JohnnyMolloy.com

    This book is a recount of an adventure, paddling the state of Florida by water. I paddled a canoe from the Okefenokee Swamp, headwaters of Florida’s most famous river, the Suwannee, and down the Suwannee to the Gulf of Mexico. From the Gulf, now in a sea kayak, I paddled south past Tampa Bay into the Everglades. From the Everglades I continued south to end at Long Key and the Atlantic Ocean.
    This book explores Florida without boundaries. Some of my opinions are sure to raise the ire of readers, as I examine population, preservation, political correctness and the changing South. I come down on one side or the other of any given issue in order to get the reader to think about the issue and make a stand of their own, whether they agree with me or not. The point is to get you to think.
    The mix of true episodes on the paddle trip and characters met along the way are all woven into the fabric of Florida’s history. This combination will make readers laugh, cry, shake their fist, and maybe inspire them to get into a boat and strike out to make some memories of their own.

I swung around to the east side of the island -- mostly marsh with a few red mangrove trees. This is the northerly limit of this coastal tree. Mangroves are one of the few trees that can tolerate growing in salt water. The secret for them was the ability to obtain freshwater through saltwater, by secreting excess salt through their leaves.

Red mangroves are also known as the “walking tree.” This tree grows at the water’s edge, its trunk supported by numerous tangled red roots, known as prop roots, since they prop up the trunk of the tree. These roots give them their nickname, as they seem to walk on water. Mangroves may not actually walk but they do benefit Florida’s coastline. They provide a sort of protective nursery for small fish, crustaceans and other shellfish, which in turn are fed on by larger fish. Mangroves are rookery sites for coastal birds, like pelicans and roseate spoonbills. For human coastal residents, mangroves absorb wind and waves coming inland, stabilizing shorelines with their roots.

Mangroves reproduce interestingly. Seeds sprout on the tree, and a mini live mangrove eventually drops down into the water. From there the winds, currents and tides find it a home, where they sprout roots and grows to produce seeds of their own. So, in this case, the fruit may not fall from the tree, but it does have legs. These tropical mangroves here were small. The Suwannee area is the mangrove equivalent of the North Pole, this is the most northerly latitude where mangroves survive, and cold snaps like the one I’d paddled through can kill them. They fare much better in South Florida, especially the Everglades where they reach their greatest heights and concentrations.

From the mangroves, I banged and bashed my way to the island interior, where a small evergreen shrub, yaupon, grew abundant. Florida’s Indians made a concoction from yaupon berries that English-speakers called “black drink.” The berries of yaupon make an emetic, and the Indians drink the “black drink” and throw up, purging themselves during certain rituals. That’s the funny thing about Indian words, we’ll never know exactly what they were, what they meant or how they sounded, only the English corruption of such. Florida Indians may have called the drink “eye of the god,” or “kool-aid” for all we know.

The appropriately named Spanish bayonet, a bush with sharp pointed leaves, ambushed my legs at every opportunity as I walked through the dense growth. I found a couple of other camps, unfortunately with too many beer cans. Stacks of crab traps were piled by an old tin-roof shack. In the marshy edge a bird, an American bittern, waded the shallows, slowly and methodically looking for an aquatic meal. It spotted me and froze with its bill pointing skyward, trying to blend in with the background of marsh grasses. One of the most fascinating aspects of God’s creatures is their individual evolutionary track on thriving and reproducing here on earth. For some reason, the bittern’s implausible defense had worked enough for it to be in the genetic program.

The wind picked up and I retired to the campsite. I lay down in the warm sun on a bed of pine needles 3 inches thick, smoking a big ol’ cigar and thinking. How unfortunate that natural beauty is sometimes its own demise, by way of man’s mess-making. For, if a natural creation of God is never viewed, how can its beauty ever be gauged? To be gauged, it must be seen - once seen, it will gain attention. Once it gains attention, it will gain notoriety. Notoriety may bring its downfall and possible demise. My life seemed so short and insignificant when compared God’s creations. What lasting contributions would or could or should I make on this earth? To this earth? Or was my function as a human being to tread lightly, then go away? What was my purpose? What was the purpose of this land? The answers were not easy or clear. This journey was just one foray among many, all amounting to a lifetime spent trying to answer such questions.

Later, I enjoyed my first Gulf sunset of the year. The colors imperceptibly yet unmistakably transformed from yellow to red to orange to pink to gray. I sat before the fire -- the temperature had already dipped into the 40s -- turning back every once in a while to see the sky darkening through the intertwined limbs of live oaks. The wind died and the night quieted, save for the hissing of firewood, as the fallen tide and lack of wind rendered the ocean mute. The sounds of the woods, especially my hoot owl companions on the Suwannee, were conspicuously absent, as I drifted to sleep under the stars by the fire, feeling the soreness of a new way of paddling. This workout was better than I could get in any health club. In the days of the Indians and settlers, just getting along day-to-day required plenty of hard work and exercise for the average person. Nowadays, most modern peoples just hunt money, instead of food and shelter directly. Most jobs consist of button pushing, talking on the phone and watching something. A few hundred years ago the thinking world would have laughed at people pedaling away on stationary bikes, lifting weights and doing calisthenics by the name of aerobics, led by a personal trainer. You’d think with all the mirrors in those fancy health clubs that some of those spinners would notice they were going nowhere fast.

The cold night dipped below freezing again. Once I got up, I noticed the tide was low, way low. A big mud flat separated me from the water, so I waited for it to come to me. I hung around the campfire, drinking coffee and warming my toes - through three pairs of socks. Remember, wood warms you three times: when you gather it, when you break it up and when you burn it. Sometimes it’ll do a little more, like burn things too close to burning wood. My wool socks were burning and my feet were in ‘em! I pulled my dogs away but the damage was done. The outer pair was ruined. The remainder of said socks went into the fire, stinking up the camp with an odor not too different than human hair burning. After all, wool is just sheep hair.

I was now anxious to leave Deer Island, one pair of socks short.

And there’s more!