Please share your WW stories!

[Daniel Madrigal]

With my trip coming up quickly at less than 3 months away, I would like everyone who has done the trip to post a couple of their top memories, experiences, or things to do along the way. 

[0pgwn2lta8ogo]

Woods river, Highland Beach and the Nightmare route are favorites of mine. I also enjoy The Watson's place for its history.

[Dave Briggs]

I just did a 8 day trip read here....http://www.wtpaddlers.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2353

I liked Nightmare and Labyrinth

[Kim Gass]

I really appreciate your trip report in as much as I am doing the same trip next month! It will be interesting to compare notes.As for the Labyrinth I took your hint and copied it off Google Maps and will take a paper copy to mark up to supplement my chart and GPS.

[Dave Briggs]

Kim

Check out my original post in this forum "Advice for kayak trip", there's some extra info i put on about how I packed.

Dave

[1tu8xnt58987b]

Dave, great reading on your trip.  Love the pics.  I'm planning a "microcruiser" trip sometime around  the end of March or early April.

[Kim Gass]

This will be my fourth Everglades trip..and I am in a canoe..so what works for you won't for me.

 

I always take too much food and always too much water. And enough warm clothes. I have had at least one night of frost on all of my last three ten day trips. I don't do shorts and short sleeves though.  Long sleeve cotton is cooler and bug proof.

 

This year going later perhaps I can be warm all the time. Last year..it was warmer in Maine than the Everglades while I was there at the beginning of March. Everyone at home noticed that.

[Dave Briggs]

Kim, I am already planning a CANOE trip for next Feb!!!. What type of canoe are you using,solo or tandem??Do you use the big plastic cans for water as there isn't such a space issue in a canoe??

Dave

[Dave Briggs]

Terry,

 I'm itching to go again but a long way from Cape Cod MA!!!!

Dave

[0pgwn2lta8ogo]

Dave, I just finished my trip earlier this month in a solo Wenonah wilderness canoe. Spent eleven days on the water. Packed water in two hard side five gallon plastic containers.  Raccoons can chew through softer, thin wall jugs.  filled small water bottles each morning so water was handy during the day in canoe.  I took the recommended one gallon per day of water but found that I only used about three quarter gallon per day. This did, however, give me some extra in case I had to extend the trip longer than planned. 

Michael

[Kim Gass]

I paddle what might be called a performance solo. Its an older but in great shape Curtis Nomad. 15 feet long, 26 inches wide. Not quite as fast as a kayak like yours but it does an honest  4mph in quiet water with no current. Speed is important in case --no make that when the tide runs against you.  I use the hard plastic water jugs for water as there is no hard shell all around as in a kayak to protect anything.  My Dromedary  is my day water bottle. Its kind of like nursing a b**b. Mine is some 20 years old, the heavy black kind. I just wish it were anything but black as the water sometimes gets warm. I pack a 7 liter square water can in one end and a 4 liter just inback of my seat. I do lots of Far North tripping but a canoe pack is not what you want. I have lots of little drybags roped together and that way I can haul them via rope out of the canoe.

 

My husband came with me once (normally I solo) in a kayak. He packed it so tight that I had to hold him by his ankles on the Sunday Bay chickee (it had no ladder then. I don't know if it does now) to unload the hatches.  Still the tent would not come so we hauled the whole boat up.

 

Like Michael I carry a gallon a day. Just in case I tip the jug over...being a klutz. would be terrible to abort a trip due to running out of water.

[Dave Briggs]

Yes, I agree, makes sense having the hard sided water containers.And a gallon a day worked for me too.

I have an Old Town Penobscot 16' which is great but I think I might need something bigger for a 9 to 10 day tandem trip. I was thinking of renting from the Park or the Everglades hostel in Homestead.

Thanks Kim and Mike for your input. Despite the fact that I just got back I'm already looking to next year. Will definitely spend more time poking around the creeks in the interior,

[Kim Gass]

Not a problem. I am trying to pack for the Everglades inbetween snowshoveling outings. We got 16 inches today. I missed my opportunity to get to the shed with the camping gear. It got plowed in again.  Getting more in the next few days. We are back up to about five feet on the ground..so laugh you Floridians! (In the summer we get the last laugh) Tomorrow is move snow day with the snowblower and Sunday skiing.  Monday Everglades dreaming.

 

But goldang it I am going... I am about five hours north of the Cape.

 

Carpool...