25 mph and the swells reached 3-4 feet directly from port. Every couple of minutes or a swell would break on top of me, burying the Hobie and filling my snoot with spray.
I had drifted North of my course during the run to the south tip of St. Petersburg, so that I had to work my way south a little to get around the point. However, to my dismay and irritation, the Mirage drive was no longer working again (later that night, I discovered that both masts had come unseated with the Allen screws partly unscrewed; lesson for the day, check Allen screws every day). I took out the paddle and set to work, but was barely making headway against the wind. It took an hour of paddling to go 0.25 miles around the point.
This was followed by a due westerly course to the bridge over the intercoastal waterway. The winds were continuing to pick up and I was on a more downwind tack, making it harder to hold the Hobie on course. Eventually, I resorted to using the kayak paddle as an auxiliary rudder.
The final run was south to Ft. Desoto with winds picking up to over 30 mph. I tried my best to tack into the wind, but the Hobie just slipped sideways, so that all I could accomplish was a coarse due west. Once I got to the other side, I tried another tack on the left, losing ground. Taking a last tack back to the shore, I reefed the sail and tried to paddle. In the end, exhaustion caused me to tie up at someone's McMansion on the Bay. The owner kindly allowed me to haul the Hobie up onto his dock, rearrange my gear, get the wheels under it, and start the 3.0 mile walk to the park.
Incidentally, the bilge had collected about two gallons of sea water during the day. The Hobie was riding so low in the water that I was afraid to open the hatch in the cockpit. Part of the leakage may have been due to my bow line left accidentally under the front hatch, providing a way for water to enter past the seal.
With frequent breaks and singing the Volga Boat Song along the way, the portage took 3 hours. I wore a fair bit of tread off of my neoprene booties and got a couple of nice blisters. I have a new found respect for the Water Tribe racers that portaged 40 miles across central Florida between the St. Mary's River and the Suwannee River in a day and a half.
The bag that contained my sleeping bag and pad had leaked like a sieve. And of course, it rained that night and my tent leaked.
The good news is that Ft. Desoto Park has a day room to get in out of the rain, clothes washers and dryers, a general store, and a snack shop. I'm all set and plan to stay here 2 nights until the weather changes.
On the whole, this was the most physically challenging day that I've faced since backpacking the Continental Divide Trail in 2003. It feels good to know that I was able to cope with the bad weather, exhaustion, chill, and equipment failures. Only a couple of times did I ask "Are you out of your mind?"
February 2-3 Postscript
Nick Hall had told me I should go to Ft. Desoto. Maybe he should add "prophet" to his titles.
After writing the above blog, I discovered that I was missing the magic Allen wrench that assembles the Mirage pedal drive, and one of Allen screws that held the Mirage drive masts in place was missing. In addition, I was worried about how to do the repairs of the rudder lockdown and needed advice. Now, Bob and Mary were only 15 miles away, so I swallowed pride and called them for help again. Mary came to my rescue, bringing cookies and an apple, then took me back to the Tackle Shak, where I bought an entire kit of Mirage drive masts, sails, and fasteners for $80. They also told me what tools (in particular, a needle nose vice-grip) I needed for the rudder repair. Then we went to Bob's and Mary's home (again) where they treated me like family, despite the fact that the novelty of having me as a guest was probably wearing off.
The next morning, the weather was sour again with thunderstorms and hail, so a combination of Mary's mothering nature, my looking very morose, and a touch of begging, resulted in my staying with them one more night. That second evening, I joined them with friends at a local seafood restaurant. One particular friend, Bill Castles, also has a Hobie kayak with the Mirage drive, and we spent some time comparing notes.
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75 miles in 21 hours.
Sunday morning arrived and Bob and Mary took me back to my boat (undoubtedly eager to see me make a successful departure). The reattachment of the rudder lockdown handle worked as described. However, it popped off again when tested. The Allen screw is threaded into a nut fitted into the plastic of the handle. Everytime I put pressure on the screw, the nut would rise up out of the plastic. After a few minutes thinking, Bob and I came up with the idea of drilling a hole through the control shaft and the handle so that a pin could be inserted. Bob didn't have all the tools that we would need, but his friend Bill Castles (from dinner the previous night) did. We called Bill, who brought the necessary collection of tools. But, he also brought the handle that he cannibalized from his boat and offered it to me. Clearly, a handle would be easier to install in the field, so we put it on. It worked, but I don't intend to use the handle to raise and lower the rudder, only to lock it down.
