There was a guest register attached to the signpost on the dock where visitors could sign in, and I saw that no one had been there in two days, probably due to the overcast weather that looked like it was going to get worse. I was exhausted from my crossing of Florida Bay, and decided to take a chance on breaking the law and camp on Indian Key. I was beginning to feel like a fugitive, with all this hiding and illegal camping, but there was no reasonable alternative. I moved the kayak from the dock area to the overgrown north side of the island and pulled it under the concealing mangroves, just in case someone did show up. After pitching my tent in the densest part of the thicket, I spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the ruins of the town and examining the strange plants on the island.
That evening as I cooked dinner, I noticed the wind was steadily increasing and the seas smashing into the island were getting bigger. I turned on the VHF radio to get a NOAA report and was shocked to hear that Tropical Storm Keith was headed for Florida. I was so excited about arriving in the Keys that I didn’t give the weather a second thought, until now. I thought I was safe from hurricanes, traveling so late in the year, but this late season storm was predicted to move ashore sometime Tuesday night, the warning area extending from Cape Sable north almost to Tampa. Indian Key was just barely out of its path, but I knew that such a storm could change course with little warning. Keith was packing sustained winds of 65 knots at the moment. If it built to hurricane force, even if it went to the north, the Keys would get their share of heavy weather. I knew what hurricanes were all about. Though I was only five at the time, I remembered Camille, the killer hurricane that devastated the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 1969. Even 100 miles inland, we had wind speeds over 100 knots and thousands of sea gulls had been carried to our town, trapped in the eye of the storm.
I knew Indian Key was no place to be in such a storm, but I felt secure for now. It was more than 24 hours away, so I decided to sleep there one night, and make a decision as to what to do next based on the morning forecast. I figured I could always paddle back to Islamorada and check into the Gold Key Motel if the Keys were going to be in for a real blow.
The wind was blowing a steady 30 knots by daybreak, and the sea was white with foam. My first reaction was to break camp and get to secure shelter on Islamorada, but the radio report insisted that Keith would make landfall in an area just south of Tampa. The storm would not reach hurricane status. Small craft were advised to stay in port throughout the Keys, however, and a storm surge of four feet was expected in the local area.
I walked around Indian Key to evaluate the situation. The streets in mid-island were high enough to be safe from a four-foot storm surge, and the cisterns, five to six feet deep and lined with stones would provide shelter from wind and flying debris. I decided to stay. No one would venture out to the island in such weather, and I needed more rest. I moved my tent from the mangrove thicket and pitched it on one of the streets. Someone had left an axe on the dock, and with it I cut heavy stakes and drove them into the rock ground to secure my shelter. I cleared dead branches and other potential projectiles out of the immediate area and moved my kayak near the tent, weighting it down with large stones.
These preparations made, there was nothing else to do but wait. I walked to the windward side of the island and watched 40-knot gusts blow spray off the tops of turbulent whitecaps that filled the horizon. The wind smelled clean, the way it always does before a storm. Standing there, I remembered seeing a halo around the full moon two nights before as I crossed Florida Bay. I had read somewhere that a halo around the moon was a sign of an approaching storm.
Throughout the night the wind howled and rain poured, but the resilient trees on the island didn’t break under the strain and my tent held together. The radio reported 70-knot gusts on Cape Sable, just 35 miles to the north. On Wednesday morning the seas were still chaotic, but I was low on drinking water so I broke camp and paddled under the Overseas Highway to the more protected waters on the Gulf side.
Paddling west under the bridge in choppy seas that kept me soaked, I reached Fiesta Key by noon. I tied up to a seawall at a KOA campground to top off my water supply. A couple of vacationers fishing from the seawall offered me a cold beer and said tent sites were $30.00 dollars a night in the campground. This changed the plans I’d entertained about camping there, but after a couple more beers and a brief account of my trip, I learned that these two guys were experienced campers and paddlers themselves, earning their living as counselors taking troubled juveniles on 28-day wilderness canoe trips. Hearing of my difficulties finding places to camp, they offered space for my tent in their campsite, so I avoided the fee and enjoyed my first hot shower in almost a month.
