Heading up the driveway to the home of Dianna Gill and Carrie Reneau, I felt like Pocahontas.
Happens all the time.
Except this time I was actually in a canoe.
It takes a canoe to visit Gill, 34, and Reneau (who doesn't reveal her age to strangers) at their home south of Dade City.
It didn't used to, but this has been a weird summer for a lot of people.
When the winter dry season faded and springtime brought rain, the two started watching the water fill the fields around their farmhouse. A spring on their property came to life. Water seemed to flow from everywhere. It swallowed the horse pasture, covered the fence posts and finally oozed across the driveway in early July, surrounding them with a moat a hundred yards wide.
And then, the water blocking the lone access to their home was too deep to drive across, too wide to wade across.
At the far end, the house stands on a small rise, Gill and Reneau's remaining patch of dry land. They share the refuge with the animals that used to roam the 9-acre spread: four horses, seven dogs, seven cats, four miniature donkeys and a potbellied pig.
"A turtle laid eggs in the back yard," Gill added.
It's sort of Gilligan's Island meets George Orwell's Animal Farm, but without the politics and the talking animals or a millionaire and his wife.
The animals found haven on the farm. Most were strays or victims of neglect and abuse.
Topaz, a 10-year-old Arabian stallion, greets guests in the front yard, and despite the broken jaw he suffered at the hands of a previous owner, he's intensely friendly. He needs to greet you.
Living on an island with a potbellied pig has driven him over the edge. The pig is talking crazy, and Topaz doesn't fit in the canoe.
Fish swim across the driveway and frolic alongside stalls where the horses used to stay. Somewhere under the shimmering water in the front yard is the barbecue grill.
"It was out there on July 8, the day we got a ton of rain," Reneau said. "It's still out there."
Any journey to or from the house starts and ends in a boat. The roommates park at the end of their driveway, don knee-high rubber boots and slog into the water where they keep the canoe tied.
"I can be in an evening dress on the way to the symphony, but it starts with black, rubber boots," Gill said, pulling on her black rubber boots.
I didn't have black rubber boots. I let the ladies pull the canoe up on the shore so I could step out without getting wet. It was nice. Kind of like being an Indian princess. But there I go again.
Sigh.
There's a foam "dry box" in the canoe where purses or wallets can be stashed during the trip, just in case.
(Important safety tips: Never stand in a canoe. And never let Dianna Gill steer your canoe. She isn't good at it, and she admits it. We hit a fence on the return trip. Fortunately, I wasn't standing.)
Oh, and don't try to navigate the driveway alone at night: gators.
Reneau, a certified nurse midwife, is frequently summoned to deliver babies in the middle of the night. Gill won't let her cross the wild waters, crawling with frogs and gators, alone.
So when the call comes in the night, "We pull on the boots and speed-paddle," Gill said.
Gator eyes reflect in the beam of the flashlight as they cross, she said.
Reneau always takes the helm and guides the ship.
When Reneau isn't working, and Gill isn't studying computer science at Saint Leo University, the two have learned to live with the moat, trekking lumber, groceries and hundreds of pounds of horse, dog, cat, and donkey food from their utility trailer on the mainland to their island home.
On the return trip, the garbage rides back to a trash bin by the road.
And when it seemed things couldn't get worse, the two made an emergency late-night trip across the water last week to find Reneau's van had been broken into. The windows were smashed, the radio gone.
But they remain resigned to living the island life. The water keeps coming. The driveway is a memory, and they're too determined to give in.
Someday, Reneau said, they'll have a road again. Someday, she dreams, they'll line it with palm trees.
Until then, they paddle.
"What can you do?" Gill asked. "This can't go on forever."
A day later, Tropical Depression 12 formed in the gulf. It grew into Tropical Storm Henri.
