Satellite view of the heavenly paddling and hellish late summer camping route through the Ten Thousand Islands!
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Heaven and Hell? Heaven or Hell?
Somewhere between heaven and hell
lies real paddling freedom!
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One of the advantages of “off-season” camping in the 10000 islands is that you get the Everglades City parking lot all to yourself!
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Summer paddling and camping in the Ten Thousand Islands of the Everglades!
Off-season, aka summer camping in the Everglades is notorious for hellish hot nights filled with bugs and drenched by sweat. Most people do not camp much in the hot and humid two thirds of the year in South Florida. Yet there is a beautiful, maybe even heavenly side that awaits paddlers willing to explore the coastal Everglades during the seemingly endless and wet summer months.
I call these hot months the 90-90-90 – meaning it’s over 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, over 90 percent humidity and the water is also about 90 !
During this time the forecast calls for a “steambath” every day!
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Birds-eye view of the kayak launch at Everglades City. Spot the plane, the plane!
CLICK for interactive spin-around 360 aerial panoramic!
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This trip in the Ten Thousand Islands occurred in September, still in the summer weather pattern and just before the first cold fronts starts rolling in from the northeast. It was planned as a sort of continuation of Camping Hell in the Ten Thousand Islands with local adventure racer and paddler Ted Perron (Spiritwalker). Also joining us was kayaker Lisa D. who has spent time training and paddling in exotic locations such as Greenland.
The trip would take us through the coastal mangroves to camp on a chickee platform, then past a hidden liquor still. Further on, we’d paddle inland closer to freshwater and camp on another chickee. We would also get to visit the Watson Place and ride out the tide into the Gulf of Mexico to spend the final night island camping on Pavilion Key in the Ten Thousand Islands!
One of the benefits of camping in the hot summer months is that there is almost nobody else out there either boating or camping. Also, the Park doesn’t charge for the privilege of camping in the heat with the bugs, but filing a permit is still necessary. We’d have the whole Park pretty much to ourselves!
I’m posting this now at the beginning of the summer so ya’ll can have something to look forward to! Also, I’m gonna let the photographs and captions do most of the talking in this story.
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Ted suited up for minimal exposure but with maximum impact! 😉
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The secret to personal well being and effective functioning in the 90-90-90 is three fold.
First, it’s important to stop fighting the heat and humidity. Breath it in, hold it in your lungs and exhale slowly. Allow the hot and moist air to seep into every pore of your being. Allow yourself to sweat profusely and get over it! It’s a little bit like a yoga breathing exercise. In a few minutes you will be more in tune with your surroundings.
Second, it’s key to provide shade for yourself by wearing a wide-brimmed hat or even a giant Sombrero! Wear light color loose fitting clothing that covers your whole upper body. Consider wearing a face shield sun protector. There are a few different brands, some breathe easier than others. Unlike up north or in cooler more temperate climates, cotton is actually great in the tropical heat. As it slowly dries and evaporates it really helps to cool you down! (It is for this same reason that cotton is really frowned upon in cooler climes as this can easily lead to hypothermia.)
Finally, probably the most important thing is to have about twice the amount of drinking water that you think you need! Most of us living in South Florida are habituated to the comfort of air conditioning. It’s very easy to underestimate how much water you can sweat out, especially during the first day as your body acclimates to this new found ambiance!
It may also help to evoke ice-cold thoughts of Greenland! 😉
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Aerial bird’s-eye view of the Crooked Creek camping chickee.
CLICK for story!
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The Crooked Creek chickee was chosen for the first night because it’s a relatively short paddle from Everglades City, yet far enough away that it makes a great staging point for the rest of the trip!
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Camping on the Crooked Creek chickee in the Ten Thousand Islands of the Everglades!
CLICK for story!
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Gone up Crooked Creek to have a little chickee camping fun!
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Paddler Lisa D. and Ted modeling some of the many fun face shields in his collection.
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The Crooked Creek chickee sits close to the mangroves, and we experienced quite a few no-see-ums (sand flies) at dusk.
Mosquitoes were not a problem here on this trip.
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After dark on the Crooked Creek chickee with a psychedelic-lite twist.
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ART of Darkness – Kayaking the final frontier of imaging and photography!
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“The closer you get to the meaning, the sooner you’ll know that you’re dreaming. It’s Heaven and Hell!”
CLICK for story!
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The hellish part here is that you won’t get reliable mobile service so don’t count on calling anybody!
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Camping Hell in the Ten Thousand Islands!
Kayaker Lisa D surprises a manatee in the Ten Thousand Islands.
CLICK for fun animated version!
