January 21 The drive into Flamingo, the headquarters of Everglades National Park, starts in Florida City where we had checked into a Hampton Inn the night before. The first 10 miles was through vegetable farms where huge pumps on trucks were spraying water pumped out of shallow wells onto hundreds of acres of spinach, tomatoes, lettuce and some others. The spray went for at least 200 yards and crossed the road in several places, washing passing cars with an intense shower and completes loss of vision when it hit. Hundreds of migratory workers were lined up picking spinach at one place. This glimpse of where our vegetables come from was upsetting. These pumps were sucking the fresh water out from under the fields which were being fertilized heavily and sprayed with insecticides. Salt water intrudes when the freshwater occupying the pores in the soil and underlying limestone is removed. The chemical fertilizers and insecticides also percolate into these pores from above and therefore get pumped back out eventually. It is only a matter of time before this land will be unusable. We entered the park shortly after the car was washed with the mixture and I noticed it left quite a residue as it dried off the windshield.

There is nothing in Flamingo except for the nicely maintained park visitor center, campgrounds, boat slips, ramps and a few concessions. We reserved a chickee at South Joe River 10 miles or more into the wilderness off the wilderness waterway which runs from Flamingo northward through Whitewater Bay, a shallow body of water with many islands inside the park. A chickee is a platform set on 4x4s driven into the muddy bottom with a portable toilet attached on another platform. They are about 3 feet off the water and far enough away from shore to reduce the intensity of mosquitoes somewhat. They can be reserved for at most one night.

The trip into our chickee started along the 2 mile long Buttonwood Canal that the Park Service dug to connect the interior of the everglades with the Gulf. There is a plug across the southern most end with a hoist that can hoist boats out of the water and deposit them on the other side of the plug. We started in at 1:00 p.m. after shedding as much dunnage as possible which we left in the rental car. The rowing was on perfectly flat water, a sculler’s dream. The straight canal lined by mangroves immediately put us in the wilds. We rowed through Coots bay and then Tarpon Creek before entering Whitewater Bay. A strong current through Tarpon Creek help our ground speed significantly and Heather reported that our GPS said our speed at one point was over 5 knots. Usually we have been able to go about 3.5 knots under good conditions. Entering Whitewater Bay we headed West along shores that all look the same and are very confusing to navigate by. No wildlife was seen except one Widgeon a small duck whose song was listed in our wildlife guidebook simply as "quack". I don’t think we needed that observation.

Just before turning into the lagoon where our chickee was to be found we came upon a lone kayaker in a short green kayak. He hailed us and said he was lost. He had intended to go around the Mud lake loop near Flamingo. He was at least eight miles away from his route and moving slowly. We showed him our chart and where he was and he said he’d better get started back. I should have checked to see if he had water enough because there was no way he would make it back before dark. We both wondered about his fate during that night. Shortly after leaving him we turned a corner to see our hidden lagoon and the South Joe River chickee in the sun on the other side. We rowed up to it and unloaded easily. After setting up the tent we sat watching the sunset, looking for wildlife, and eating the packaged ham and cheese sandwiches we had brought for dinner. This was with no doubt the nicest campsite we have had and the most remote place I have been for a long time. The only wildlife we saw was a distant manatee head, an osprey and thousands of fish jumping everywhere, but the sunset was magnificent and sleep after rowing 10.5 miles in three hours came easily.