Where I've been and what I've learned along the way…
Just got back from a trip to the Everglades with my father. We had a great time circumnavigating Whitewater Bay.
We stopped at the Roberts River, Watson River, Oyster Bay, and South Joe chickees.
2007 Note: The beautiful mangroves and chickee at Oyster Bay were heavily damaged by a hurricane. Still a nice location, but not nearly as appealing as it was back in 2005.
This was the big one — the complete Wilderness Waterway from Flamingo to Everglades City. Of course we avoided the actual marked “trail” as much as possible. This was a real paddler’s trip. The trail is nominally 99 miles; I estimate we traveled more than 120 total. We went out to the Gulf twice and “boomeranged” back up the Harney and Broad Rivers with the tide. We also took a side trip down to Gopher Key and saw lots of birds there, including a Roseate Spoonbill. We saw dolphins fishing in the shallows. We also encountered manatees twice. The last night we returned to the Gulf and camped on Pavilion Key.