{"id":7914,"date":"2018-03-01T12:51:47","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T17:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/?p=7914"},"modified":"2018-03-01T13:06:05","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T18:06:05","slug":"everglades-2018-post-hurricane-irma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/2018\/everglades-2018-post-hurricane-irma","title":{"rendered":"Everglades 2018 – Post-Hurricane Irma"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was a difficult trip thanks to Hurricane Irma<\/strong> and multiple equipment failures. But we had good time in spite \u00a0of the challenges. [Gallery<\/a>]<\/p>\n

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My fellow kayakers were Carlos and Nia Morales (also from Gainesville). Here we are smiling before running the gauntlet on Coot Bay Pond Creek<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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The ranger station had told me the creek was “open” but that was being generous. We spent two hours<\/em> to move a two hundred yards that should have taken less than twenty minutes! I spent more time out of the kayak than in…<\/p>\n

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Once on Coot Bay<\/strong> we attempted to sail but the wind was too strong and variable.<\/p>\n

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We had a long day and travelled after dark to get to Joe River Chickee<\/strong>. We all slept well. It had been cool enough that there were only a few bugs.<\/p>\n

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The next day we finally got to sail across Oyster Bay<\/strong> to the Shark River<\/strong>. (Our two oldest boats had developed serious leaks at that point.) We made it out to the Gulf and had a nice night camping at Graveyard Creek<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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There was a new sand bar and many uprooted trees due to Irma. This was actually beneficial since the last time I visited the site it was very overgrown. Carlos did a field repair and we let it cure overnight.<\/p>\n

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The next day the weather finally cleared as we headed up Graveyard Creek itself on our way to the Shark River Chickee<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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This was the year for hammock camping<\/em>,\u00a0which worked better on a chickee than I thought it would.\u00a0<\/em>I slept out in the open with a few bugs buzzing around.<\/p>\n

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Here’s a pano of our boats tied up to the chickee…<\/p>\n

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The next day we navigated our way through The Labyrinth<\/strong> and over to the Watson River Chickee<\/strong>. The next day we got to sail down Whitewater Bay<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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At that point my boat started to leak<\/em> again and my seat suspension<\/em> came apart in three places. Here’s my temporary workaround.<\/p>\n

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We enjoyed our last night at the Lane Bay Chickee<\/strong>, where Carlos finally caught some fish.<\/p>\n

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Fortunately we did not have to go back through the mangrove creek from hell! Instead we made our way along the Hells Bay Canoe Trail<\/strong> and exited there.<\/p>\n

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For the record, here is a list of the equipment that failed on our 2008 and 2010 model year Hobie Adventure Kayaks<\/em>…<\/p>\n