Everglades City and Duck Key Feb 1 - 6, 2013

This is what it looks like to travel in the Gulf in the Everglades

This is a long post. It is even longer when you consider this post covers about 5 days of activities. We have been very, very busy. Highlights for those of you who only want to read the first paragraph:

1) Tour of Everglades with lots of alligators and history
2) Rustic place followed by a very nice place
3) Judy and Michael leave us!! More about that later.

It was a beautiful boating day to travel to Everglades City on Friday 2/1. We even had some naked boating!

One September behind us

It is chilly in the morning but warms up considerably in the afternoon so we change clothes several times a day – in am we wear jeans and sweat shirts, change to shorts and t-shirts mid-day, then back to jeans and jackets at night. We wear same clothes over again until we get full days wear out of them. Makes Laundry Boy's work a little easier.

We traveled a long way that day – skipped Marco island – lots of high-rises, didn’t look like we would enjoy it and after Naples we wanted something smaller and more comfortable

Made the turn into Everglade City down the Barron  River, named after Mr. Barron who developed this part of Florida around the 1900s. His family still owns lots of Florida land including the Grey Club in Naples famous to us when one of Michael and Judy's friends sold a business for hundreds of millions of dollars, joined that club and found they were absolutely the least wealthy people in the club. Tough.

The topography is quite different the further south we go. Scrub trees on little outcroppings from the water. Water birds everywhere. A few dolphins but not many. No manatees visible but signs for them everywhere.

Water birds everywhere

Lots of manatee signs but no sign of manatees

A small plane landed, visible to the left. The airstrip is
right on the water. 

We passed the air strip as we entered the “town”. Everglade City has a population of about 500 and only a little tourist action. This is more like the small towns we passed through on the river system than the more commercial towns in Florida. Only a few streets and houses.

Lots of boats, some commercial fishing. There are not many places to work around here. In the 1970s and 1980s when drugs were big in south Florida the Everglade locals found a new trade. They used the air strip in town plus their local knowledge of the Everglades to smuggle drugs into the US. The drug enforcement people got wind of it and put a stop to it.

 

See the plane on the left? 

I imagine an episode of Miami Vice. Crocket and Tubbs go undercover following a lead about drug smuggling in the Everglades. They put on their country clothes – like the stuff we saw for sale in the Everglade City Hardware Store – and head to southwest Florida.

Little kid camaflage clothing

Crockett gets close to a beautiful girl in skimpy shorts and almost no top that proudly shows him where Uncle Jimmy meets the plane in the dead of the night. Alligators and snakes everywhere but our hero returns to civilization with the scoop on where the drugs come in the country.

In reality, the FBI and federal, state law enforcement arrived before dawn, barricaded every entrance into the town and arrested over 200 people – all the men folk over 18 in the entire town were tried and convicted of drug smuggle. I am not sure why no women. I wanted to ask but didn’t. I put it off to male chauvinism of the era. Only women and children were left in town for a while.

Tim McBride - drug smuggler from the 1980s

This is a true story. I read the clippings on the wall at the Everglades Rod and Gun club so it must be true! Actually here is the link to the true story!! The guy even looks straight out of Miami Vice!! He describes it like this, "What began as a crabbing gig based in Everglades City morphed into a marijuana smuggling business that eventually netted McBride about $25 million. Unfortunately, it also got him four years in federal prison and a $4 million fine."   Feds arrested 80% of the male population in two raids!!

Not sure what this is but it
is pretty - on Rod and Gun Club
property

The creepy lobby

stuffed fish on the wall

Tourists drive down from Miami and the Naples area to visit the Everglade City Rod and Gun Club. It has been in the same spot since the early 1900s. Lots of famous people visited. Several presidents. Ernest Hemingway who seems to have been everywhere. It is a really funny place.

This is the view from the front porch

Rusty walked past that cat twice without noticing

a stuffed bear

We docked along the river wall which is set up for boats. I am shocked we have no pictures of the wall. It was pretty basic. Our boats, particularly One September at 50 feet, look huge traveling down the river. These are fixed docks with electric and water. When the tide comes in even our ladder is not high enough to get us off the boat. The huge step down to the top step of the ladder does not give me a warm safe feeling. Rusty’s ramp was at a 45 degree angle to get off the boat. Sometimes steeper than that. He was a trooper though. That dog will do anything we ask of him. What a good dog.

They still have a phone booth

The bar at the Rod and Gun Club

The bar

a really old dead lobster on the wall

strange paintings on the wall

Inside the Rod and Gun club is decorated in early old paneled basement. Lots of dark wood and the obligatory stuffed things – fish, bears, little fuzzy critters everywhere. And weird pictures. Everything about it is old. I visited the rest room and caused a flood when the toilet exploded and overflowed. It was very exciting for the old lady in the next stall. She didn’t move fast enough.

