Surprisingly, since our first two trips out to Canaveral National Seashore, it has not moved an inch. As of this writing, it's still located on the space coast of Florida, nestled between the Atlantic and the Titusville/New Smyrna area.
Let's get the logistics out of the way really quickly this time. You check in at the ranger's station (that blue pin on the coast up there). Don't get there before 9:00 a.m. or you'll be stuck waiting around. After you check in there (make sure you get the coordinates of you island if you've never been here before. The ranger station can provide you with coordinates.), drive around to Riverbreeze Park (green pin), where you'll be leaving your car for the duration of your trip. For those of you with learning disabilities, the red pin is the island. If you want more details, visit my first blog about this run. The only difference between that one and this one is that you're going about 1,486 feet further (yeah, I Google Mapped it).
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| Not just a porn finder |
Of all the boating trips I've blogged about, this one was certainly more eventful than all the rest. There was a freak windstorm, exploding manatee, thieving cranes, and alien algae. We laughed. We cried. We laugh-cried.
Sadly, almost all of the unique moments of this trip went undocumented. I just wasn't on the ball with my camera this time. You'll just have to trust that I'm telling you the truth. If you doubt me, you should know that I regularly tell cashiers that they've undercharged me or given me too much change. Keep that in mind when you begin to feel that sting of doubt in the back of your brain.
This trip started like any other. The sun was shining. The birds were chirping. The Blakes were loading.
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| The see me loadin'... |
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| ... they hatin' |
By this point, we were well behind schedule, and several things had already gone terribly wrong. We bought a 5-gallon bucket at a bait shop and filled it with 3 dozen shrimp. Unfortunately, on the ride from the bait shop to the boat launch, our lunatic driver, *coughNickcough*, caused the bucket to jump around in the boat, relieving us of the lid and most of the water in it. A refill of water and a tarp for a cover, and we were back in business. However, it was at this point that we realized Nick's tent was missing. We spent 10 minutes searching for it. Another 10 minutes re-searching for it. 5 minutes deciding that Nick's driving may have launched his tent out of the boat, and Nick was off to drive around looking for it. As is normal in these situations, we almost immediately found the tent in the back of Blake's boat.
So, for those keeping track, we were 0 for 2 before our boats even touched water.
But touch the water, our boats finally did. And we were off...
My buddy Chet is never satisfied with his life unless he's doing back flips off of things, so he couldn't pass up the opportunity to flip off of a pylon in the water. Before he climbed the pole, though, he was visited by one of our dolphin friends that are everywhere out here. This one was especially curious.
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| "Wassup? I can haz fish?" |
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| "Look, I'm flipping!... again" |
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| "Dude, I totally can't believe you flipped again. It never gets old, even after the millionth time" |
After the short stop, we were back on our way...
At the halfway point, we stopped to do some grubbin', pissin', drinkin' and restin'... the four essential refueling techniques of any serious kayakers.
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| A very rare picture of the elusive Me. The curse of any photographer. |
After a short refueling stop, we were back on the water, headed to Kayampia 3.
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| I loved the name of their 2nd boat, "Plan B" |
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| This was the last picture taken before the shit hit the fan |
About a mile from our island, things began to get ugly. Maybe we had angered mother nature by urinating on her trees, or maybe she was just tired of Chet flipping off of everything. Either way, she had had enough and was about to try and fuck our lives up.
As you can see from all the pictures above, the water was about as calm as it can get. We had zero issues. In a matter of minutes, though, the wind kicked up to about 50 miles an hour*, and the waves grew to swells.
*** Okay.. in the interest of full disclosure, I have no idea what the winds kicked up to. It could have been 20. Could have been 60. What do I look like? A meteorologist? I don't fucking think so.
Anyway, back to the swells. At first we were just getting little splashes of water, cresting over the cockpits of the boats. That friendly water play quickly escalated to dangerous when these small splashes turned into boat-sinking quality waves. Every wave that hit my canoe dumped at least a gallon of water into the boat. In just a few minutes, I was ankle-deep in standing water. We tried to point our noses into the waves to prevent being assaulted by the current but that only put water into the front of the boats, or forced us sideways, right back into the predicament we were trying to avoid.
I take full reponsibility for what happened next. We were getting absolutely pounded by the waves, and I seriously feared that we would sink out there, so I suggested that we attempt to dock at island 13 - as we were passing it at that moment - and wait it out. Chet and Blake followed suit. It only took a couple seconds to realize what a pants-shittingly poor mistake we had made. In the deeps, these waves were beating us up like my father used to beat me. The waves on shore, however, laid into us like a UFC fighter. (I'm kidding. I never had a dad) Every wave that hit our boats threatened to overturn us, and dumped no less than 3 gallons inside at a time. To make matters worse, these are not sandy beaches. These are rocky shores. Every time my fiberglass boat smashed into the rocks, it felt like it would put a hole in it. We couldn't row against it, so we had no choice but to get out and drag the boats back out into the father beating. With my shoeless feet mangled from the stones, I pushed back out into the deeps and put my shitty little trolling motor on full bore (aka: "gentle pushing mode") and hauled ass out of there at .5 mph, the waves still leaving behind a wet gift with every hit.
