The trip consisted of four of us driving an hour to Everglades City where we rented additional equipment and one canoe. We then rowed 8 miles westward through a complicated trail of channels to a small isolated beach campsite called tiger key. (Part of the Everglades National Park) There we spent 2 nights and three days.
I was hopping for the type of camping trip where you pack light and count on catching your food or you eat very little. A couple of canned foods and a gallon of watter per day was the most food I was going to take. Unfortunately some in our party thought we were going on a tail gate party instead. They were hopping for a breakfast lunch and dinner buffet with an open bar. So after some compromises we didn't take the breakfast buffet but we did take the open bar. We took my two kayaks and rented a 17' canoe which we loaded with a cooler filled with 48 beers, tons of sodas, two bottles of whiskey and a good amount of food. There was another group leaving at the same time going up river who joked about changing their plans and following us around so they could drink our beers.
We Left the ranger station at about 11am which is late considering the tide was changing against our favor. We rowed for about an hour, then stopped on a small sandy opening in the trail when we found that when rowing our hardest, the best we could do is stand still against the current. We fished and waited there for the tide to change. We mostly just caught catfish, and considering we were arriving late at the campsite it didn't make sense to keep them. Jamey caught a baby grooper which he released after posing for a picture.
Two hours later when the tide finally changed we headed back out. Man, what a difference it is when you're rowing with the current. It didn't take us long to get to Tiger Key after that. Although about a mile away from Tiger Key my brother Fulbio Saul switched with Chris into the canoe. He said his kayak was too heavy since we put most of the drinking water in it.
The last stretch before reaching our camp site consisted of the beach front of Picnic Key. I don't have any pictures to proof it, but on that stretch of beach I got bites from about 8 small trouts, of which I could only bring into the boat 2, of which I didn't keep any. We didn't feel like cleaning fish on the same night we were setting up camp. It's the first time I see so much trout activity. I don't have a lot of experience catching trout, but I found it very annoying that they would manage to get off the hook at the last minute before I could catch them with the net. I was using an artificial white jig I borrowed from Jamey. Which by the way, he was very upset that me and Chris were taking so long to traverse that last stretch of beach before reaching our camp site. I think he was just jealous we were catching all the fish...
As for the camp site... It didn't take nearly as long as I thought to setup. Before we knew it we had the 4 people tent setup, enough wood for the night collected, burgers on the grill, and we were chilling. The first night we all slept outside the tent in the sand. Half way through the night, when the fire started dying down, I woke up shivering in the cold. It most have been around 40 F. My brother had gone into the tent and Jamey and Chris were doing their best to keep the fire going. We had brought four thick starter logs that are suppose to last three hours and I three 2 of them into the fire that night. It was cold!!!
On Saturday we had an early start. Chris was up early and had breakfast going. It was nice to bring a chef with us to cook all our meals. We had scrambled eggs with bacon. And they would have been perfect had it not been for the sand I accidentally kicked into the eggs. By the time we were done with the trip we were so used to eating sand with every meal that we were missing it when we got back to civilization.
We loaded up the canoe and kayaks with everything we didn't want the raccoons to steel and left everything else behind. We went exploring around the near by islands. We didn't catch a lot of fish but I was able to bring in one trout and a shark for dinner. We had brought so much food that we hardly touched the shark. It was sad to see so much meet go to waste. Which by the way, it was surprisingly good. It tasted nothing like fish. It was more of a pork taste. The best part was bringing that shark in. The funnest catch I've ever had was that shark. Even after it finally got tired and we were able to bring it in close to the shore, it was still a challenge to lure it into the net. It looked like he suddenly didn't feel tired any more and wanted to take a bite out of my foot instead of letting me scoop him into the net.
That night we were so tired we passed out early. although not before collecting 6 times more wood than then night before. We had wood like the great wall of china stacked up right behind our camp. It looked like we had built a fort and declared war on the raccoons. We made sure that fire was going all night.
The next day we had breakfast and started packing up. We needed to make sure we planed our getaway right with the tides so we were rushed to get going by 11am to ride the tide in. Unfortunately since it was a rising tide we were trying to catch, when we left the tide was as low as it gets. We had to drag all our equipment and canoes a good 100 yards to the water's edge. It's incredible how much of the flats was exposed with the low tide.
We also ran into UF students that had lost a paddle and asked if they could borrow one of ours. Luckily we were prepared and had a few extra paddles or they would have had a really hard time getting back in.
We stopped for lunch half way back and still made the trip back in under 2 hours. So far, this is the best trip I've ever taken.
