Outdoors

Up around the Bend

The first leg of a kayak trip through pristine territory reminds four companions of how cold Florida can get in December.

By TERRY TOMALIN
Published December 23, 2004

	[Times photos: Terry Tomalin]
	Darry Jackson, left, and George Stovall paddle down the Aucilla River at the start of the 105-mile Big Bend Saltwater Paddling Trail. The group left just before sunset.
	In the darkness, George Stovall, left, and Darry Jackson study a chart en route to the Rock Island campsite, which they reached around 8 p.m. after about a four-hour, 15-mile paddle.
	[Photo by George Stovall]
	Terry Tomalin slices up a piece of pepperoni at the Rock Island campsite, a five-star restaurant-worthy treat on the cold, grueling trail.

AUCILLA RIVER - The folks who planned the 105-mile Big Bend Saltwater Paddling Trail hoped kayakers would take their time exploring this stretch of pristine Florida wilderness.

"There are not a lot of places like this in the United States," said Jerrie Lindsey, director of recreation services for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "This is a coastal area where you can literally travel for days and not see another person."

Big Bend, so named because it is here that the Florida Panhandle takes a hard right and heads south, has always been a wild and lawless place.

In the early 19th century, Seminole Indians and renegade slaves sought refuge along the Aucilla and Econfina rivers. During Prohibition, rum runners brought their wares up the Steinhatchee, located a few miles south. In the 1970s, smugglers hauling bales of marijuana, a.k.a. "square grouper," also found this desolate stretch of coastline useful.

There are few roads and even fewer towns. The shoreline is exposed to the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the shallow, sometimes placid waters can easily churn themselves into a viscous, deadly chop without much notice.

Nonetheless, state officials thought Big Bend would be a great place to establish Florida's first saltwater paddling trail.

"The beauty here is not in the destination, but in the journey," said Liz Sparks, a state recreation planner who helped design the trail. "There are so many great side trips. We encourage people to do the whole thing in eight or nine days ... really take their time and see what the area has to offer."

So it is only natural that my recent request to paddle the trail was greeted with skepticism by state officials.

"I only have three days and two nights to do the whole thing," I explained. "Is that feasible?"

Studying charts of the region, the plan seemed possible. But as my friend Darry Jackson was quick to point out, distances always seem shorter when you are looking at a map.

"Maybe we should leave a little earlier," he said. "Just in case we run into some bad weather."

December is notorious for its cold fronts. Some of the lowest temperatures of the year often occur right before Christmas. And based upon personal experience, I knew that if I were planning a trip, chances are things would get ugly.

With that in mind, I packed some extra-long underwear and a secret stash of Snickers bars just in case I got stuck in my tent for an extended period.

Then, on a cool December afternoon one hour before sunset, we left the safety of the Aucilla River boat ramp, 30 miles southwest of Perry, and headed toward the open ocean.

My companions - Jackson, whose family owns a Pinellas Park outdoors store; George Stovall, a St. Petersburg chiropractor; and Casey LaLomia, a former roommate and Eagle Scout - were looking forward to a three-day respite from the pressures of work and family.

As we paddled down the tea-colored river, it didn't take long before our senses became reacquainted to the wild world around us.

"Hold up ... there is something big and black moving through the grass," Stovall yelled as we paddled through the salt marsh.

We suspected that the animal, too small for a cow yet too large for a pig, could be a bear.

Exploring the shoreline, I found a place where the cordgrass had been pushed down in a circular pattern.

"Looks like a crop circle," I told my friends. "Maybe a tiny UFO landed here."

"An unidentified furry object?" Jackson added.

"Precisely," I said.

But the animal, be it bear or bigfoot, was long gone. So we continued on to the river's mouth, and as the sun sank low on the horizon, we switched on our navigational lights and headed south.

Then, as the day surrendered to night, the first clouds appeared on the horizon. The wind blew softly at first, but the darker it got, the harder the wind howled.

By 7 p.m., I began to wonder about the wisdom of our chosen time of departure.

"Where we are?" I asked Jackson.

"Somewhere near Rock Island," he replied.

"Where is it?" I said.

"Out there," Stovall said, pointing into the darkness.

Paddling at night can be unnerving, especially when the wind is blowing. With each stroke, you pray a wave doesn't catch you leaning the wrong way and roll you into the cold water.

"Do you hear that?" Jackson asked after two hours of tense paddling. "Sounds like waves breaking on the shoreline."

We had navigated 12 miles in the pitch black, and now just minutes from our destination, we still couldn't see land. Then, my headlamp, which was getting weaker by the minute, reflected off the campsite sign.

We had been on the water just four hours, but I felt as if I had spent a week at sea. We wasted no time and changed into dry clothes, then quickly built a fire to take the chill off our bones.

The freeze-dried food we had brought tasted like it came from a five-star restaurant. In this weather, my tiny, one-man tent would seem like the Ritz-Carlton, I thought to myself. But in my haste to set it up, I snapped one of the brittle-metal poles, which left the tent limp and shaking in the wind.

Later, nestled in my sleeping bag, I listened to the wind scream across the water.

As the hours passed and temperature dropped into the 30s, I lay there shivering and prayed for morning to come.

[Last modified December 23, 2004, 00:31:19]