A very special thank you to Bob, Mary, and Bill. And, if Nick hadn't told me to go to Ft. Desoto, I would not have found all this help.
Except for trying to work my way back upwind to get around Ft. Desoto Island, the passage across the mouth of Tamp Bay went smoothly and quickly.
Note about the Hobie Island: The boat has so much wind cross section that it is almost impossible to control with a kayak paddle when the winds are more than 20 mph. The Mirage pedal drive is quite capable of providing the force to propel the boat in a strong wind, but only when there is at least 20 inches of water. If you get stuck in shallow water (which I did that morning), you are SOL. The best recourse is to get out and push.
At 1700, I started looking for a place to stay for the night, but didn't see a place to camp (all the islands were mangrove) nor a motel. The guys who compete in the Everglades Challenge race typically paddle through the night. I was feeling good, the gear was working OK and the course was all intercoastal waterway, so I decided that I would give it a try as well.
With visions of a 100+ mile day to sustain me (the sad truth was more like 75), I sailed, pedalled, and sometimes dozed through the night. Four times the Mirage pedal drive needed repairs (one time the aft mast fell out; three times, the screw that holds the aft end of the sail and adjusts the resistance came undone and the sail started to fall off).
At dawn, I arrived at Charlotte Harbor (nearly as large as Tampa Bay). After a 15 minute break standing up, I started across. It was cold and windy enough the night before, but conditions became even worse for the crossing. Winds were around 20-25 kts, temperature still in the mid fifties with high humidity (think raw).
Another Hobie note: In my experience the Hobie Island has reliability problems and is perhaps too large to be called a kayak anymore (for example, a paddle is not sufficient to control it in moderate winds). But when everything is working, the boat is a hoot to ride. The Mirage drive moves the Island along at 4 mph with minimum effort and 6 mph in a sprint. In swells and wind and under sail, it dances in the waves, sometimes submerging completely under one swell, jumping over other waves, surfing, and sustaining 6-7 mph. The only problem I see is that the rudder does not have enough authority or mechanical advantage to take full advantage of the large sail in strong winds. The rudder would kick up, with the boat turning to irons, if I tried to push too hard. I found that the only way to keep things under control in strong winds was to reef in about 50% of the sail area. This was still sufficient for an interesting ride, but it could be exciting. One downer is that in heavy seas, the Island leaks like a seive. I had about 2 gallons of sea water inside the hull when I finished the crossing of Charlotte Harbor. Another downer is that my left forearm feels like it has carpal tunnel from hours of constantly adjusting the rudder. The rudder could use a larger handle in a more ergonomic position.
By the time I got across Charlotte Harbor, the cold, fatigue, lack of sleep, and lack of food were taking its toll. I was demoralized. I wanted a bed, a restaurant meal, a hot shower. Without knowing anything about the area, I took a chance on the town of Pine Island. The marina guys were jerks: they refused to store the Hobie on their premises and wanted to charge me $25 to use their boat ramp to unload gear. However, the people at the Tarpon Lodge were very accommodating. They didn't have any kind of a ramp, so we tied the kayak up at their boat dock (they did charge me $25 to dock it, just like any boat). They even let me in the front door and offered me a couple of towels, despite the fact that I was uncontrollably shivering, dripping wet, and thoroughly muddy. Even after a 30 minute hot shower and a cup of coffee, I was still shivering. I haven't been this cold since the time in the 1970's when I rode a motorcycle from Florida to North Carolina all night in winter to see a girl.
Note to self: I now see a huge advantage to having a dry suit. In addition to the comfort factor, you can shed it at the doors of restaurants and hotels and not have to drip mud as you enter.
I'll stay either one day or two depending on weather. As I write this, I smell dinner being served in the restaurant, and it smells wonderful.
One last thing. I've decided that the name of my boat is "That", as in "You're sailing up the east coast in That?", "That is a pain in the neck to paddle in strong winds", or when I get on the radio, "Hello, this is That, calling ...".
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22 miles in 7 hours.
After a leisurely breakfast, I got started at near low tide, around 1100 hours.
With good winds the run was relaxing. Saw my first dolphins and a couple of them jumped about 15 feet from my port side, I presume to get a look at me.