This is a hotel with two floors of rooms (we didn’t visit – should have in hindsight) and little cottages without many residents. The pool is beautiful.

The pool at the Rod and Gun Club

We ran into Looper Fandango. We haven’t seen them since the Tenn-Tom when we traveled with them for five days until Mobile. Turns out they stayed at the marina right across the Dog River from Dig River Marina in Mobile. They said the restaurant there was really good. We never made it over to that restaurant but we heard lots of laughter. It was nice to catch up with them. I am sure we will see them again along the way.

The other two boats they are traveling with are not loopers but really nice folks. We had cocktails with them the first night and laughed recalling the awful boat we encountered, YaTing. Read about it in the postings about Demopolis and Bobbys Fish Camp.

We ate in this room inside the bar

We had dinner at the Rod and Gun Club Restaurant. The food was ok. The bar was pretty crowed although the main restaurant was deserted even though it was Friday night.

Before dinner we wandered around the town. That took about an hour. Not much to see. The center of town is a big circle with a huge cell tower in the center. Very attractive. The houses are quiet and well taken care of. There are a few stores and only a few restaurants. It is pretty quiet.

Doing (scuba) laundry 

these are airboats

This is how i will remember Everglades City!!

On Saturday 2/2 Peggy and Jim joined us again to take us on a tour of the Everglades. We dressed warm because it was chilly – jeans, camisole, t-shirt, long sleeved shirt, and over shirt. Then we strip off clothes as we go through the day.

Miccosukee Indian Reservation is marked 

Manuel, our guide

They took us to the Miccosukee (pronounced Mik a soo kee) Indian Reservation for an airboat ride. What an experience! Manuel was our guide. He describes himself as an Indian in his heart although the stork made a mistake and deposited him 6000 miles south in Peru. But he returned home to this reservation where he gives airboat tours and works at an alligator farm. He was great! We got the extra special, super-duper tour.

The motor cycle tour group from Germany departed on another airboat when we did and returned way before we did. One lady we met from that group complained that their tour guide didn’t say one word. Manuel explained everything we saw and introduced us to the wildlife. He was great!

A comment about the motorcycle tour group. They were all wearing beautiful leather clothing, driving top of the line motor cycles of all brands. They even had a support truck traveling with them. What a great idea!

The Indian reservation is a protected land. By 1830, agitation by new American settlers led the US to adapt the Indian Removal Act during Andrew Jackson's presidency. We have been hearing about this terrible chapter of American history for some time - The Hermitage in Nashville, Chattanooga, much of Mississippi and Alabama, and now here in Florida. About 4000 Indians in the southeast were forceably removed to Oklahoma in the Trail of Tears. About 100, mostly Mikasuki-speaking Creeks in Florida never surrendered. They escaped deportation by hiding in the Everglades. Present Tribal members are these descendents. More about how they live later on.

They are a separate country with their own rules, including their own police. A police car stopped at the restaurant while I was in getting some ice tea and one of the cops tried to pick up the cashier. Life goes on, doesn’t it…?

The water is very clear and not deep except in the channel

The Miccasukee airboat dock - the channel is about 20 feet deep in the center

Jim,  Judy, and Mike on the dock waiting to go

We hear a lot about Everglades’ restoration. At this stop we could see some of the impact and reasons first hand. Manuel showed us that the man made channel in front of the airboat dock is 20 feet deep. Water from all over the Everglades drains into channels like this changing the way the water and tides move.

This dock is all that is left from the old Indian community

Before the channel was dug in 1920s, the Everglades water was about a foot or two deep. It was shallow enough for the Indians to walk around in and out of the Everglades. They lived in communities built on flat places where the water was lower and the land was higher.

With the manmade channels, the water moves higher and lower in larger movements, covering the communities and preventing the residents from walking around like they used to before. Makes hunting and fishing more difficult, putting their community at risk. Manuel showed us a community that was destroyed by rising water. So Everglades’ restoration is a good thing for the environment.

Airboats travel on top of the water, not in the water, because they are powered by a huge fan at the back of the boat. The driver sits way high above the base of the boat so he can see. According to Manuel it takes a long time to learn to drive an airboat safely. He drove through the Everglades right over the grasses. When he turned the boat it made really big waves and splashes.

