Everglades Exploration Network

Date: December 2001

Location: How many Mud Bays are there? This one is between Cross Bays
Hurddles Creek, in route between Turner River and Sunday Bay.

Condition: Shallow at low tide but deep enough to get through by staying along
the north shore. I have gone through this route a number of times since the
1970's and the conditions have not changed.

Views: 51

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Another one I'd like to see a report on that's in the same vicinity is the Left Hand Turner River, between the Turner and Halfway Creek. I tried this route shortly after Wilma but it was blocked by a lot of big blowdown near the Halfway Creek end. It looked to me like a tornado passed through here during the storm. Dave at the Ivey House might be a good info source since they run Halfway Creek canoe trips in season.
Last moth we ran into a guy in a ganu (sp?) at sweetwater. He came across through mud bays & said it was quite passable.

I haven't been through the "T" connecting 1/2way to the Turner in a few years. The Bushpaddlers were supposed to do a cleanup there at the end of last season, but instead they had us clean the loop that goes west from the end of the canal & then comes back from the lakes into the 1/2 way tunnels.
I manage to make a couple of day-trip loops up the Turner, across Hurddles Creek and back down the Lopez every year and never ran into any trouble in Mud Bay. The big sandbar at the Hurddles end is a good place to stop for a break on a low tide. If you are coming into Mud Bay from Hurddles and want to try something different, try cutting into either of the two little creeks you pass on the left before coming into the bay, and hug the north shoreline of the bay until you're back in the creek that connects to the Cross Bays. The tidal current keeps this route clear of silt and it's a nice alternative to paddle-poling across the Mud Bay on a low tide.
Attachments:
Have you (or anyone else) ever come in from the north through Hell's Half Acre? Looks intriguing. As I always say...if there's a way to do it harder...
The last time I've been on Lopez River was probably 2 decades ago and I don't recall
ever going down Lopez River toward the gulf, always up. So here's a question one of
you more-around-Everglades-City than Flamingo types might be able to answer:
Is it possible to hug the south river side and get out into the gulf without having my vista
destroyed by Chokoloskee? The charts and aerials show a number of little islands at the
mouth of the river but there's no way of knowing how well they protect the view.
The bad spot looks like the area just north of the 'L' in Lopez River on NOAA chart 11430.
I'm thinking about going out Lopez River to Picnic Key then to Collier Seminole SP to end
next years through trip.
The south side of the Lopez at Rabbit Key Pass is a mess of bars and mud flats and I've always had to stay in the channel to the north to keep from running aground. You may be able to sneak past them on a spring high tide. There is a creek that starts at 25°46'45.44"N 81°20'10.85"W and runs out to a back bay south of RK Pass but I have no idea if this is passable. Might be a something to look at on my next weekend trip down to EC.
I saw that creek, I'd like to know if it's passable. So what's the bottom line?
We can't get out of Lopez River without seeing Chokoloskee? It's bad enough
we have Marco Island on the horizon at the northwest boundary of the park.
Of course the worst one is that damn antenna on 248 street west of Miami
that radiates a beacon of human intrusion all the way down Shark River Slough.
Should I start on sound scape? We can write off everything around Everglades
City but to even hear airboats at Willy Willy, please!
You should be able to swing into Turtle Key pass without much sight of Chock & there's plenty of water there...but if you wanna be sure, just come down Huston. As for the creek that Keith's talking about, it looks pretty tight from the air, but the sediment plume @ the mouth looks like it gets good flow & it appears on the NOAA chart, so someone's run it...

As for the Channel 6 tower, that's a family landmark, my brother's farm is a block from the tower, so no matter how lost or drunk we got, we could always find our way home! It's kinda like Mt. Trashmore & the Turkey Point, they're ugly, but you'll never get lost going to Black Point & Convoy Point.

Any airboats you heard @ WW better have a badge!