The fun ended as I approached Sanibel Island. The easterly winds were diminishing and the last run was to to the east, directly into the wind. I started pedalling and after a few minutes, it failed again. The front mast had fallen out again. I tried to repair it while in the water, and it fell out once more. A third try, and I realized that the Allen screw that holds the mast would not tighten. The threads were stripped. I needed either a new drive or new parts.
It took about an hour to go the last 2 miles, tack into the wind and then paddling. When I passed under the Bascule Bridge at the east end of Sanibel Island, I saw that a new replacement bridge was under construction and that it had a nice sandy beach. I camped within 40 ft of the highway, but the new bridge blocked the view of my camp.
The next morning, I was a great diversion for the construction workers, as I packed up and left.
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26 miles in 11 hours, plus 25 city blocks portage in 80 minutes.
The winds were good this morning. I steered a direct course to Big Carlos Pass at the end of Ft. Myers Beach. Pulling up on the beach, I pulled out my cell phone and called Backyard Boats. After a discussion of the problem, Jay Smirnow at BB decided I needed a new sprocket assembly, which he would send overnight. However, he said that he needed an address. I had been looking at hotels in Naples a few days before and remembered one that was not too high priced, called the Cove Inn that was on the bay and that had a boat ramp next door. I walked up to the condos with my laptop, and was rewarded with 8 different wifi ports. Connecting in to one, I looked up the hotel, booked a room for the night, and got the address for Jay. This experience would not have been possible even three years ago.
All set. Naples was only 16 miles away; four hours at 4 mph. No problem. Except that the winds dropped to nothing. Every once in awhile I would get a short breeze from the West that would get me up to 3-4 mph, but the rest of the time I was paddling at 1-3 mph, depending on how motivated.
At 1700, I was a break wall with an inlet. I asked someone fishing whether this was the entrance to Naples. The idiot said yes (and I was an idiot for not turning the GPS), so I battled my way against the falling tide to enter a quaint and tiny little harbor. I asked a passing boater for directions, and they said that I was in the wrong inlet. What's more, when I had calculated distances, I had measured the distance to Naples, and not to the inlet which was three miles further down the coast. By water, the hotel was six miles further than I had anticipated.
I paddled another hour, stopping at dark, and pulled the boat out of the water. A passing beach walker helped me drag the boat over the sand, across a public access ramp, and into a parking lot.
Then began a 25 block portage across the peninsula through the middle of the city. I paraded the boat the whole length of 5th Avenue, in front of boutiques, through the middle of restaurants that had outdoor seating on the sidewalk, pressing the buttons at cross walks. A policemen stopped behind me as I was jay-walking a do-not-walk light, but I guess that he could not figure out what to charge me with, so he kept on going.
At the hotel, they could not figure out what to do with me. Because they have limited parking, they have a "no boats in parking lot" policy. I argued that I would ordinarily have been given at least one parking spot for my car, but since That was my only means of transportation, that I deserved a parking spot.
Alas, the desk attendant was unmoved.. The best we could come up with was to hide the boat between the bushes and walkway to the rooms. However, there was no space, so I parked the boat on a strip of grass between the parking lot and the marina.
Hopefully, the part would arrive tomorrow. I expected to spend the morning doing boat maintenance and trying to repair the drive, leaving in the early afternoon.
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12 miles in 3 hours
With the demise of my digital camera (cannot complain, it survived 10 weeks in a tropical rain forest, then in a not-so-dry bag inside the hull of That), I walked 10 blocks to a CVS to buy a cheap Kodak digital camera. On the way back, stopped at a Starbucks. Truly roughing it.
The sprocket and mast seat arrived as Jay promised at about check-out time. I packed up everything and went to an adjacent park to do the field repairs. Everything went smoothly, getting the sprockets, chains, and cables all back together again. Then it came time to put the masts into the seats and to install the set screws. I discovered that the set screws were self threading, which might be OK in a machine shop, but I only had an Allen wrench, a leatherman, and a needle-nosed vice grips. After about 30 minutes of chewing up the part, putting a permanent impression of the end of the Allen wrench in my palm, and a lot of cursing, I got the first mast threaded. Maybe there is a learning curve, but the second one only took 12 minutes to get threaded. Note for Hobie, prestarting the threads would be nice for people who are trying to repair in the field.