Manuel stopped suddenly so we could see this fellow -
he slipped into the water as this photo was taken

Judy and Michael from One September

Altogether the 30 minute airboat ride took almost an hour! Our target was an Indian community that was owned by the Tigertail family. The airboat ride fees go to maintaining their property for future generations. To survive in this difficult environment, the family lived in temporary camps called "hammock style" under "chickee huts". They sewed their own clothes and cooked communally. The family  moved out of this one in 1976 and now live in homes along a little nearby. The new homes might be brick but every one still has a chickee hut in the backyard!!

Michael, Judy, Jim, Peggy, Katherine, Kermit

The walkways are for the tourists' safety

Two of the huts, called chickee huts, are original and the others are from Home Depot. A real community would not have platforms to stand on but this one does because tourists come here.

They have a community fire place for cooking.

Community cooking area - real ashes in the grate

 Totem poles here looked like totem poles we have seen in other places. Isn’t that interesting?

Totum poles everywhere

Jim and Peggy taking us around the community

Many alligators call this place home

 There were alligators living here. The dad is about 10 feet long aged about 63 years old. The mama is about 7 feet long. And the little baby is about 9 inches long. Manuel said he was probably hatched in October. The babies have red stripes and are hard to see in the grass.

L: Katherine, Michael, Judy, Peggy, and Manuel checking
out the mama alligator

Papa alligator only had his head visible. The rest was under
the walkway. He was about 10' long and about 60 years old. 

L: Michael and Kermit taking pictures of alligators

The flower to the banana plant we saw

Michael looking for alligators - the papa is to the left
mostly under the platform not visible in this photo

This is mama - about 7 feet long

And this is the baby - can you see him? 

Jimmy and Peggy walking out a little further

We wandered back to the airboat for a meandering return to home base.

After the airboat ride we piled in the car and Jimmy took us on the “loop” road, a 20+ mile almost 2 lane road through the Everglades. At one point the road was no longer paved. He said this was the original road to Miami across the Everglades. It looked like it. Occasionally we say small communities of Indian homes with chickee huts.

Jim claimed he could all the alligators. It is an odd honking sound. He didn't have to do that because there were alligators everywhere - in the water and along the road.

L: Jim, Michael, and Judy watching Jim call alligators

Michael and Jim talking about alligator habitat

There were critters everywhere. All along the road were alligators of different shapes and sizes. Several times we stopped the car, opened the side doors to see alligators only about 5 feet away from the car. It was kind of scary. Sometimes they did not move at all. you wondered if they were even alive… until they moved.

More gator calling from Jim, Michael, and Judy

See how close to the road? 

This is a great shot!

Next to the road

This one just laid there

This was a small one

This was a big one

This was not taken with a telephoto lens!

We saw turkeys too. They came right up to the car.

See how close they are? See how we open the door to take pictures? 

And birds. Lots of birds. I guess there is a difference between egrets and these other white birds but I can’t recall.

Eventually we said no more stopping for alligator pictures. We headed down the road to Joanie’s Restaurant, a must-stop place in the Everglades. This place was a hoot. 

You picked your beer out of two big coolers.

There were pictures of naked men in the women’s bathroom. There was stuff all over the walls. An alligator lived in the back pond. A singer in the main room serenaded us with bawdy country songs.

My favorite!!

Peggy and Judy

Michael and Kermit

Jimmy looking dashing

Great lunch!

Lunch was great. Five of us had grilled shrimp on an avocado with tomato salsa. These avocados are yellow inside and much bigger than the typical avocado. It was delicious. Kermit had a cheeseburger with the best fries ever. The food was wonderful. Either that or we were really, really hungry. I think we didn’t eat until 3pm.

After lunch Jimmy took us to another Everglades landmark, Smallwood Hardware Store. This isn’t really a store anymore; it is a museum that costs $5 each to enter. It isn’t really a museum either. It is more like Uncle Charley’s old run down crap shop.

Kermit and I outside Smallwood - see we have stripped down
to t-shirts because it is hot now

The crap tells the story of the community

Smallwood's guard dog - you walk around her to get in

Smallwood started this store in the 1920s and the place is filled with the inventory he couldn’t sell. When the store started the community was filled with thieves, murderers on the lam, and frontier adventurers. No one else dared to live this far out in the Everglades. There is a cool book I am downloading to my Kindle about Smallwood Hardware and the local community called, “Killing Mister Watson”. I can’t wait to read it.

Folks still don’t get along. The Smallwood family got in a fight with a neighbor who objected to so many (5 or 6 a day) people who visit the “museum”. So he dug up the road so no one could enter. Seriously! You can see the pile of rubble that used to be the road. After 10 years in court, a judge ordered him to put a road back. It just opened a few months ago. It was a special place to visit at least once.

Kermit and Jimmy looking at crap in the store

View from Smallwood

The view was beautiful along this stretch of the river.