The next morning was Thanksgiving Day. I left the KOA early after procuring a couple of green coconuts from one of the palms there. I paddled on to the west, hoping to find a waterfront restaurant where I could reward myself for reaching the Keys with a proper Thanksgiving feast. I found nothing along my route that day though, and settled for a can of cold ravioli for lunch and rice and tuna for dinner. I thought of my friends and family back home in Mississippi with their turkey and dressing; sweet potato pies and cranberry sauce. But I wouldn’t have traded that day with any of them. It felt good in a perverse way to eat such a simple meal on that abundant holiday, like a kid playing hooky while everyone else was in school.
Friday morning the wind was strong out of the east, so I decided to experiment with an improvised downwind sail, something I wanted to try in case I needed it on the long open-water crossings in the Caribbean. I had a parafoil kite, often used by sea kayakers for downwind sailing, but it required 20 or more knots of steady wind to stay airborne and pull the kayak. I had tried it once before the trip, but so far had not had such strong tailwinds again. This time I used my spare paddle as a mast and a plastic tarp as a makeshift spinnaker. It pulled the kayak along surprisingly well, and I sailed effortlessly for 15 miles to Marathon Key.
Needing groceries, I stowed the sail rig and paddled into one of the residential canals that run like streets between the waterfront homes of the island. I tied up to a private dock with the permission of the owner and learned that as usual, I had landed more than two miles from a store. I set out walking until I found the supermarket, stopping on the way back to treat myself to much needed fresh vegetables and fruit at a Pizza Hut salad bar.
Just west of Marathon Key, I spotted an apparently deserted islet on the Atlantic side of the highway and headed for it, always preferring the seclusion of an island campsite to any spot reachable by road. The shore of this island was rocky, and battered by waves, much like Indian Key, but there was one strip of sand that looked like a possible landing site. A grove of weather-beaten casuarinas trees and clumps of low bushes was the extent of the island’s vegetation. I could see no signs proclaiming private property or “No Camping.”
A speedboat with a well-tanned young man at the helm and two bikini-clad babes stretched out on the bow blasted by me enroute to the same island as I struggled against the wind, which was now against me, blowing 20 knots and kicking up a nasty chop. The driver gave me a contemptuous glance as he passed, obviously proud of his sleek vessel and sexy crew, and probably regarding my kayak as a “non-boat.” I slogged steadily on, still a half mile out, while the powerboater circled the tiny island looking for a place to land or anchor. In those conditions, he didn’t have a chance. I approached the jagged shore with impunity and made a perfect surf landing on a pocket of sand between the rocks. I carried my gear to a level spot under the pines and began pitching my tent, while the man with his disappointed female companions circled, tried unsuccessfully to anchor close to shore, then gave up and jammed the throttle wide open for Marathon after one last hateful look in my direction. I jumped up and down, waving and grinning.
“Sell it and get a kayak!” I yelled after him.
As the boat disappeared into the distance, I felt a great sense of peace and security on the tiny island that was
as inaccessible as a fortress as long as rough seas pounded its rocks. I walked the perimeter. The entire island was maybe 60 yards long and 30 yards wide. There were signs that others had camped there, but probably only in better weather. The island was so small it was not shown on my map, so for lack of a better name, I called it simply: “The Rock.” I stayed two nights, reading most of the day on Saturday while a steady rain pattered the roof of my tent.
I left The Rock on Sunday morning for the crossing to Bahia Honda, the first key on the other side of the Seven-mile Bridge that connects the Middle Keys to the Lower Keys – the group that includes Key West. The sea was rough on the exposed crossing, and I paralleled the long bridge from about a quarter mile out on the Atlantic side, drawing stares, waves, and horn blowing from the stream of traffic above. On the other side of the bridge, Bahia Honda State Park offers campgrounds, but I only stopped to take a cold freshwater shower. I had my eye on another tiny island like The Rock that I could see southwest of the park beaches. I waited until sunset and headed for it. There were no trees on this island, and wide sandy beaches encircled most of it, making landing easy. There was however, a sign planted squarely in the center. After stepping ashore, I could see that it read: “Restricted – Bird Nesting Area.”
