The first day of our vacation would have us going the farthest into the Everglades All the way to the very tip of Florida to the Flamingo Marina. This marina offers boat tours in the canal and in the Florida Bay. They also rent out canoes and kayaks. We decided to go with the canoe option, mainly because we had already booked a boat tour for Tuesday. So canoeing sounded like the best way to enjoy different activities each day. I got a canoe with Julia, Stacy, Rebekah, and Joanna shared a canoe. The two older kids each got a kayak. We had to be at the Marina at 10:00am, but since it was an hour drive and we had barely unpacked given how late we had arrived, we had to get up early. This was the third day of our vacation and every day so far involved an early start. The kids were starting to wonder why relaxing required so many early hours.
But we made it to the marina in plenty of time. The drive there took us through a large section of the Everglades, and it was here that I learned that my conception of the Everglades was wildly incorrect. I had envisioned a nearly tropical jungle but the truth was the complete opposite. Turns out that the term "everglades" refers to the never ending glade of grass. Of course, if I had done just a minor bit of research and looked up the word "glade", I would have known the wasn't correct. Instead the Everglades are a sea of grass. The Everglades are fed by Lake Okeechobee. This lake is one of the largest in the United States by area, with a surface elevation of only 12 feet above sea level and empties out into the ocean nearly 100 miles away. However, if you look on a map, you will notice that there isn't a river running from Lake Okeechobee to the ocean, instead the entirety of southern Florida constitutes the river. This means that almost everywhere, there is ever so slowly flowing water of an inch or so deep. Because of this there are no trees, but tall grass as far as the eye can see.
We arrived at the Flamingo Marina right on time for a quick drive around the parking lot. They were building a lodge and restaurant which looked like it would be ready for the next busy season. There was also a small temporary visitor center that looked like it would move into the building once construction was finished. It was obviously not the busy season at the Marina and we had no trouble getting our canoes put in the water. We had our choice of canoeing the Florida Bay or the canal up to Coot Bay Lake. Given that we had small children, they recommended that we do the canal. The water was incredibly still, with practically no discernible flow.
We canoed up the canal to the lake, which was about 3 miles. We occasionally got passed by other people on canoes, but more frequently by the tour boat. The tour guide called us out whenever he saw us. One time while the tour boat was passing us, the tour guide called out that there was a crocodile just off to our right. The Everglades is the only place in the United States that you can see crocodiles and the only place in the world that you can see both crocodiles and alligators. Matthew Jr however was the only one on our trip to see the crocodile. He had pulled out in front of the rest of the group and I guess the rest of us were too loud and scared him off.
The trip was uneventful until we realized that we had forgot to bring the sunscreen. While we had applied prior to the trip, we had forgot to bring it with us. A moment of forgetfulness that would have great implications later on. The other exciting thing was that Matthew's kayak paddle broke. Luckily we had Joanna's canoe paddle that she wasn't really using, however a kid's canoe paddle for an adult kayak is something of a let down. This meant that Matthew had to work significantly harder going back than going up. Because of these two things, the trip up and back were of two very different characters. The trip up to the lake was relaxed, with a lot of splashing each other, goofing off, canoeing in circles. The trip back was strictly business everybody paddling constantly to get back as quick as we could. The one exception to this was me. While the canal itself was perfectly calm, and the wind not all that noticeable, it did frequently catch my canoe just right so that I would end up facing backwards more often than I would have liked.
Elisabeth, Julia, and I reached the marina first. I showed the workers there the broken paddle and asked how much it would be to replace it. They looked at it and determined that it was a faulty piece of equipment and not our fault that it broke. Once everybody was on land again we bought our magnet and went back to the vacation house. On our way back, we took stock of how badly everybody got sunburned and it was pretty bad for all of us. However, Elisabeth got it the worst. While we didn't figure this out for several more days, the poor girl got second degree sunburns on both of her shins.
The only left to do today was stop at Walmart. We had packed enough food to last through Monday lunch, so this was our stock up for the food for the rest of our vacation. Once back from Walmart, we ate dinner, watched a Danny Kaye movie and went to bed. But mostly we did everything in the dark to avoid getting any more light on our sunburns.
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