On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 06:28:23 -0500, thunder
wrote:
'm envious. For years, I've wanted to canoe that section of the
Everglades. I've blamed it on not having the time, but I think there was
more than a little fear involved. ;-) The bird life this time of year
must have been incredible.

The park service recommends 7 to 10 days for canoeing the entire
wilderness waterway which is probably about right, but you could do
some short stretches out of either Everglades City or Flamingo on a
long weekend. If you have access to a cruising boat, enter at Little
Shark River the way we did and use the big boat for a base of
operations. The tidal currents in and around the Shark River area are
fairly strong in some places however, and paddling against them would
be difficult. The park service also runs a tour boat out of Flamingo
which goes north about 6 miles into White Water Bay before turning
around.

Getting lost is probably the biggest risk since one mangrove estuary
begins to look just like all the others after a while. I was carrying
a pocket GPS in the dinghy which leaves an electronic trail of
breadcrumbs behind, but even with that, managed to take a few wrong
turns. Next time I will go to the trouble of setting up a lot of
waypoints in advance for critical junctures.

I'd estimate that we saw something like 30 or 40 different species of
birds in a 2 day period including several types of Ibis, 3 or 4
different types of egret and herons, white pelicans, vultures, hawks,
osprey, the occasional eagle, etc. Of course, most of these can be
seen with much less difficulty further north in the Cape Coral/Ft
Myers/Sanibel Island area.