I looked around carefully. I could see no birds or law enforcement officers, so I pulled the kayak up on the beach and set up camp in spite of the sign. I knew it wasn’t nesting season, and I was getting disgusted with all the signs that seemed to sprout from every beach, telling me what I could or couldn’t do. It reminded me of the old ‘70’s song by the Five Man Electrical Band about the signs, and I sang it out loud as I put up my tent in the fading light:
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign, blockin’ all the scenery, breakin’ my mind… Do this, don’t do that… Can’t you read the sign?
I felt more and more isolated from society. I couldn’t follow all the petty little rules concocted by people who had no idea what it was like to be immersed in the elements day after day. I had no intention of breaking any real laws or causing harm to any person or property, but I just couldn’t do this trip without breaking somebody’s “No Trespassing” rules on an almost daily basis.
The soft sand near the sign felt like a bed after spending two nights on the unyielding surface of The Rock. I slept peacefully and left at dawn. Key West was only 40 miles away. I paddled on, suspended by calm, transparent water three or four feet deep above an endless expanse of grass flats. Occasionally I would see a rocky hole in the grass to break the monotony, and in one such hideaway I drifted over a three-foot nurse shark and stopped to prod it with the paddle. The shark took off, but a green moray eel emerged from a crevice and snapped at the end of the paddle. Seeing the bottom and the abundant life beneath my hull added a new dimension to paddling. I stopped often to take a closer look with mask, snorkel, and fins, towing the kayak along as I swam.
Later that day, as I approached Sugarloaf Key from about five miles offshore, the wind increased and I punched through choppy seas paying little attention to the water, my gaze fixed on my destination and my thoughts wandering to where I would spend the night. Suddenly, my left hand felt as if it had been stung by dozens of wasps, and I jerked it back to see the stringy purple tentacles of a Portuguese man-of-war clinging to the skin. I had seen plenty of these creatures floating on the surface since I’d been in the Keys, but somehow I did not see this one and my paddle scooped up the trailing tentacles and swept them right onto my hand. I thrashed my arm wildly in the water, trying desperately to rid myself of the burning strings that clung tenaciously to my hand. The pain was excruciating, even after I managed to wash away all the stinging cells. I had been stung plenty of times by jellyfish, but this was not even in the same league. I could not believe the pain. My entire left arm quickly became paralyzed from the shoulder down, forcing me to grip the paddle in the center with my right hand and slowly propel the boat towards shore with a figure eight stroke. I had Benadryl in my first aid kit, but unfortunately I had stored it in the stern compartment where it was unreachable from the cockpit. After almost three hours of one-handed paddling, I reached Sugarloaf Key, where there was another KOA, advertised as the southernmost KOA in the U.S. I tied up in some mangroves and took two Benadryl capsules. Then I found my way to the showers and a bought a cold Coke. My arm was still numb, so my paddling for the day was done. This was definitely another one of those unexpected incidents that I had never dreamed of while planning the trip. I was just lucky that I had not been even farther from land when it happened. Feeling drowsy from the Benadryl, I pitched my tent in the campground and went to bed at dark.
By morning my arm had recovered, so I left the KOA at daybreak, continuing on towards Key West. I passed deserted islands all morning, most posted with large signs that read: “U.S. Government Property, Do Not Approach Within 100 Yards. Trespassers will be prosecuted.” These islands were obviously part of Key West Naval Air Station. Fighter jets streaked overhead and a low-flying Navy helicopter turned around and passed back over me for a closer look.
That afternoon I reached Stock Island, but still had not found a likely campsite. I didn’t want to arrive late in Key West, because my intention was to simply circle the island, spend a few hours taking in the sights of Duval Street, and then turn around and head back east to Key Largo.
