Day 16: Flamingo: To the Back Country and Out Into the Bay (all by boat)

February 18, 2015

Half asleep through the night I kept thinking we must be camped by a big highway. My evidence for this was the sound of tires at speed, singing along the pavement. It rained heavily in the night too, but awareness of that occupied a separate segment of my mind. Only when light finally came did I open my eyes. There, 1/2 inch from my nose on the other side of the mesh were dozens of mosquitoes, whining hungrily. Remarkably, there were also a lot inside the mesh, but those maybe had done all the biting they wanted to already. As to how they got in, Dodie admitted to having gone to "our" washroom twice in the night.

Flooding from last night's rains, just by our tent site

Mosquitoes, no water, noisy neighbours. We were thinking we should beat it out of here right now (rather than stay our planned day here). First we cycled over to the kiosk and demanded a refund. No way. The claim was no ability to do a refund. Fine then, we thought, we will get Mastercard to cancel the transaction. So we steamed along toward town, but soon thought we should save distance and go take down our camp now. So we turned around and cycled back that way. Waitaminute, maybe we are overreacting. Let's go see what water we can buy in town. so we turned around and steamed that way for a bit. Presently a man in a white truck hunted us down to say that the water advisory was long over. They had simply forgotten to take down all the signs. Grrr.

So that left mosquitoes and neighbours. We decided to stay.

In "town" we discovered that the Marina store in fact was fully stocked with everything a cyclist needs. We went berserk, buying two microwaveable egg and bacon breakfast sandwiches. Did you get that, egg and bacon! Then I followed with a "cheese danish" chaser. What a place!

The Everglades anyway is a place where water and land are hard ti distinguish from one another, and where one can quickly change to the other. But at Flamingo there is also another interplay - that of ocean and fresh water. The Bay of Florida is a huge island filled area that lies within the arc of the Keys, and that while super shallow, is definitely salt water. On the other hand, there are extensive areas of brackish water, in the huge Whitewater Bay, where tidal movements mix sea water with water from the River of Grass. It's a crazy exciting place.

At Flamingo there is a salt water marina on one side , and a brackish mooring on the other. The brackish is in the Buttonwood channel, which leads to Coot Bay, the Tarpon Channel, and then to Whitewater Bay. The Buttonwood, which is man made, used to be open to the sea, but the salt water infiltration through it harmed the ecosystem, and so the entrance was plugged by a concrete dam.

On both the salt and brackish sides there are boat excursions offered. We took them both.

There were not a lot of fellow passengers for the brackish trip, and we were the only ones in the salt. Both captains were really a wealth of information, and excellent at spotting the birds and other life along the way. Hopefully the photos and captions (when finally uploaded) will tell the story of what we were able to see.

The marina at Flamingo, brackish (fresh) water side

A crocodile (not alligator) at Flamingo.

Crocs here will not (normally) eat you. However, there are six types of shark in the Bay, that will (especially the Bull Shark)

We take the easy way into the back country. There is also a seven day (if you are fast) canoe route. It would surely be all skeeters, snakes, and gators.

An Osprey has caught a fish. The Osprey will clean its catch away from the nest so as not to attract any riff raff.

Twin 150 hp motors work well. We have seen up to four mounted on some craft!

The deadly Manchineel tree. It's leaves will rot your skin, it's apple like green fruit will kill you pretty much outright!

OK, which way should we go (out here in Coot Bay)

This concrete structure, the "Plug" was installed to separate the man made Buttonwood Canal from the sea. Before this, the canal was raising the salinity of inland waters and killing off plants and wildlife.

A highlight of the sea voyage was an encounter with a group of dolphins. Like in whale watching back home, we maneuvered the boat around and kept spotting the surfacing dolphins. Also at sea was a flight of while pelicans. I think I got a very good shot of them. Maye soon, you will be able to judge.

Birds! We are in the salt water of Florida Bay

Dolphins. Tracking them down and watching them was much like Whale Watching with Orcas, back home.

Here is an Osprey on its nest with a baby looking out!

While I was sitting by the marina store trying to charge the cell phone, Dodie went off to look for manatees. Just see what photos she came back with! What a hunter!

Dodie hunted down a pair of Manatee while I was trying to find an internet connection.

So after all, we were happy we came to and stayed in Flamingo. This is being written at 4:30 p.m., though, and the day (and night) is not yet over. It rained heavily when we were on the boats. Out tent could be flooded. The mosquitoes are no doubt planning their operations, scheduled to launch soon. And probably our neighbours have been drinking all afternoon, to get in the mood to talk all night. And oh, don't mean to whine but the wind has switched around to be headwind for tomorrow as we head north, and the freezing temps are forecast for tonight. It's all grist for the mill though, and in the ends adds to the fun!

Where we went on our brackish water and salt water trips. Following the brackish water further would lead to the truly vast Whitewater Bay, where really "a man can go and never be found".

Pizza at the Buttonwood Cafe in Flamingo. Actually, their chicken burger was much better. The pizza had an unfortunate "cardboard" crust.

At the Buttonwood Cafe, the Key Lime Pie was homemade, and excellent. Very "lime-y".

Today's ride: 10 km (6 miles)
Total: 702 km (436 miles)

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