We were on roll..... for about 10 seconds. I pointed my boat out towards the deeps, but the waves forced me back into a cropping of rocks in the middle of the water. Again, every thrashing wave filled my boat with gallons of water. I probably had 40 gallons of water in my boat by this point. Mix that with about 300 pounds of gear, a heavy battery and a motor, and you have an extremely difficult task at hand, trying to pull it off of the rocks, through the pounding waves, and back out to the ocean.
Luckily, my boy Blake stayed behind to help me pull it free. We righted the boat, blasted the motor (well, "blasted" is too strong of a word), and back out we went. The water in the canoe was shin-deep at this point and while the rim of the canoe was previously about 8 inches out of the water, I was maybe 2 inches above water level now. Still, not far to go. While adjusting in my seat, my hand brushed my right pocket and felt a solid, rectangular object. I immediately knew what it was. During the chaos, I had neglected to put my precious iPhone into my dry box. Fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuckfuckfuckfuck!
A few minutes later we made it to island 14. More rock thrashing, more water in the boats. Dragging the boat up enough onto shore was a 4 man job. I would bet that the canoe weighed close to 800 pounds at this point, and the grinding of the bottom of the canoe against the rocks made me cringe, thinking that a hole would seriously ruin this weekend. We rushed to get all of the gear out of the boats and onto dry land which, for this group, happened surprisingly quickly. We probably purged the boat of its load in 15 seconds. Chet fashioned a bailing device (see: bottle with top cut off) and bailed the boat until we could flip it, and the water, out of it. During the flipping process, a very "Final Destination" moment occurred. Chet bumped the throttle on the motor just as Blake was either reaching down or falling (I forget), and Blake ended up with a pretty nasty gash on his finger. Suck it up, Blakester. It's just your flesh. I lost a damn iPhone. You can regenerate flesh. A regenerating iPhone won't be released until at LEAST 2015.
All in all, it could have certainly been worse. But I'm a glass-half-empty kinda guy and shit certainly could have been a hell of a lot BETTER. Either way, we made it alive and with functional watercraft, so I suppose you can classify it as a success, given the hand we were dealt.
And then...
There was Kayampia!
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| This, my friends, is what paradise looks like |
Remember that bait bucket I mentioned at the beginning of this blog? Well, we didn't have time to fish the first night there, so we put fresh water in it, attached an aerator, and left it out overnight. In the morning, this is what we found...
I know that picture doesn't tell you much but believe me when I tell you, there were no shrimp left in that bucket. We had seen some Sandhill Cranes stomping around the island the night before, looking all gray and craney, and we believe that they dunked their long necks down into our (expensive) bucket of bait and had themselves a delicious, stolen dinner. The next time I see them, they'll have a fight on their hands. We have had horrible luck with our bait. I think we may be cursed.
And then....
There were fajitas!!
After fajitas, I walked down to the water to discover a baby manatee about 6 feet out in the water, resting on the rocks, and staring up at me, just chillin'. I called the other guys over and I attempted to "molest the wildlife", as they say, and walk out to give him a pet. I didn't have time to go get my camera so (as I stated regretting in the beginning of this post) there are no pics. Unfortunately, he turned and swam away just as I was about to molest him. Psht. Whatever. His loss.
We did some fishin'..
Some relaxin'.....
Some.... what the fuck??....
After fajitas, I walked down to the water to discover a baby manatee about 6 feet out in the water, resting on the rocks, and staring up at me, just chillin'. I called the other guys over and I attempted to "molest the wildlife", as they say, and walk out to give him a pet. I didn't have time to go get my camera so (as I stated regretting in the beginning of this post) there are no pics. Unfortunately, he turned and swam away just as I was about to molest him. Psht. Whatever. His loss.
We did some fishin'..
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| "help.....me" |
Some relaxin'.....
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| It's me again. Holy shit. This is a record. |
Some.... what the fuck??....
Some frisbee competitions...
The lagoon around the side of the island looked like it would offer some decent fishing. We caught some good bait fish with the cast net, but that was about all, besides (wait for it.... wait for it..............) FUCKING CATFISH. I have come to the conclusion that I hate catfish. I hate their ugly faces and weird grunting noises. I hate everything they stand for. If you were a catfish (yes, you. the person reading this), I would punt you against a tree. I honestly despise them.
However, this lagoon was absolutely packed with manatee. I probably saw 15 of them in the 2 hours or so I was out there. Don't look for them in the pictures, though. They're hard to catch on film. Unlike dolphin, you can't estimate where they'll come up for air next. Every once in a while you'll just see a whiskered snout pop up and then disappear.
When night fell on the 2nd day, Nick and I decided to go out for a bit of night kayakin'. The water was like glass and the light pollution was almost nonexistent. The sky was cloudless and the stars were as bright as you've ever seen them. Nick and I made our way out about a mile and decided flash our lights at the rest of our crew back at the island, to try and make them think we were in trouble. It didn't work. They weren't coming. They just blinked their lights back at us, mocking us. Luckily for me and Nick, we weren't in trouble. Just drunk. So we chilled on the calm water in complete darkness for a while (which is, seriously, one of the most peaceful things a person can do) and headed back in to get the other guys and go back out.