The only likely place to pitch a tent that I found was a deserted strip of land behind the campus of the Florida Keys Community College. I set up camp there in the concealment of a fallen pine tree, and undetected, slept until morning. There were more military installations along my route as I approached Key West from the Gulf side, including arrays of satellite dishes, bristling antennas, warships at anchor, and huge blimps with the words “Atlantic Sentry” emblazoned on their sides. I had seen some of these blimps the day before, so high they appeared as a white speck in the sky. I assumed they were used to keep an eye on Cuba, just 90 miles to the south.
I slowly rounded the southwest end of Key West, passing more government property, military residences, private beaches, and marinas. I could find no likely landing spot, so I circled the island until I was back on the Atlantic side and headed east again. There I passed resort hotel beaches crowded with sunbathers and swimmers, including several topless women. I stopped at a beach concession that rented windsurfers to inquire about leaving my kayak on the beach while I went into town. Permission was denied, so I pushed off the beach and paddled on. I was ready to forget the whole idea of visiting Key West when I passed one more large resort hotel and noticed a woman sweeping the sidewalk in front of a small building that housed an array of rental catamarans, windsurfers, motor scooters, and bicycles. I was sure she would send me away like the others, but decided it was worth one more try. I had paddled a long way out of my way to get there.
Seeing me land, the woman, who looked about my age, came down to greet me. She was wearing a nameplate that said “Lisa.” I explained my dilemma and she said she would check with the manager. She came back a few minutes later and said it would be fine to leave my boat there for a few days. I was shocked at this offer and quickly pulled the kayak up on the beach, telling her I only needed a few hours to look around and have a decent meal.
The rental office where Lisa worked was called Key West Watersports, and was a concession of the Casa Marina Resort Hotel. She introduced me to Steve, another watersports instructor who was interested in kayaking, and I told them my story and let Steve take the kayak out for a spin. Steve came back with a wide grin and a dozen questions, offering to buy me a couple of beers later if I would tell him more about sea kayaking. I didn’t plan to stay until nightfall, but the prospect of drinking in a bar sounded good, and I also liked the idea of hanging around and talking to Lisa.
Feeling my kayak was in good hands at Watersports, I ambled into downtown Key West with no worries, glad to be away from the water and among people for a brief time. I found my way to Duval Street and followed it to the west end, where each day
tourists and citizens of Key West alike come to Sunset Celebration. It was amazing seeing hundreds of people turn out just to watch the sun go down. Mallory Square was alive with activity when I got there. There were musicians playing: a old West Indian black with steel drums, a young Rastafarian with dreadlocks pounding out a reggae pulse on a conga, and a fellow wearing a kilt and playing bagpipes. There were jugglers and circus-style tightrope acts; a lady with a 9-foot python that tourists could touch for a dollar, and vendors selling everything from popcorn to green coconuts. When the sun finally did sink into the ocean, the entire crowd clapped and cheered, as if this were the first time it had ever happened.
After dark I left the square and met Steve at Turtle Kraal’s, his favorite bar. Steve had been to the Bahamas as crew on a sailboat, and he raved about the clear water and great diving to be found there. This talk and the island atmosphere at Sunset Celebration left me anxious to get going to the islands. But Key West was an interesting stopover, and the friendly people I encountered made it tempting to spend more time there. Steve told me that I could get away with sleeping on the beach near my kayak, if I scaled the fence surrounding Watersports when the security guard was on the other end of the beach. This tactic worked out fine the first night, so I decided that more than one night was in order.
The following day a reporter from the Key West Citizen got wind of my arrival by kayak, and came to the beach at Watersports where I posed for a photo beside my boat and answered his many questions. I hung around the shop talking with Lisa and some of the other employees, and ended up back on Duval Street that night. I was having fun, and before I realized it, a few hours turned into four days, and my money was disappearing in quantities that would have lasted me weeks out in the wilds, camping and paddling. In this short time I made real friends and felt at home, and the temptation to stay was strong. Many before me who visited this island for a few short days were still there years since. It was time to move on and escape this potential trap. Steve and Lisa were on the beach to shove me off when I had the kayak packed and ready to leave.
On Island Time: Kayaking the Caribbean Page 6
