Wednesday, November 5 to Thursday, November 13

I might be jumping the gun with this title, but Florida has revealed itself to me in a place I never expected.  Perhaps I’m revealing some deeply held secret about Florida here, but most people probably wouldn’t believe me anyways, and the few willing to explore such a remote, foreboding area will find their own treasure.

Pristine, shell lined beaches with swaying palm trees.  Nine and a half miles of uninterrupted white sand coast line, lacking even in foot prints.  Silence.  Solitude.  Big deer roaming the shore in the early dawn hours.  Crocodiles patrolling the shallows in the sunset hours.  Big, fat eastern diamondbacks residing in the shady hardwood hammocks of their kingly domain.  Sharks drifting in and out with the waves as they search for their nightly meals.  Dolphins slapping the surface of the water and leaping into the air as they play like adolescents with their prey.

We still have a lot of Florida to discover and explore.  Every week brings a new change and special treasures.  There may be new places that challenge for the title, but if the Everglades isn’t the beating heart of the state, pumping with history and vitality, lightly touched by man, than it has certainly captured mine.

I wish I could tell you the events that took place in this marvelous place, the things we saw, but here is a glimpse.  If I continued writing about this week of paddling, then I might never finish.  Just imagine a place in your mind where you find silence.  A place where the world around you grows and grows.  Where everything seems larger than life, and wild.  A place where the wild Florida you imagine, actually lives and breathes. 

“He who needs nothing has everything.” — Ron King