With the assembly of the Mirage finished by around 1400, I put the boat in the water and got started with an audience watching. As I tried to get underway, That seemed to be extremely sluggish, with the Mirage drive. At first, I thought that I might have done something wrong. However, when I put up the sail and tried the paddle as well, That remained slow. After 10 minutes of frustration, I realized that I had left the wheels on the bottom, which added a huge amount of drag. Fortunately, the wheels could be removed without landing (just push down on the posts sticking through the deck behind me and grabbing the frame over the side). Things started feeling a lot better.
The Mirage drive worked, but was binding and making clicking sounds. I used it only to get out of the harbor.
Sailing down Keewaydin Island was effortless with a 10 kt NW wind. I pulled up on the beach in the middle of a quarter mile gap between houses. 20 minutes of further tuning of the Mirage drive (loosened the chains and reseated a cable that connects the two pedals; now it works silently and smoothly). Lay on the beach, under the stars, listening to Stephen Hawking's "Universe in a Nutshell".
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30 miles in 9 hours
When I packing up my stuff on Keewaydin Island, a doe (a deer, a female deer) walked out of the forest onto the beach and stood looking at me for several minutes. I turned back to finish packing, looked up again, and she was gone.
At the risk of sounding like a candidate for Thorazine, during the hours on the water, Deer Woman (see the Peru 2006, Ayahuasca entries) has reappeared as a voice in my head. Annoyingly, Deer Woman is doing a lot of complaining about not having any fun. She is nagging me to take my time and not be so driven. For one thing, last night she wanted hot food and I spent a half hour getting the wood stove started with damp drift wood. She laughed at my ineptitude as I was muttering and cursing. The food was good, but to my mind, not worth the effort.
She spent the next day giggling everytime I got sprayed with water.
She spoke up again as we were passing a dockside restaurant at the far end of Marco Island. I was worried about time, wanting to reach Everglades City before 1700 to get a wilderness permit before the Ranger office closed. However, she insisted that we stop, reassuring me that all would be well. Wwe stopped for lunch. I joked with her about how disfunctional our new relationship appears to be and is there such a thing as couples therapy for a person and a voice in his head?
My sister, Kerri, and her partner, George, were planning on being in Marathon Key on Feb 10-11. I was hoping to meet up with them there and had only 2 more days to get there to meet them. So, when we arrived at Everglades City at 1710 hours and the Rangers had cleared out at 1700 promptly, I was annoyed at the universe. In a sense I was stranded. Camping was not allowed in Everglades City and I did not have a wilderness permit to allow me to camp nearby. I wandered around, looking for someone in authority to ask what I should do.
I ran into Ranger Stu walking his dog. I explained my dilemma, and he repeated that camping at the facility was not allowed, and further said that the law enforcement rangers were zealous with their fines. Stu not only offered me a patch of grass beside his trailer and behind his truck, but even let me use his shower, hose, and electricity.
Later that night, I called Kerri to let her know that I probably would not make Marathon in time. She replied that she and George would not make it either. Their RV had lost compression on two cylinders and a new head was on order. They would be at least a week late. If I had arrived before 1700 hours and had gotten my permit, I probably would have headed out again on the falling tide without calling Kerri. I would have arrived in Marathon with no one there to meet me.
George said to take my time going through the Everglades. Enjoy the sites.
Deer Woman was right. Things did work out.
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16 miles in 3 hours
Sailing was glorious. We were on a broad reach in 3-4 foot swells and 25 kt winds. Saw manatees on the way out of Everglades City and a huge Dolphin leaping in the wake of a power boat.
No equipment problems on the Hobie to whine about. In fact the Mirage drive works like a dream. However, my Garmin GPSMAP76 got dunked and is acting intermittent. It would not be a good thing to lose. I'm trying to dry it out.
During the night, some creature, probably a raccoon, was patting my sleeping bag and the hair on my head. Raccoons here are hoodlums. They have no predators, are overpopulated, and are really hungry. They have become very skilled at opening tents and chewing open ice chests. I hope that my polyethylene boat does not look and feel like a giant cooler.
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19.6 miles in 4 hours, broad reach with NE winds.
Another good day of sailing. I arrived at my designated campsite at around noon, took care of gear, and then read a book George loaned me called "In the Wake of the Jomon" by Jon Turk. The book discusses the archeological evidence of ancient seafarers, probable progenitors of the Ainu and Polynesians, who appear to have crossed the Pacific by sea between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago.
