Here’s to Kayaking Through Paradise

MIAMI _ For scenery, wildlife watching and paddling challenges, it is hard to beat the Turner River, which flows about eight miles from the Big Cypress National Preserve into Everglades National Park’s Chokoloskee Bay.

On my three previous trips down the Turner, our group put in at Tamiami Trail and headed southwest to the bay.

But recently, I joined a small group from the Ivey House eco-lodge in Everglades City, whose guide, Kevin Allshouse, decided to take a northerly turn. Despite overcast skies and intermittent rain, it was well worth the diversion.

Paddling our kayaks north into the winter-denuded cypress forest, we encountered a rich variety of bird life almost immediately _ black-crowned night herons; two red-shouldered hawks engaged in treetop romance; great blue herons; a pair of ospreys guarding their condo-sized nest; cormorants; anhingas; and ibis. My fellow paddlers, Sharon and Roger Banbury from Kansas, and Asta Spurgis and Ramuna Sirvelis from Anchorage, Ala., were enthralled _ stopping frequently to scan the woods with binoculars.

After a short distance, we entered a wide lake, where the out-of-town visitors got to see the emerging snouts and scutes of a couple of medium-sized alligators.

NIGHT HERONS ABOUND

Looking down into the clear water, I observed large gar and a semiconscious Mayan cichlid, apparently stunned by a cold front from the previous week. When I poked the cichlid with my paddle, it seemed to snap awake, and then it swam away.

We encountered several more night herons, which seemed to surprise Allshouse: He said he had never observed so many of the nocturnal birds on one trip. From the lake, we headed deeper into a forest through a watery ditch scarcely six feet wide. Breaking down our double-ended paddles, we propelled ourselves using canoe strokes and pulling ourselves along using overhanging branches.

Just when it seemed the stream couldn’t get any narrower, it opened slightly under a pond apple/pop ash canopy, where Allshouse pointed out several orchids. We easily could have missed a delicately-beautiful clamshell orchid with tiny red flowers growing six feet above our heads on a popash trunk.

We slowly made our way back out the way we came, and stopped for a picnic lunch at the put-in park on the north side of Tamiami Trail. Then it was time to head south as far as we could make it under drought-low water levels.

A short way downstream, we encountered a small group of paddlers who reported they had been forced to turn back well before reaching the bay. Water levels were so low, one man said, that they had dragged their kayaks through the mud for a good distance before giving up.

We thanked them for the heads-up and continued on.

It wasn’t long before the freshwater marsh narrowed and became lined with red mangroves. As we edged closer to the bay, the prop-rooted water trees grew larger and denser, draped with bromeliads and blocking out spitting showers and slivers of sunlight. Time to break down to single paddles again.

I overheard Roger Banbury tell his wife: “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Allshouse decided to let us in on a pet secret hidden in plain sight _ a rare ghost orchid entwined around a mangrove branch. I don’t feel remorse about reporting this because the green ribbon-like plant is barely noticeable without the telltale white Casper-the-friendly-ghost-like bloom, which only appears in summer. The average paddler would drift right by and never notice. If you are lucky enough to spot it, please leave it alone.

SURPRISE GUEST

A hint of sun peaked out from the heavy clouds, when we emerged into a small, bowl-shaped bay. As we paused from paddling, Allshouse and I heard furious splashing from beneath the mangroves surrounding us.

“Snook, maybe?” I guessed, remembering how many times I saw them stage violent surface assaults on bait schools.

But then a whiskered nose poked out from the prop roots _ snorting and puffing. It belonged to a slick-furred otter that saw us and immediately powered away beneath the tree canopy. I waited a few minutes and heard it inflicting serious bodily harm on some hapless fish _ maybe even a snook. But I never got to see what exactly it had for lunch.

Allshouse joked that the animal had made its appearance right on cue, because it was about time to turn back.

Four hours of rain and all, it seemed too soon.

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COCKING-COLUMN

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