Our excursion became an expedition rather quickly after we
passed through the Apollo Beach Fee Booth. The difference between and
excursion and an expedition is that an excursion is leisure focused and is
often completed in a day. An expedition
is a purposeful, often strenuous, long journey with an element of danger. Expeditions are inherently dangerous and
often involve risks such as hypothermia, starvation, equipment failure and
hostile environments. This was not going
to be your regular run of the mill day of camping and birding.
At the fee booth, the attendant told us to check in at the
visitor center to let them know that we would be camping in the Mosquito
Lagoon. Ken had pre-reserved site #14 and the attendant at the visitor
center looked at Ken sternly and asked him if he knew how to get to #14.
He shrugged off the comment and said “Yes, yes he did know how to get there.”
At the time I did not understand that campsite #14 is the furthest campsite
from where we were soon to launch the sailboat. Perhaps the attendant
meant to say, did Ken know how he was going to get to
#14. At that time, I did not know how we
were going to get there either. I soon
found out that we would have to sail to the campsite before we could set up our
camp. It was 5 PM at this time and we had to drive back to the boat ramp, unload
the sailboat, unload the gear, assemble the sailboat, pack the gear on the boat
and then sail to the campsite. At this
point it was already after 6 and perhaps closer to 6:30 PM.
Up to this point the beach had been blocking much of the
wind. We reached the main channel where the wind was in full force, blowing directly
at from the south. Sailing into the wind requires the sailor to tack back
and forth at an angle to the wind making forward progress bit by bit. Each time
Ken tried to tack to the west, we would hit shallow water and have to tack back
to the east through the main channel. We did this repeatedly, tacking
east and then west, back and forth, back and forth. We would make
progress to the south as we tacked east towards the beach as the land would
block some of the wind but as we tacked to the west we would get the blown back
to the north. By the time the sun was down, light was fading fast, the
tide had turned and was working in concert with the wind pushing us away from
campsite #14. One of the small islands that we tried to get past had
three palm trees and we saw more of those threes than we wanted to. A few times we tried to pull in behind the
small islands to get a break from the wind but every time we did, we hit the
shallows. The trimaran sailboat we were
on also had pedals that could be lowered through an access port in front of the
seats. We deployed the pedals and used
them to make better progress into the wind or at least minimize the loss of
forward progress we would suffer on the west ward tacks. In this manner we were able to make it past
the three palm island.
It took another hour to make it past the next island and
another hour to pass the third one. It
was completely dark. We had finally
reached the point where the main channel curved over to the west and campsite
#14 was now only a mile or so away.
Little did we know what awaited us.
The wind was as strong as ever and the full brunt of the tide was upon
us. These two items combined made for
waves that were crashing over the front of the boat and the pontoons, splashing
me with seawater. As the pontoons dug
into the water, we would lose forward momentum.
Stronger gusts were now blasting hitting the boat. the Captain was
forced to furl the sail and wind it up around the mast, as there was no way to
sail at this point. Now we were no
longer sailing but pedal/paddling the boat.
We were both pedaling with everything we had when my paddle apparatus
broke. Normally the pedals worked such
that when I pushed on the right pedal, the left would return and visa
versa. Now both pedals were depressed
and there was no reciprocating action. I
pulled out my pedal apparatus and it was only the Captain left trying to
pedal. Now when we dug into the waves
water would gush up from the hole where the paddles would extend through the
hull. Amazingly this helped warm my
up. The water was much warmer than the
aur temperature and with the wind blowing I was getting rather cold. Without burning calories by pedaling I began
to shiver and this warm water splashing was not really doing much to warm me
up.
I then scooted up forward up, by the mast, and used the kayak paddle to attempt to make forward progress. It helped me warm up a bit but when I heard the Captain curse loudly, I knew something bad must have happened. Sure enough, his pedal mechanism also broke due to the extreme stress the wind, tides and waves were putting on it. We were now without power except for our kayak paddles which were no match for the elements. We were blown north and into a mangrove island. Here Ken suggested that we abandon campsite #14, return to the north and hopefully find another campsite that is not occupied. We then used the kayak paddles to get behind this little mangrove island and obtain a bit of shelter from the wind and waves. Ken got out his gear and was very surprised to see that is was now 10:20PM. We had been fighting the elements for over four hours! We got out some of the fried chicken we had brought for our dinner and I greedily ate three pieces. Food in my belly helped reduce the shivers and gave me the energy we needed to continue.
Ken managed to get a signal and determine that campsite #1 was not occupied. We turned tail and surrendered all southerly progress that we had made. Once we were headed north, we could unfurl the sail and let the wind take us there. It was still cold, mid 60’s, but not life threatening. I continued to paddle as best as I could to keep warm. We sailed past all the little islands we had gotten to know so well. When we passed the three palms we knew we were getting close. We ducked into the lee side of this island ant the Captain looked at the map to finetune our approach. I had been given a headlamp that was all but useless and it was so weak that when I shined it onshore at the campsite, we could not see any light reflecting off of the reflective paint on the campground sign.
We did it. As previously
stated, expeditions are inherently dangerous and often involve risks such as
hypothermia, starvation, equipment failure and hostile environments. We managed the cold from being in the wet environment
with the wind. We managed the equipment
failure when the paddle systems broke.
We managed the near starvation as dinner was delayed by four hours at
least. Finally, the hostile environment
goes without saying…
