DAY 4-HIGHLAND BEACH TO PLATE CREEK CHICKEE

I awoke at sunrise after sleeping soundly once again. The air is crisp and clean with a fresh breeze off the Gulf. I didn’t have to contend with the pollution that I’m accustomed to in Ft. Lauderdale with all the traffic in a condensed area.

The Everglades are definitely alive! After popping my head out of my tent, I went about cooking some rice for breakfast. Off to the south comes a deer who walks out of the forest. He checks me out then calmly walks over to another deer that is eating ground vegetation. I grab my video camera and shoot away. The deer have no fear of me.

Next I spot some fresh tracks in the sand. One track is of the deer, another is a raccoon, and the third appears to be that of a Panther! WOW this is TOO COOL! I videotape all three for identification.

I’m on the water early today. Stiff winds are expected out of the south for tomorrow (Thursday--day 5) and I need to get off the Gulf into some calmer water.

I paddle up the coast and beach it at a site at the mouth to Lostman’s River. There is a fantastic beach site here. The winds are really strong out of the south--around 20 mph with higher gusts. I gather my weather information from www.NOAA.gov and sure enough they predicted strong winds out of the south. This information determined my south to north path for this trip.

Since the wind is at my back, I’m not concerned. I pass into First Bay and the wind is on my starboard side (that’s the right side for you landlubbers). White caps are developing on the bay and it’s causing me some grief and making paddling difficult. There are no markers inside these bays so I’m following the map and my GPS readings closely.

I enter Second Bay and the winds are so strong that they push me forward with no effort. Soon I sight a motor boat that is navigating the Wilderness Waterway. I pick up the waterway at marker 52 and continue on. I cut through Onion Key Bay and Two Island Bay, The winds are strong in the big bays but not so fierce in the smaller bays. It’s a good thing that I have everything lashed down.

I locate a ground site--Lostman’s Five. It’s nice and protected and up on high ground but this won’t be my campsite for the evening. I continue north and find Plate Creek Chickee. It’s a single platform, facing the east, backed up against magroves. This is good news since the wind is coming out of the southwest now.

There’s no ladder to help get up on the chickee, but there is a pile that I can jump up on. I pull my kayak up onto the platform. Everything is wet once again and so I spend some time laying everything out in the sun to dry.

I set up the hammock and do some reading. Two guys paddle up in their kayaks. They are from Ontario, Canada and appear to be a little lost. They ask me for directions to Darwin’s Place and I tell them exactly where it is.

An hour later they return. They report that they got lost down a creek and decide to stay here for the evening. No problem, I can use the company. We all cook dinner.

Stefan and his son Alex were camped out on Hog Key the previous night and want to be back to Everglades City in two days. We all hang out and tell war stories through the evening.

At sunset, the mosquitoes come out in full force and we are all in our tents by 7 PM.