In a parallel thread of the book, Jon Turk also undertakes a sea kayak trip from Japan to Alaska up the Kamchatka peninsula.
A lot of anthropologists argue that peoples only migrate when lack of resources, war, or some other reason compells them. Like Jon, I think that some people have a wanderlust that sends them off into the unknown.
While reading, a group of 6 canoes, looking like a Viking hoard, raided the island seizing the port-a-potties. I talked to a young woman in her twenties who appeared to be one of the two responsible adults. It appears that the two twenty somethings were taking 8 teenagers out for 3 weeks in the wilderness. Each of the canoes were rigged with boards that allowed the passengers to sleep on board, along with poles from which tarps and mosquitoe netting ould be draped. They had not slept on dry ground for 10 days, only coming ashore for cooking and port-a-pottie visits. They had covered 40 miles in the 10 days, which is not surprising since they wandered back and forth by my camp site 3 times that day.
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26 miles in 6 hours
The weather looked intimidating, so I decided to cross Whitewater Bay instead of going around the outside. A fellow at the Tackle Shak in St. Petersburg had told me horror stories of being lost in Whitewater Bay, running out of water, losing limbs (at least fingers and toes) on the oyster bars. He said that in case of bad weather, I should take at least 5 days of water (a gallon and a half for each day).
In contrast, the rangers suggested a gallon of water per day, and that I was suppposed to make my camp sites no matter what the weather.
The trip across Whitewater Bay was exciting, but not as life-threatening as the sales person made it out to be. The Wilderness trail was marked and my intermittent GPS guided me when I got off the trail once. A storm was building, with heavy chop and high winds (tornados and water spouts were observed in the Keys 30 miles away that same day).
The Mirage drive muscled me through sections where I was sailing directly into the winds at about 2 kts, and when I had the wind to beam, we sailed at 5-7 kts.
In Flamingo, I camped next to a semi-retired couple who had seen That at Ft. Desoto and spent the evening talking with them.
Ann will be disgusted to learn that I am enjoying microwaved frozen burritos from the marina convenience store for dinner (best item on the menu and I'm not complaining).
Another equipment failure: The battery on my laptop no longer charges.
I stayed an extra day in Flamingo (continued bad weather) and discovered that the dry bag containing my wallet and a couple of books (one borrowed) had leaked big time. Spent the afternoon drying out papers, business cards, and the books.
Hobie note: I bailed eight gallons (64 pint cups) of water out of That when I arrived the previous day. Got to figure out a way to slow down the leakage when loaded and in choppy water.
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24 miles plus 8 miles going up wrong channel in 9 hours
Florida Bay is extremely shallow, in many places only 1-2 feet deep and with many sand bars that are above the surface during low tide. There are channel markers, but they are not numbered. I missed the one I was supposed to take and took another one 4 miles northeast into the Everglades, before I realized that I must have made a mistake. No alternative but to turn around, back into the wind and the tidal current. Wouldn't you know that the Mirage foot drive that had been working so well for the last week decided to fail again.
Hobie Note: The plastic that is used in the drive is malleable, so that when enough pressure is applied, it deforms. Over the course of the past week, the aft mast seat deformed into an ellipse, so that the mast had a bit of side-to-side play. I reseated it and tightened the Allen screw in further and it seems to hold for now, but I suspect that another replacement will be needed soon. I don't think that I hit anything. It's possible that I did not completely tighten the Allen screw and left a little slop. The problem is that the screw is self-threading and is tight all the way in. It's hard to know when to quit tightening.
I also got stuck in waist deep mud, trying to get That off a bank. That had charged onto the bank when a wind came up stronger than the rudder could handle, causing That to cheerfully turn to a beam reach out of the channel.
Good sailing day though, and I reached North Nest Key at sunset. It was late, I skipped putting up the tent and had to contend with mosquitoes all night.
On the good side, I saw a lot of wildlife, including an 8 ft crocodile, many dolphins, and a couple of times disturbed something huge (croc? tarpon? ray?) in the shallow waters of Florida Bay.
All in all, not a bad day. Good spirits despite the challenges.
Note the photo of the obelisks of presumed ceremonial or religious significance placed at the entrance to the campsite. They were visible from 5 miles out.
