Ten Thousand Islands loop: 17 FEB 2022 13:27

One of our goals as an organization has been to get trail markers installed between The Wilderness Waterway to the south in Monroe County and The Great Calusa Blueway to the north in Lee County. Both of those trails are marked paddling trails, and there's also a paddling trail that rings Florida called the Circumnavigational Paddling Trail that exists as a GPS artifact. The connection between these two would be known as the Paradise Coast Blueway.

Most of our coast can be followed in a boat using artificial construction as landmarks, but the 20 mile stretch into the Gulf between Goodland and Chokoloskee has no such landmarks. The skilled and experienced paddlers can pass the 10,000 islands by staying out in the Gulf, even in bad weather. There's a string of barrier islands with sand beaches suitable for camping, but for those who have a hard time in four-foot seas, we've been working on identifying an "inland" route where the water is calmer on windy days.

To that end, we contacted Jenny from Everglades Ecotours (who we run into on the water from time to time), and she referred us to Captain Craig Daniels of Chokoloskee, a native whose family has lived in that area for generations. We know the area from maps, aerials, and charts. We have paddled the Everglades City area a couple of times, but we needed someone with local experience to go farther to the west from there, and in Captain Craig, we made the right contact.

The videos show what it's like to move through the area at about ten times the speed we usually paddle at, but they show the area's beauty and size. We made the loop clockwise because the wind was out of the ESE, and we were in the Gulf on the outer part of the loop. The loopback was just a little slower in parts because we had to find our way through narrow unmarked channels relying on Captain Craig's navigation.

We've paddled the section from Goodland to Gill Rattle Creek near Buttonwood Bay and jackfish Island, and that track meets up with our track from this trip, so we have a complete inland paddling trail thanks in part to Captain Craig.

He insisted on showing us some of the local scenery and attractions like Fakahatchee Island and Totch Brown's house on the way back. Captain Craig said his mother was a Brown, and he was related to and partly raised by Totch. Fakahatchee Island reminded us of Mound Key, and there are places to camp on Fakahatchee Island. (it's the detour in Fakahatchee Bay on the GPS track).

Excellent trip to places we've never been before and would recommend if you want to paddle the area, maybe see it by powerboat first.