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Moving on from the chickee, we wanted to revisit a hidden liquor still deep in the Ten Thousand Islands mangrove coast. These are the ruins of an authentic Prohibition era liquor still circa early 1930’s. It was built and operated by John Brown, the father of famed lifelong Glades resident Loren ‘Totch’ Brown.
We first visited this site in 2011 as part of the Moonshine in the 10 000 Islands trip and again in 2013 during the Camping Hell in the Ten Thousand Islands adventure. This time I was able to bring out an even better photo kit and you should check out the excellent results in ART at Liquor Still Bay – hidden history in the Everglades!
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Arrival at the Liquor Still Bay site hidden deep in the 10k.
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Moonshine in the 10 000 Islands!
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These old boards are the only giveaway to the site!
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“Outlaw Time Portal” into the Prohibition era liquor still.
CLICK for story!
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ART at Liquor Still Bay – hidden history in the Everglades!
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“Shine on you crazy Outlaws!”
Totch’s liquor still in the Ten Thousand Islands.
CLICK for story: ART at Liquor Still Bay – hidden history in the Everglades!
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Totch Brown’s Liquor Still deep in the Ten Thousand Islands of the Everglades.
CLICK for superwide VR panorama!
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Circa 1930 concrete pen split open by a tree over the decades in this double-fisheye view!
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Paddler Lisa D at the Liquor Still Bay site in the Everglades.
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To help preserve the integrity of this unique site, I am purposely vague with our route and omitting any directions – sorry!
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Attempting to “cool off” just before departure from Liquor Still Bay. This only slightly helped as the water temperature was over 90, but I’m still smiling!
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Camping Hell in the Ten Thousand Islands!
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Lisa D also managed to pull off a nice smile in the heat!
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Paddling in the summer heat really feels like being in a steam bath. I tried dunking myself in the water to cool off, but it was not very effective since the water felt like a hot tub. Still, the evaporation of the water did help a tiny bit. I was glad that I used an old somewhat leaky nylon spray skirt rather than my neoprene nice fitting one. The porousness did keep me cooler!
Some people bring sports drinks for hydration. I rely mostly on plain water supplemented with rations of young cocoanut water to replenish the sweated out salts. If you go paddling in the summer, it bears repeating:
Bring twice the amount of drinking water you think you’ll need!
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Aerial 360 view of the Sweetwater chickee nearer the Everglades interior.
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The Sweetwater chickee camping platform was next on our list. It lies tucked away inside a little ‘finger cove’ of Sweetwater Bay. It is also pretty close to the Everglades interior (i.e. the slough) so the tidal influence was minimal here. I tasted the water and it was pretty sweet, probably good enough to filter. However this may not always be the case at other times of the year!
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The Sweetwater chickee from the seat of the kayak.
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The view from underneath the Sweetwater chickee. The tidal influence is minimal here!
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After setting up camp, Ted relaxes in his “manta” style hammock.
The Sweetwater chickee is aptly named and the water was indeed sweet!
CLICK for fun animated version!
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This chickee was recently ‘renovated’ and now sports a very convenient shelf or fish cleaning station on each side. Ted used this to good effect and set up his outback oven. He treated us to a fresh baked pizza right on the chickee. This was a first for me, as I’ve never had pizza in the outback Glades!
Coupled with a real cold beer, again courtesy of Ted, this was a filling and satisfying meal.
Thanks Ted! 🙂
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Oh what toppings? Ted is a great guy to camp with!
Here he’s preparing an outback pizza that he baked in his folding oven!
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Fresh baked pizza on the Sweetwater chickee – doesn’t get any better than this! 🙂
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Chillaxing in my hammock after that late lunch/early dinner pizza party on the Sweetwater chickee!
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“Howdy chickee neighbor!”
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Ted happily digesting in his rockin’ hammock.
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The late lunch or early dinner as it were was so filling that a siesta was in order!
Soon however, the afternoon weather rolled in and it was quite the sight watching the storms building up to the north. It was time to put up the rainfly on my tent!
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Late afternoon storms building up over the Everglades!
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Ted rockin’ it out in with the fly up in his manta style hammock!
CLICK for more fun animated GIFs!
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Yup, the squall came through, luckily there was no lightning!
Note that the chickee roof didn’t help much with the wind-driven rain!
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The RAIN! Was actually very refreshing as the temps easily dropped 20 degrees from 95 to about 75 Fahrenheit! 🙂
CLICK for more fun animated GIFs!
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Fortunately for us, the worst of the storm and lightning was miles away to the north. We did get drenched by a strong squall and this brought an immediate relief from the heat as the temps dropped to the mid-70s! In retrospect, this was one of the highlights of the trip!