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6 miles in 90 minutes
After a week crossing the Everglades and of living and sleeping in wet, salty, mildewed, stinky clothes and bedding, I decided to look for a place to stay. I was in a supreme funk on the sail over to Key Largo, beginning to think that the adventure had passed and the misery had begun. Besides the equipment failures and the physical discomfort, I was not very optimistic about finding a place to stay. It was Thursday before Presidents day weekend, so I might not even find a campground, let alone a motel.
But luck was with me. I approached the shore and found a bit of beach to pull up the kayak (rare on the Bay side of the island). Once landed, I saw that the beach belonged to a small but cute resort, and upon questioning, they had vacancies for that night (but not for the weekend). They didn't have wifi, but they did have a laundry and (for Key Largo at least) a reasonable price. And, a coffee shop two miles up the road had the wifi.
I'm still not particularly enthused about continuing tomorrow, especially when there may not be a campground or park to stay for the next 3-8 days, but tonight at least I have a hot shower, dry bed, cable TV, a restaurant, and with a 4 mile round trip hike, wifi.
Hobie note: The plastic pegs that center the ends of the akas in the amas on the right side of the boat have both broken off. I suspect that the problem was caused by lifting That up on its right outrigger (folded back) while placing the wheels under the boat. I don't think that the peg was meant to hold 200 pounds of lateral stress and I heard something snap while doing this maneuver a couple of days back. Today, I started the habit of taking one ama off while rolling the boat on its side to insert the wheels.
Jay Smirnow from Backyard Boats called to find out if something had happened to me. Both he and people from Hobie were concerned when they had not seen my blog updated in a week. I reassured him that all was OK, just that there was no wifi in the Everglades. Jay also told me that Matt Miller from Hobie would be contacting me.
Later that evening, when I reached the coffee shop that had wifi, I found among the 50 or so emails in my folder one from Matt. He and I exchanged 2-3 emails during the next couple of hours. The result of the exchange was that Matt sent me a bunch of spare parts (including four more of the sprocket/mast seats that have been failing) and refit kits for a variety of problems that Hobie has addressed in the first copies of the Adventure Island. The parts would arrive at Florida Bay Outfitters, the only Hobie dealer in the Keys, and only 6 more miles further north.
When I had left to go to the coffee shop, I had started my laundry in the resort's washing machine, and staff had volunteered to move the clothes to the dryer. When I returned to Rock Reef three hours later, I discovered that the staff had not only moved my laundry to the dryer, but also had folded my clothes and put them in my room. When they found that I had left a lighter in one of my pockets, they found me a book of matches. They also had a mirror laying around and decided that I needed it for signaling. They left me feeling very well taken care of.
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7 miles in 2 hours
I arrived at Florida Bay Outfitters (FBO) early in the afternoon. The parts were coming by FedEx and would not arrive until nearly 1600 hours. In the meantime, the staff at FBO made me feel very welcome, letting me use their computer to check email and weather, and letting me set up my tent in their back yard.
When the parts arrived, I first replaced a failing mast seat. I had complained last week that the Allen screw in the mast seat was self-threading and difficult to thread in the field with only an Allen wrench. Well, these new seats had the Allen screws already tapped and ready to go. I don't know if this was in response to my whining last week, but "Thank you, Hobie" anyway. I also replaced the retention clip for the mast (the sailing mast, not the drive mast) and in general tightened up screws around the boat. A kit to beef up the base of the sailing mast and replacement end pegs for the right side amas I left until later.
As part of the entertainment for the night, a couple of professional water guides, Bob Foote and Karen Knight, gave a slide show that night of two week trips they guide down the Grand Canyon each summer.
Later, I went next door to the Carribean Club, a bar in which the 1948 movie "Key Largo", starring Bogey and Bacall, was filmed. While having a beer and talking to an investment manager, I watched a woman falling down drunk. Hamilton Souther, the shaman at Blue Morpho in Iquitos, had said that he no longer went to bars because he couldn't stand watching dark energies descend upon and attach themselves to people who are drinking. In the Carribean Club, I looked around and could almost see the darkness afflicting many of the people there. I paid my tab and left.
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4 miles in 1 hour
Seem to be moving at a (sea) snail's pace these past few days. Not much progress.
I spoke with George in the morning. Their RV was put back together, so that he and Kerri should be leaving Maryland in the afternoon. We discussed possible rendezvous times and sites.
