As the adventure begins, creatures great and small lurk to haunt and annoy on the Night of the Gator (The first of three parts)
By TERRY TOMALIN
Published December 24, 2003
[Times photo: Terry Tomalin]
Two sea kayakers glide along a sheltered stretch of the St. Johns River, keeping an eye open for alligators. In the upper reaches of the river, which starts in Central Florida and flows north to the Atlantic Ocean near Jacksonville, the reptiles grow fat.
Jon Willis (facing straight) takes a well-deserved break after navigating three hours in the dark as Darry Jackson (left) and George Stovall talk about their next move. The kayakers started at 6:30 p.m. the night before and paddled past midnight. They "bivouaced" for a few hours in some marsh grass then resumed paddling, stopping briefly for breakfast at a floating dock.
Twenty four hours into their 120-mile trip, the kayakers stopped on an island in the river and set up a proper camp. They covered 62 miles in 24 hours.
1. Put in at 6:30 on Dec. 3 at Holly's Air Boat Rides/Bars& Grill, south of Lake Washington on road US192/SR 500, due west of June Park, near Melbourne. 2. Bivouaced 6.5 hours later, north of Lake Winder, on the river. Stopped at 12:30 p.m., Dec. 4. Total distance covered: 21 miles. 3. Started paddling again at 4:30 a.m., crossed Lake Poinsett and stopped for breakfast at the Lone Cabbage Fish Camp on SR 520 at 6:45 a.m. on Dec. 4: 28 miles. 4. Left at 8 a.m. and paddled to SR 528 and stopped for lunch around noon: 47 miles. 5. Stopped and camped about 4 p.m. about a mile south of Puzzle Lake: total 62 miles.
MELBOURNE - The sign on the bar door at Camp Holly Fish Camp reads "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem."
Here at the headwaters of the St. Johns River the preferred mode of transportation is airboat.
That's why the five sea kayaks lined up at the boat ramp drew puzzled looks from a couple of old-timers standing on the dock.
"Y'all paddlin' those?" one of them asked. "There are gators out there bigger than that."
The St. Johns, one of a few rivers in the United States that flows north, starts in a marsh about 10 miles south of U.S. 192 and flows 300 miles through a series of lakes into the Atlantic Ocean.
My comrades and I intended to paddle the lower half of the river (the top half if you're looking at a map) but an impending cold front forced us to change plans at the last minute.
"We don't want to be caught out in the middle of those big lakes if the wind starts blowing out of the north," said Dr. George Stovall, 60, the most experienced member of our party. "It could get ugly."
In its upper reaches, the St. Johns snakes through a low marshland where alligators and mosquitoes rule.
Standing at the water's edge, making preparations for what could be a long night's paddle, we quickly discovered that the blood-sucking parasites hadn't been fed in some time.
"Let's get out of here before we get eaten alive," my friend, John Willis, 44, said. "We could cover 20 miles before midnight and find a place to camp somewhere along the shore of Lake Winder."
We hoped to cover 120 miles or so to Blue Springs State Park in four days. We allotted ourselves extra time because this section of the river is notoriously confusing - even in daylight - and my friends and I were prone to paddling at night.
"I get bored sitting in a tent," Stovall once said. "Why not just get up and paddle?"
But traveling at night can be problematic. It's easy to get lost, and even easier to get separated from your companions.
Then there are the gators.
"What was that?" I said after something very large splashed in the water ahead of us.
"Probably a gator," Stovall said. "This river has a lot of them."
Naturalist William Bartram, who explored this region in the late 1700s and chronicled his exploits in Travels, wrote about fearing for his safety after being surrounded by the reptiles in his small wooden boat.
Old Billy was prone to exaggeration, but the St. Johns has its share of big gators which could easily bite off a limb if so inclined.
That's why in gator county I always carry my Ka-Bar, the foot-long combat knife favored by Marines in the Pacific during World War II. I know it probably wouldn't do much good against a 700-pound alligator, but at least I would go down fighting.
But in the darkness of Lake Washington, it appeared gators would be the least of our worries on this cool December evening. A squall line, rolling in from the Atlantic 10 miles to the east, appeared out of nowhere and churned the shallow lake into a frothy frenzy.
The small, breaking waves, hitting the kayaks from the side, make the narrow crafts inherently unstable. We had no real fear of flipping, but occasional bucket of cold water in the lap makes paddling uncomfortable.
With Lake Washington behind us, we pressed on 10 more miles through the darkness to Lake Winder, where our map showed good places to camp. At 11 p.m. our swift-moving fiberglass boats entered the shallow lake and headed for its western shore.
With the storm subsided and the end in sight, we were all relaxed and ready to stop. Then I felt a slight bump and turned just in time for my headlight to illuminate the pale, open mouth of a 6-foot gator as it snapped at my kayak.
"Did you see that?" I yelled, my heart pounding in my chest.
"I saw it," Stovall said. "You probably ran it over."
"What was it?" Willis yelled.
"An 8-foot gator tried to eat my boat," I answered.
"A gator?" asked Darry Jackson, who was bringing up the rear. "How big?"
"It had to have been at least be 10 feet feet long," I answered.
With the gator "attack" behind us, we scoured the shoreline for high ground for our tents. But in the darkness, it was no use. So we paddled back across the lake and re-enter the river, hoping to find a bridge or bat ramp where we could pull over and get a few hours rest.
But at 12:30 a.m., six hours after we started, we decided we could go no further. So we hauled the kayaks into the reeds where the gators lie and set up an emergency "bivouac" on soft, wet ground.
We flattened the broomstick-sized reeds with our kayaks, then positioned the boats like covered wagons in a train to guard against gator attacks. There wasn't enough room to pitch our tents, so we rolled up in our rain sheets and stared at the sky.
"Shooting star," somebody said.
"There goes another one," somebody else added.
Starting to doze off, I realized I was closest to the water. It would be easy enough for a gator to grab hold and drag me off. So I reached for my trusty Ka-Bar.
"Don't try to kill a gator with that," Stovall warned. "The best you can do is stab the ground, hold on and start screaming. Then maybe you won't get dragged away."
But, once again, the smallest of nature's creatures would be our biggest problem.
The first buzz from a solitary mosquito signalled we would be in for a long night. Within five minutes we were swarmed, but everybody was too tired to do much more than lay there and moan.
Then it started to rain.
After about two hours of miserable semi-consciousness, we decided to get up and start paddling again. By sunrise, we made the Lone Cabbage Palm Fish Camp at State Road 520, due west of Cocoa Beach.
We pulled our kayaks up on the floating dock and broke out the camp stove to heat some water for coffee and oatmeal. With hot food in our bellies and warm sun at our backs, the day looked like it would be good.
It would be nothing but narrow, twisting river for the next 30 miles. By mid afternoon we found ourselves deep into marsh lands, where it seemed a big gator was waiting around every bend.
We soon started taking turns riding "point," because the lead kayak is always the one that spooks the gator. After a while, it gets a little unnerving.
By late afternoon, we found a sandy spot on an island in the middle of an oxbow where the cattle obviously roamed. We decided to stop, make a proper camp and catch up on some sleep.
After a hot meal, I kicked back in my camp chair, lit a cigar and watched the sunset. In less than 24 hours, we had covered 61 miles. We were halfway home.
Each of my friends had already crawled inside their tents, but still, I had to ask: "Are we having fun yet?"
