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Outdoors

Another try goes on land, under bridges

Six adventurers try again to kayak around Pinellas County, through wind and darkness.

By TERRY TOMALIN, Times Outdoors Editor
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 3, 2003

SAFETY HARBOR -- At midnight, Jon Willis stood on the bridge that spans the Lake Tarpon Canal and raised his hand to gauge the wind.

"It's howling," he thought. "This is not going to be fun."

His first attempt at circumnavigating Pinellas County by kayak had been thwarted by a screaming head wind. So this time, he decided to use the weather to his advantage, start farther north, and let the wind blow him down the coast.

"The flags are standing straight out in St. Pete," Keith Dudley announced as he pulled into the parking lot. "It looks like we are in for another rough one."

George Stovall and I, catching a few hours of restless sleep in the bed of a pickup truck, stumbled from our sleeping bags as Willis offered his prognosis.

"We'll be sheltered from the wind after we make it across the lake," he said. "All we can do is get going and hope for the best."

Six of us had planned to begin paddling at 2 a.m. But rather than chance getting another late start, several of us slept in the parking so we would be ready to go when the time came.

"How did you sleep?" asked my friend, Casey LaLomia.

"Lousy," I replied.

"Me too," he said.

With just 48 hours to paddle 100 miles or so around the Pinellas peninsula, there would be little time to dawdle. We all knew this would be no leisure cruise.

Everybody, that is, except for Steve Isaac.

"What do you have in this thing," I asked as we lowered his 100-pound kayak into the canal.

"Snacks," he said with a laugh. Isaac, a.k.a. "The Chief," had elevated the sport of adventure paddling to a new level as the founder of WaterTribe, an organization that conducts the annual St. Petersburg to Key Largo "Everglades Challenge."

But Isaac was more of a cruiser than a racer, while the rest of our party tended to push way beyond what most people would consider comfortable. We traveled light and seldom stopped. All bodily functions -- eating, drinking, and at times sleeping -- were done while paddling.

Isaac joined our merry band at the last minute, and we all wondered what he would think of our unique brand of "Gonzo" kayaking a day or so into the trip.

We had learned long ago how to disassociate pain from the rest of our bodies, which is helpful when you sit in wet shorts for 20 hours in the cockpit of a cramped kayak.

Isaac paddled for pleasure. We paddle for punishment.

"When you go back to your office Monday morning, you won't have to pinch yourself to know you are alive," Willis had said to the others before we embarked.

What some considered madness, we thought was good, clean fun.

"What could be better than this," I told Isaac as we entered Lake Tarpon and discovered that the wind had died and the water was flat as a pancake.

Spontaneous cries echoed across the lake as we paddled in the darkness, happy to move ahead unhindered. We made it across in record time, then pulled the kayaks out of the water for the long portage up the hill and down the road to Salt Lake.

As we carried the heavy boats down the road in the darkness, cars whizzed by and flashed their lights.

"People must think we are crazy," I told LaLomia. "Who else would be out at 4 a.m."

"Drunks," he said, and we moved a little further off the road. It took us close to an hour to move all the boats the half mile or so to Salt Lake, then after a 15-minute paddle, we carried them again over an old railroad grade and into the Anclote River.

"That makes you really appreciate having water under your hull," I told my friends. "These boats are meant to paddle, not carry."

Willis, our navigator, promised that would be the last portage.

"From here on out it is clear sailing ... er, paddling," he said.

As we moved down the river in the darkness, it became apparent my friend had spoken too soon.

"I'm hitting bottom," I yelled to my friends. "Any water over there?"

In the daylight, navigating this lazy river would be no problem, but at night, it was impossible to see the sand bars. And our Global Positioning System was useless because of the many twists and turns.

"Hold up, everybody," Willis yelled. "We've got to turn around."

Backtracking is always demoralizing, especially against the current. But we eventually found our way and got back in the groove, passing beneath the bridge at U.S. 19 just as dawn appeared on the eastern horizon.

We were making good time, almost 5 knots, as the tide and current worked in our favor. Sunrise found us at the mouth of the Intracoastal Waterway. We had been paddling (and walking) since 2 a.m. and Isaac wondered when we would eat breakfast.

"We'll stop at that spoil island down there," I said, pointing to a spot that I could not see but knew existed on a map.

The night is always hard, but that first hour of daylight is even harder. Your body knows you have conquered the darkness and that it is time for a rest, but your mind says keep going.

So we pressed on, past Fred Howard Park, past the spoil island and past a half-dozen more just like it. Then, two hours later, we pulled up on a sandbar and ate a handful of nuts and dried fruit.

"Geez ... I thought you guys were never going to stop," Isaac said.

"We wanted to cover some distance before the wind kicked up," Willis replied.

We relaxed for five minutes, then climbed back in the boats and set our sights on the bridge that connects Honeymoon Island to the mainland. Landmarks such as this are good targets and all you can do is pick them off, one by one.

"Let's have a pool," I yelled as we passed beneath the main span. "how many bridges will we pass under before we finish?"

"Fourteen," somebody yelled.

"Fifteen," hollered another.

Once we were beneath the bridge, we caught the full brunt of the wind howling in from Hurricane Pass.

"Please God, don't make it just one bridge," I whispered to myself and said a little prayer.

But wind, when blowing from the right direction, can help as much as it hurts. The waves, two to three feet, were perfect for surfing. And each ride moved us closer to our destination.

Isaac broke out a small sail and quickly disappeared from view. By lunchtime, we had made it to the Belleair Causeway and several of the gang took advantage of a nearby bait shop to buy cookies and sodas.

"The shuttle blew up," Willis announced upon his return.

For a brief moment I forget about our mission and instead thought about the Columbia astronauts and their families.

"Come, we have to get going," Stovall said. "We still have along way to go if we want to camp on Shell Key by dark."

We passed under bridge after bridge until at dusk, we faced with a decision. Should we paddle out (to) the pass at Pass-A-Grille and battle the wind and waves in the dark, or try to slip around the back?

"We've got no business out there at night," I said, pointing to the whitecaps. Everybody agreed, but crossing the channel proved difficult. It took 20 minutes of hard paddling to cross a few hundred yards. We had lost the light and it would be difficult to find the unmarked channel.

"I say go this way," Isaac said.

"I think we should go this way," Stovall countered.

We had paddled for 18 hours straight and we were all showing signs of hypothermia, exhaustion and sleep deprivation. We had traveled 55 miles as the crow flies, but now everything seemed to be falling apart.

Then I remembered Tampa BayWatch's new headquarters on the Causeway that leads to Fort De Soto.

"We'll stop there," I told the crew.

A half hour later we pulled up on the beach and I broke out my cell phone to call Peter Clark, the environmental group's director.

"Peter ... sorry to bother you at home so late," I said. "But this is an emergency ... "

Up next for Tuesday: Tides.

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