We got back to the boat at about dusk. It was an early evening. We certainly packed a lot in one day! Hard to believe. 

One September leaving Everglade City -
Good Karma in the lead

Sunday morning early we head out to Marathon. We originally intended to stay in Everglade City for another day but we saw pretty much everything there was to see. The no-see-ums were annoying and it was too cold to enjoy the beautiful pool . So we decided to move on a day early. Not such good weather this day. It was windy and cool with choppy water once we got into the Gulf. It got marginally better when we turned to the east. We ran on plane for a while in the choppy southbound portion. We haven’t done that for a while.

There were a million crabpots the entire trip. Isn’t it funny how we see so many crabpots but almost never see someone tending them? Well there are a million in no particular order in this part of the Gulf. It looked like someone threw a handful of marbles that tumbled everywhere. Kermit was in the lead and was constantly on the radio telling One September to watch on one side or another. We didn’t hit anything.

Crab pots

A mess o' crab pots

One September enjoying the sunshine as we ran on plane
Notice the waves?

Kermit enjoying the sunshine!

It was stirring to see the Seven Mile Bridge come into view. We passed over the water on that bridge while on vacation with the kids at Christmas. It marks the division between the Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean. We are no longer in the Gulf!! From now on we will be traveling north.

Now we are in the Gulf of Mexico

One September goes under the bridge

And now we are in the Atlantic!

Mike and Judy drive from WAYYYYY up at the top

Marathon Boat Club is a big marina full to the gills

We had reservations at the Marathon Boat Club for Monday and Tuesday but they did not have room for us on Sunday. All Marathon marinas were booked for Sunday probably because it was the Super Bowl. This is the first time we have been turned away from a marina in the 200+ days we have been on this trip! We pulled in to fill up with gas. We took on 221 gallons at $4.64 per gallon. Do the math. We took a major credit card hit that day!! We only hold 300 gallons so we were very low on gas.

One September floated around making calls for dock space while we filled up.

Kermit filling the tanks

Mike and Judy up close at the top of One September

More crab pots - this is a close up

We could have anchored out near the Marathon Boat Club but Kermit wanted to watch the football game so we all got on the phone. The nearest marina with space was Hawks Cay Resort about 16 miles further north of Marathon in Ducks Key. So off we went!! It means we will continue north and not return to Marathon. But it was the best decision we made in a long time. What an amazing resort!!

You pull into the narrow, man made channel parallel to the Atlantic, staying close to the port side passing within feet of amazing homes. At the resort the boat is within 3 feet of the resort lagoon where folks sitting on the “beach” wave and say hello.

The lagoon at the resort is right on the channel - just feet away

They have a dolphin pool with real dolphins. If you have lots of extra cash lying around you could swim with the dolphins. If you have a little less cash you could walk on the docks by the dolphins. We did neither. We just took pictures and waved.

Sunday February 3 was my birthday! In our never ending quest to fit absolutely everything possible into our tight schedule, it was a great day to travel for 9 hours, tie up, clean up, go to a fancy dinner then watch the Super Bowl, we went to dinner at Alma Restaurant on the property. MMMMMmmm… It was amazing. I had a wedge salad with grilled shrimp in this amazing broth with the best bread in a long time. Kermit had short ribs that literally melted in your mouth. It was worth every penny.

For dessert we shared a little chocolate lava cake with a tiny scoop of strawberry ice cream. It was perfect. It came with a sparkler!!!

Judy and I continued our practice of walking every morning. We went off property one morning to see the beautiful homes. Naturally I called some realtors and we checked QR codes. A huge home with water on two sides and a dock was $3 million. We ran into lots smaller and not as nice properties in Naples and other places that were that same price. Not that I am in that kind of price range at all. In fact I couldn’t afford the garage but I’d rather be in the Keys than in Naples or Boca Grande. I am just saying.

We went to the lagoon one day and just sat on our butts with books and slept. We got Michael to drink TWO fancy mixed drinks!! He got a little tipsy too. It was adorable.

We traveled with One September since September 17, 2012. They are terrific traveling partners and good friends now. But we are leaving them at Hawks Cay. They left on Tuesday February 5 for Key West. They have lots of family and friends to meet.

It was tough to say good-bye. But they sailed off into the sunrise.

After One September left I worked a lot. The new website is up now and I conducted a webinar and worked with two new clients. Kermit and I went to the gym three times and walked the dog a lot. We mostly ate on the boat and watched the sunset. We watched the waters looking for the bull shark hanging out in our bay.

This is how Rusty spent his time:

Kermit and I are headed to Fort Lauderdale then to the Bahamas for about 6 weeks. We will return at the end of March and meet up with One September in Florida to continue the north bound trip. More later.