Feeling the cool wetness of the afternoon shower was a actually a beautiful and relaxing experience! 🙂
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The Banana Boat in the rain on the Sweetwater chickee.
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The rains passed through quickly, but the clouds lingered on.
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As the clouds cleared, I noticed this Dragonfly trapped in a spider’s net on the chickee.
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The doors to heaven and hell are adjacent and unmarked!
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Every living thing has to eat in the Everglades!
CLICK for fun animated version – the Circle of Life!
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This chickee is situated far enough from the mangroves in a small body of open water. It was very quiet and dark out here. This time however there were almost no no-see-ums, but instead there was lots of skeeters. The mosquitoes remained active throughout the night!
Sometimes you pay in blood!
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There will be bugs and hell to pay in the Everglades!
CLICK for more fun animated GIFs!
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ART of Darkness – Camping with the Stars! Part II
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Bugs, you want to know about the bugs? A ha ha ha ha .. ha!
CLICK for more fun animated GIFs!
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Speaking of alligators, we saw several smaller ones in Sweetwater Bay. The chickee is low enough that it’s tempting to just lean over the side to wash the dishes for instance. This is not advisable since gators are ambush predators. They lie and wait, sometimes underwater for a long time. Someone leaning over looks a lot like their prey coming in for a drink, and this kind of scenario is exactly what they are instinctively programmed and waiting for!
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Setting off from Sweetwater Bay on a beautiful morning!
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Paddling by mile marker 99 on the famed Wilderness Waterway of the Everglades.
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Cruising down to the Chatham River we stopped by to check out the Watson Place – an outback land camp site with a colorful and infamous history! The Park mows the lawn and vegetation, usually just before camping season starts in November. Since we were here two months early, the grass was overgrown and about knee high. When in-season, this is a very nice camp that is also favored by power boaters!
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Arrival at the Watson’s Place backcountry campsite.
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The Watson Place was not surprisingly overgrown. Campers were not expected for a couple more months! 😉
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Ted poised to make his 3 foot jump off the picnic table at the Watson Place!
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Vertigo: Two jumps fifty-five years apart!
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Joseph Kittinger making his historic jump from 102,800 feet at the edge of space! 😉
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This brings probably the most heavenly part of the trip which was paddling out the Chatham River with the tide. It was glass-calm, and the water like a mirror! The sweet silence was only broken by a passing power boat as we glided out the mouth of the river into the Gulf of Mexico.
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Jumping straight into a daydream paddling out the Chatham River on a mirror calm morning!
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Coming out of Storter Bay into the Gulf of Mexico.
The stillness was broken by a speeding powerboat that jolted me back to reality.
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Trying to cool off at Duck Rock but the water felt like a hot tub!
CLICK for interactive VR panorama!
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Aerial view of the tip of Duck Rock in the Ten Thousand Islands.
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Taking some time out at Duck Rock we tried to cool off. This is a tidal sandbar which until recently was an island and a bird rookery. However the water was like 90 degrees, so it helped, but not that much.
It was just plain hot!
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Feelin’ Hot Hot Hot!
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Preparing to setup camp on the tip of the beach at Pavilion Key. Ted tied off his sunshade tarp to each of the three kayaks arranged in a triangle.
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We elected to camp on the northeast tip of Pavilion Key for our last night. This is basically a lil ‘finger’ of sand that juts out into the water. There are no tall trees, and thus no shade! Ted brought a tarp and we set it up successfully by tying off the ends to the three kayaks arranged into a triangle.
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The Banana Boat doing it’s part to hold up the shade!
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Under the tarp nearing sunset on Pavilion Key in the 10000 islands.
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Dinner in the shade on Pavilion Key was great, that is until a surprise gust of wind sent things flying. It was easily 25-30 knots! The shade tarp caught enough air and worked itself loose, flapping in the wind. Lisa’s tent came undone, but Ted’s actually took off flying down the beach! I immediately bolted after it, but try as I might, it continued cartwheeling literally just out of reach of my fingers!! Finally, the tent hit a puddle of water and slowed just enough to where I could grab it.
Surveying the damage, I was happy to see my own tent still standing and staked off. Ted’s tent was now wet so he spent the remaining daylight shaking it and drying it out. Lisa’s tent just needed to be staked out again. Although my tent fared the best, I’ve since upgraded to 10″ tent stakes for my beach camping. You never know – the storm front was miles away, yet the leading edge reached out to us to bite!
The strong gust of wind came out of the blue and took us all by surprise!
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With Ted’s flying tent fiasco over, my own tent was calling out to me at sunset!