I had been planning on camping just beyond the FL 905A bridge at Card Point tonight, going on to Key Biscayne National Park to camp tomorrow night, and up to South Miami for Monday. However, tomorrow's forecast is for very high winds (25-30 kts) and Monday's forecast is not much better, which would mean that I would have to sit out a day in my tent tomorrow and be rushed the day after in challenging conditions.
In the end, I was tempted by a funky little motel and restaurant at the intersection of US 1 and the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW), called Gilbert's. The place is like a miniature Jimmy Buffet universe. So, I am blowing my housing budget by staying here two nights (maybe three if Kerri and George are delayed more).
But, so far the stopover has been worth it. For one thing, I had a religious experience eating BBQ ribs, drinking iced tea, shivering in wet clothes, and listening to a performer named Chip (visualize a cross between Jimmy Buffet and ZZ-Top) sing Southern Cross by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.
The added benefit is that this stopover will be the first time that I have been in one place for more than 24 hours since Bob and Mary's home. While 24 hours sounds like a long time, it is filled with boat and gear maintenance, logistics, looking at charts, finding a wifi, and writing up a blog for the prior days. It will be nice to just take an entire day or two off.
In looking back, I am feeling extremely grateful for all of the help that has come to me from various places. People I have met have been extremely helpful in making connections, suggesting and offering places to camp or stay, giving me spare parts, providing companionship, and lifting my occasionally flagging spirits. Large and small kindnesses. When I have needed help, it has appeared, often in amazing ways.
I suspect that part of the explanation is that people are willing to support someone who is crazy enough to try something bizarre. Something that our culture is not geared towards. Consider that most stores, motels, restaurants, etc have signs that face streets, not the water. Consider that camping sites for Florida State Parks are reserved months in advance, making them unaccessible to someone who cannot predict when they will be passing through.
Or maybe people are willing to support something that they themselves might fantasize about.
But, I also have a small sense of concern (and guilt), for I suspect that such generosity is not given as freely to other homeless people, people who have no choice about being homeless. I am just as stinky, am just as vulnerable to the weather, have missed meals, have camped under bridges. Why am I finding help so easily while other homeless are ignored? Perhaps it is the unique and surprising style of homelessness and vulnerability that I have undertaken. In contrast, we have seen in our lives many people who are homeless, hungry, sick, lonely, and lost. Perhaps our compassion has been exhausted or immunized against suffering we frequently see and can easily categorize.
I have received so much help, and my needs are much less dire.
18 February Postscript
George and Kerri are still having mechanical problems, so I will head north in the morning and meet up with them elsewhere along the Intercoastal Waterway.
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23 miles in 8.5 hours, straight into a 15-20 kt headwind.
After staying put in Key Largo for two days to wait out bad weather, I headed north with enthusiasm. Going directly into the wind with the pedals, I could manmage about 1.5-2 mph. And, if I tried to sail on a 45 degree tack off of the wind, I was making no headway, being pushed sideways as much as I was gaining forward. But, interestingly, pedalling allowed me to point higher into the wind (~30 degrees), not slip sideways (as indicated by GPS track), and make about 3 mph.
I don't know the full explanation. The Mirage drive fins probably acted like additional dagger boards. The added forward movement changed the relative wind over the sails to give a little more lift. Regardless, the combined pedalling and sailing is greater than the sum of the parts.
Nevertheless, it was still an exhausting day, pedalling non-stop for 8 hours. I arrived too tired to do much more than shower, change, put up the tent, and go to bed. Just my last granola bar for dinner.
I have talked a lot about equipment failures, well this time the failure was a piece of equipment that has no warranty: my 55 year-old body. At 0500 the next morning, I woke up intensely dizzy with the tent spinning around me. It subsided after about a minute, but from that point on, everytime I rolled over, the dizziness would start again. This is not the put-your-foot-on-the-floor-lying-down-after-a-major-drunk kind of dizzy, this is dizziness in which it is impossible to stand up and very difficult to even sit up. With the dizziness came motion-sickness. I could also feel pressure behind my right ear.
One of the strangest experiences I had was that when I rolled over, there was a preliminary sensation, like a pressure point in the middle of my head, between the time I moved and the time the dizziness set in (a lapse of about 5-10 seconds).
These same symptoms appeared one morning in Spring 2004. After going to the hospital to check out the more dangerous things like a heart attack, the doctor said, "Oh well, it is probably an inner ear infection. It will either get better or it won't." and sent me home. The posture-induced dizziness faded slowly over a couple of months. These same symptoms occured last year, but only lasted two days.
