2-3 and 2-4 Everglades

We left Marco Island headed out to sea and traveled on a very calm Gulf of Mexico.  We anchored at Russell Pass which is in the waterway into Everglade City. We elected not to go up into Everglade city due to fuel use and we heard it was really noisy with all the air boats. It was 4 o’clock when arrived which didn’t leave a lot of exploring time, but that didn’t stop us.  We dropped the dinghy and off we went.  There were mangroves everywhere you looked.

We went up a passage and payed very close attention to where we were going. On the way back, we realized how easy one could get lost in the everglades.  Everything looked the same. We didn’t have much time to explore, so we didn’t bring the I-Pad to show us the way.  We were very conservative on where we went. No Gators..Darn.  We thought there would be tons of birds, but there wasn’t.  The maze of growth was very interesting.  There were arches of roots everywhere. We questioned how much land there actually was compared to the Mangroves. Scott wanted to walk on the arches of the roots and see where it went.  He wouldn’t have but he just dreamed.

The next day we got an earlier start to have more exploring time.   We anchored in Little Shark River. There were quite a few fishing boats, but for the life of us we couldn’t figure out where they were coming from.  There is nothing around. They didn’t look like “the Swamp People” We left in the dinghy about 2pm.  The Mangroves were more like trees than bushes here.

We saw quite a few dolphins and several Manatees in the river, but still no gators. We forgot to fill up with gas but had over a half of a tank. We had the I-Pad leaving a trail so we wouldn’t get lost.   As we got up river, we decided we really wanted to explore deeper and had plenty of time to back to the boat and fuel up.  The everglades are not a place to run out of fuel! When we got back to the boat there were 2 new Looper sailboats anchored by us.  We filled up the gas and took the rest in the can with us.  On our way out, we stopped to say hi to our new neighbors.  Tom on Misjudged was in the water.  We thought he was cleaning his hull.  As we approached, so did James from Living Life.  Tom looked distressed. We asked our usual , “how are you” and James said he was great but Tom had trouble. They picked up their dinghy line in their prop and it was all tangled under his boat.  Scott asked if he wanted help and he immediately said yes.  Back to the boat for tools and a swimsuite.  In fairly short order Scott unwound and cut the rope free.  Tom and Nancy were so thankful and relieved.  They didn’t know what the next step was going to be because we are in the middle of the Everglades with no phone signal and we doubted if the radio would reach sea tow.  Instead of exploring we had docktails on our boat with both of the other boats.  Tom and Nancy started the loop in a trailerable 26 foot sailboat.  They upgraded to a bigger boat in Dunedin. Living Life is a 27 foot sailboat with a family aboard. James and Nancy with their two sons Lucas and Marco. They are from Canada and took a year  off life to do the Loop.  Nancy is an educator so she is home schooling the boys on board. In Canada,  the teachers can work 4 years but take their pay spread over 5 years and be able to take a year off.  How cool is that. James is a blacksmith, but not a farrier. He does more artistic work.  We had the whole family on board with Tom and Nancy.  They were all delightful.  We love the people we meet and the stories of their lives and their journey on the loop.

Thanks for reading.

Karen and Scott

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