CLICK for fun animated version!
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ART of Darkness – Camping with the Stars! Part II
CLICK for more!
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ART of Darkness – Camping with the Stars! Part II
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It was a dark moonless night in the Ten Thousand Islands.
The Milky Way came out to play in this whole sky panorama!
CLICK for more!
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Let me tell you about beach camping on Pavilion Key! 😉
Note the heat lightning in the distance – the show went on all night!
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“Welcome to our humble camp. Your hosts wish you nice dreams!”
An experimental and eerie photographic foray into psychedelic-lite camping at Pavilion Key in the Ten Thousand Islands.
CLICK for interactive VR panorama!
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Fortunately for us the skeeters were not too bad this time around on Pavilion Key. However note the heat lightning on the horizon. This system actually never went completely away and produced a light show for most of the night. Little did we know that it would come back for us in the morning!
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Camping Hell in the Ten Thousand Islands!
Total darkness under the stars on Pavilion Key on a hellish previous visit.
CLICK for evil 360 VR panorama!
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Camping Hell in the Ten Thousand Islands!
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“Nice dreams in the Ten Thousand Islands”
Kayakfari ART photography – ART of Darkness series.
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ART of Darkness – Kayaking the final frontier of imaging and photography
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Breakfast with sunrise over Pavilion Key !
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As usual when camping in the outback, sunrise was the wake up call!
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Morning aerial view camping on the north tip of Pavillion Key in Everglades National Park, Ten Thousand Islands.
CLICK for 360 VR aerial panorama!
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Ted is ready for the paddle home, but his smile betrays a secret! 😉
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Our beautiful sunny morning turned to concern as we watched the same storm system that produced such an awesome light show during the night come back towards land and right where we were headed!
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Storm system re-animating itself mid morning as we paddle in from the Gulf.
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Storm coming, better hide – but where? Nope, we keep on paddling!
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The squall that built up in the morning dropped the temps an easy 20 degrees as it raced across Chokoloskee Bay. It produced a downpour and 20+ knot winds as we crossed the bay, but no lightning fortunately!
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This squall produced a LOT of rain just as we were about to enter Chokoloskee Bay.
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Native dugout canoe replica under Smallwoods store. We took refuge there after braving the worst of it crossing the bay.
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Once across Chokoloskee Bay, we sought shelter from the rain under the historic Smallwood Store. It appeared to be closed, maybe on account of the weather. Nevertheless, it was nice to take a break before heading back to Everglades City.
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Sightseeing the underside of the building.
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Ted Smallwood’s store – on Chokoloskee island since 1906!
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Heaven and Hell? Heaven or Hell?
You decide!
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Back at Everglades City with the rain now behind us! 🙂
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You can read more about this adventure:
Everglades Exploration Network thread
Lisa D’s album (fBook login required)
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The End!
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Actually the End was followed by a delicious lunch + cold beer at City Seafood!
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I leave you with this .. from inside the restaurant.
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Enjoy!
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! Bless UP
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You may also like:
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Moonshine in the 10 000 Islands!
Moonshine in the 10 000 Islands!
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Camping Hell in the Ten Thousand Islands!
Camping Hell in the Ten Thousand Islands!
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ART at Liquor Still Bay – hidden history in the Everglades!
ART at Liquor Still Bay – hidden history in the Everglades!
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ART of Cape Romano – The curious inhabitants of Australopithecine Island!
ART of Cape Romano – The curious inhabitants of Australopithecine Island!
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© 2016 –
© 2016 – 2022 Flex Maslan / kayakfari.com / awakenthegrass.com. All original photographs, artworks and music in this portfolio are copyrighted and owned by the artist, Flex Maslan, unless otherwise noted. Any reproduction, modification, publication, transmission, transfer, or exploitation of any of the content, for personal or commercial use, whether in whole or in part, without written permission from the artist is strictly prohibited.
All rights reserved!
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DISCLAIMER:
The maps and images on this site are not intended for navigation, I am not a guide; use any and all information at your own risk! Your mileage may vary .. so use good judgement before venturing out!
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I hereby disclaim any sponsorship, endorsement, nor association with any product or service described herein. The photographs, depictions, products, and ideas presented on this site are for informational purposes only. Your results may vary, and I do not imply nor guarantee the effectiveness, suitability, design or operation to adhere to any standard. I assume no legal responsibility for the implementation of anything herein presented! Use any and all information at your own risk! By using any and all information from this website, you accept the final liability for any use or possible associated misuse!
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With that said..
Blessings friends!
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kayakfari ( kayak .. far .. i ) 