Everglades Canoe Trip January 2003

Sunday Bay to Everglades City

During the night we heard a loud "boom" from our canoe. Jim got up and looked at it, but there was no apparent problem. In the morning we noticed that it had shipped several gallons of water. We assumed that it must have been tipped by the incoming tide and then righted itself. Only when we lifted it onto the chickee to empty the water did we notice two symmetrical cracks, one on each side near the waterline.

As I mentioned before, the night had been calm with just an occasional light breeze. We had tied the canoe on the leeward side of our half of the chickee (the optimum location would have been off the other half, which was occupied). My best guess is that it caught under a joist as the water level slowly rose. The buoyancy at each end created pressure that cracked the hull "like and egg" -- right at the waterline. The subsequent leak may have saved it from further damage; the pressure would have lessened as the water came in. For a moment there I thought we would not get back under our own power. As it turned out, the canoe was still structurally sound, but leaking about a gallon an hour. We had to bale several times on our way out of the woods. Lesson learned!

The trip out was otherwise uneventful. We elected to cross over to the Turner River and avoid the motor traffic on the marked route. The tide was high enough that we had an easy paddle along the Chokoloskee causeway to the Ranger Station. Our total mileage was somewhere around 45 miles.