Not surprisingly, I changed my plans of charging up the ICW and stayed put for the day. Park volunteers gave me some Gator Ade in case the dizziness was due to dehydration. By the end of the day, the dizziness was perceptibly less, but still debilitating. On the whole, this was good news, suggesting that the dizziness would only be a few days, not a few months.
I called George and Kerri late that second night to compare notes of where we were. George and Kerri had fixed the problem that had been slowing them down, their RV was running well, and they were in Florida. They were planning on staying with a friend in Sebastian for a day and then head south.
Given that they would be coming by on 22 February and that I was still a sick puppy, we decided that I would sit out one more day at Elliot Key and then rendezvous at the Biscayne National Park Visitor Center, 7.5 miles due west across Biscayne Bay.
The second day at Elliot Key was better. I took motion-sickness medication this morning and have felt a little dizziness, but no more nausea. I ate the last of my oatmeal for breakfast. I found a working electric outlet and have spent the rest of the day writing and playing video games. Sigh, no wifi.
Ate every last scrap of food I had with me. If I hadn't left, I would have had to either go diving for lobsters or fight with the raccoons for scraps of food left by other campers.
That night, I had an unexplained bout of loneliness and depression, with a strong desire to go home for a while, wherever that is. I wonder if it was an aftermath of the nausea an dizziness.
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7.5 miles in 2.5 hours.
The trip across the bay was wonderful. The water was glassy calm, so the whole way across I could see horseshoe crabs, sea grass, small fish, coral, etc. The Mirage drive worked well. After last night, I was in much better spirits.
I landed at the Homestead Bayfront Park and had lunch at the bait store, which consisted of prepackaged sandwiches. I had one, along with an iced tea. The people at the store told me that the national park, only a mile away had a concession stand and interesting exhibits. But mostly, I was hungering for a freshly grilled cheeseburger. So, I walked the mile, went to the concession stand, and found the exact same sandwiches there that were at the Homestead Bayfront Park. They used the same vendor. Sigh. I had another stale sandwich and another iced tea.
After 11 days (since Feb 10th) of trying to hook up, George, Kerri, and I finally rendezvoused at Biscayne National Park at 1600 hours. We loaded That on top of their RV along with their two kayaks, and headed down the keys. On Ismaralda Key, we stopped and had cheeseburgers in paradise.
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We arrived at the Station after hours. I spent the night dreaming about improbability drives (from Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy).
It dawned on me that this will be the last weblog entry about kayaking for a little bit. I was originally planning on stopping at the beginning of March to go visit my daughter on her spring break, to take care of medical stuff (renewals of prescriptions, a chipped tooth, physical), taxes, visiting friends, etc. George and Kerri want to stay in Key West for about a week, after which they will ferry That and I back north to Betty's (my older sister's) home to stash That and pick up my car.
It may be time for me to give my body a rest anyway. Judging from how my clothes are fitting, I have lost at least another 10 pounds. I don't know if the dizziness and nausea was due to an infection or dehydration. Either way, it has taken some of the wind out of my sail. My feet are extremely itchy. At first I wondered whether or not I had acquired an allergy to neoprene since the itchiness was only where my boots touched me. However, George said that it also looked like folliculitis, which he has had in the past, and that can be caused by chronic exposure to salt water. My hands are swollen and my finger tips are numb, possibly from sun poisoning. There are ouchies on my hands and feet that still have not healed after three weeks.
I am not sure how I will resume the kayak trip in April. I may pick up exactly where I left off in Homestead, but I'm not so sure. Another possibility is that I will start on a tributary of the St. John's River near Betty's, reach the ICW at Jacksonville, ahnd head north from there. Another possibility is to think about some interesting places to cruise, such as the Maine Island Trail. Another possibility would be to take the kayak with me to Washington State when I go there in April for the Kenpo2000 Gathering, and cruise the Inner Passage between Vancouver Island and British Columbia. Or, I may get involved in something else and go kayaking later in the year.
Check back periodically, and I'll post what I decide on. For this week, I'm in Key West relaxing, drinking margaritas and seeing the sights with George and Kerri.
To all who have supported and helped me in the past month, thanks.
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| Copyright (c) 2007 by Dick Delanoy
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