We all headed back out into the deeps and did it all over again. Smoking cigarettes, conversing and drinking beers in near complete darkness, floating out on the water. I really can't say enough about what an experience that is. If you ever get the opportunity, I strongly suggest spending some time far out in the ocean at night. This isn't the first time I've done it, but it was certainly the best.
However, on the way back, shit started to get a little strange. I was rowing the canoe, having removed the gear, battery and motor. When I glanced down at the water while I was rowing, I thought I saw the water glow. I passed it off as moonlight reflecting off the whites of the wake I was creating. Several times, I looked back down and had to question whether or not that was all I was seeing.
We arrived back at the island, docked the canoe, and Nick and I decided to go back out to take a trip around the neighboring islands. We made it about 100 yards before we rounded the edge of the island, cutting off all light from the fire. When we were in complete darkness, the strokes from our oars seemed even brighter than I had noticed before. I brought it up to Nick and we sat there rowing back and forth, debating on whether or not we were imagining things. This called for a 2nd opinion. We yelled for the guys to get in the canoe and meet us where we were. In a couple minutes they joined us and we explained that the water appeared to be glowing. They rowed around for a bit and had the same uncertainty we had. Was the water glowing or not? Then a magical thing happened. Blake stuck his hand in the water and shook it around. WHOLE... EEEEE.... SHIT. It looked like he was holding a glow stick in his hand underwater. This launched a barrage of bigger, badder experiments, like rocking your boat back and forth quickly (AWESOME), causing the wake to glow blue. Also, paddling quickly caused the wake of the boat in the front and back to glow bright blue. You could actually SEE fish swimming underwater. It was absolutely unreal. We were aware that this phenomenon existed on certain places of the space coast but, after 2 previous trips out here (and a lot of research), we were under the impression that we would never have a chance to see it where we were.
We paddled back to the island, docked the boats, and jumped in the water. Every swim stroke looked like a neon blue, underwater snow angel. Skipping rocks illuminated the water's surface. Pissing underwater made it very obvious to everyone around you that you were pissing underwater. As incredible as the glowing water was, one of the coolest things was this: When you pulled your arms up out of the water, you could see the thousands of pieces of glowing algae, rolling off of you like water of a duck's back. It was one of the most unbelievable things I have ever seen in my life. This entire night was completely surreal. Biolumenescent algea is insane.
Again, sadly, no pictures. I tried a few times with no luck. I really can't understand why, either. The glow was pretty bright, yet my camera only captured blackness on max ISO with the shutter open for up to 3 seconds at a time. If it had occurred to me, I would have set up the camera on a solid surface and just let the shutter ride for a while, to see what it would have captured. Unfortunately, I did not. I did, however, find some pictures online that perfectly represent what we were seeing out there (these were surprisingly hard to find).
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| credit: jwsweddings.com |
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| credit: jwsweddings.com |
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| credit: jwsweddings.com |
And then...
There was FIRE!!!
The next morning was just a bunch of packing, hangovers and, of course, the jump pic.
The trip back to shore was pretty uneventful.... until the last quarter mile. Again, this is something you'll have to take my word for, as I did not have my camera at the ready and everything went down quickly.
My engine had died because my asshole friends decided to attach themselves to my canoe for a free ride. Because I'm rowing a 16 ft boat with 300 pounds of gear, I'm about 100 yards behind everyone else. I see my buddies Nick and Blake stop and turn 90 degrees, heading for shore. The opposite direction of the boat launch that is our finishing point. I assumed they wanted to make a final pit stop on an island to chill for a little bit before we have to leave. Then it happens. I am not shitting you when I say I thought the ran over a mine. It looked like a bomb had gone off underneath their kayaks. Water splashed 15 feet in the air. It took a couple seconds before I realized that I was seeing fins in there amongst all the splashing water. Apparently, Nick had tried to sneak up on a couple manatee. Because he's a ninja, he did too good a job and actually scared them. I have never seen manatees move like that. They virtually exploded out of the water with fear. Although the whole ordeal lasted about 15 seconds, I didn't have time to bust out the camera but I can assure that, if I had, there'd be a new video on YouTube right now with a million hits. It was a suitable conclusion to the weekend.
Yet another successful Kayampia adventure. Glad to have our new ninja, Blake, along with us. He's a good addition, and the old ninjas are dropping like flies.
- PHONE NUMBER: 386-428-3385 (Just hit "0" until you get someone. The extension on their website is wrong)- Website - http://www.nps.gov/cana/planyourvisit/outdooractivities.htm
- PRICE - $10/night for six people. $10 for 6 more. Max of 20 people (and this island can handle far more than that.)
- PRICE - $10/night for six people. $10 for 6 more. Max of 20 people (and this island can handle far more than that.)
- DIFFICULTY - 8/10 (this time)
- PRIVACY - 9/10
- FISHING - 2/10
- STAFF - 10/10
- PRIVACY - 9/10
- FISHING - 2/10