Now you wanna talk motorboats...20 years ago I did the waterway & didn't see another boat for 5 days, nowadays you're getting passed multiple times per day. We need a WWW Wilder Wilderness Waterway.
The airboats we hear at Willy Willy are coming from the stair step. BCNP
has outlawed motorized stuff inside the loop at Loop Road but not outside
the loop. I've never been there but my son, who as run the stair step, says
it's I-95. Indeed if you look at the aerials it's pretty clear. I heard airboats
on my through trip this New Years at Plate Creek Chickee. I think a good
buffer for ENP would be to extend the BCNP no motorized vehicle rule to
everything south of Tamiami Trail.
Look at Willy Willy and let your eyes wander northeast, before '47 crude
airboats routinely came down from what is now called Michell Landing
to Willy Willy. My uncle airboated down there, shortly after the war.
That's why Alan was probing around Willy Willy in December, he wants
to canoe (crawl) down to Willy Willy from Loop Road.

But wait, forget that, lets heard it from Old Coots - You took the
WW 20 years ago?
The first time I went down the WW was 1975. No permits and Onion Key
was the best camp on the route! Let's hear from the Early Years folks!
All I remember was no skeeters, we just slept on the chickee floor without tents, and no motorboats...hell no other boats. Which was a good thing, we permitted on an 8 day route & did it in 5 1/2. Never saw another soul until the last night @ S. Joe.

Came in the middle of the night arguing about whether it was the right way or not...and there was some discussion of the application of firearms to the mutineers...and then we got to the chickee ( I was right about the turnoff) & there were 2 guys in sleeping bags on one.

We unloaded, set up, cooked, talked & caroused for a couple of hours & they DID NOT MOVE. Woke up the next day & it turned out that they were a couple of German tourists.

Apparently the combination of recent headlines involving dead german tourists & references to 9mm slugs to the head caused them to play dead all night long!


Did it again last month with my daughter and hardly an hour passed without seeing motorized craft. Only chickee we had to ourselves was Plate Creek...cause it's a single. & the bugs & gators were thick all trip long. I forgot to mention that in '89 we barely saw any gators and those we saw were non-habituated, this time they were all over & way too habituated at the camps.

I think the improved reliability, size & speed of motorized craft, combined with GPS nav has extended the daytrippers range dramatically!

We need our own Wilderness Waterway...a Wilder Wilderness Waterway...off the beaten (or propellered) path.
4 years ago I did the WW solo (10 days, 189 miles) and didn't see another human being for 5 days, and when I finally did it was kayakers. It was another 2 days before I saw a motorized craft. I did hear the airboats from Plate Creek, though. This was early in the season right after Thanksgiving. It is still possible, but I'll grant you not likely, to get some extended solitude on the Waterway
Well, Terry...you asked for old timers. I was out in the Turner River and Lopez River area, Goodland and the 10,000 Islands back in '65 and '66 before I got drafted. We used a homebuilt, unstable squeezebox boat, made of plywood and oakum. There was at least one guy still living out on one of the keys at that time-permanently. I got his name around here somewhere. I ran into him in Goodland picking up supplies one day. He was an artist. That's back when the bridge into Goodland was opened by a woman who got out and inserted a big wooden key into the center of the road, and walked around in circles to turn the bridge for boats to come in. We would go over to Goodland and stay in a cabin there, that had housed workers at the clam cannery in Marco years before. There were a few of these cabins that some enterprising soul had moved over to Goodland, and rented out. They might be there yet. Loop Road had a bar in a trailer with a hand painted sign out front "Trouble City". We did not go in for beers.Monroe Station seemed to be run by a guy with one eye...his name might have been Ray? Finally did the WW complete in March of '86, I think. We went 4 days without seeing anyone but jets high overhead. Got a permit from NPS, but stayed anywhere we felt like it. Best spot was Highland Beach, followed by Camp Lonesome.Also liked Graveyard Creek, except the raccoons were the worst there. Never did like the "chickees", never will. Love the Everglades.

Reply to Discussion

RSS

© 2024   Created by Keith W.   Powered by

Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service