to places where there is a large body of water with islands and bays, an agreeable climate, and few people. By mid-day we’ve skirted the shores
of Useppa Island, where houses and a popular restaurant dot the coast, rounded mangroves skirting Mondongo Island, and set a course due west for Cayo Costa. Islands overlap as man- grove clumps shift against each other. Navigating by sight and compass, we watch for mangrove islands and the occasional channel marker. I mistakenly steer for an illusory passage then head up to pass inside Punta Blanca, the barrier island forming Cayo Costa’s harbor. Tough we are less than 10 miles from the mainland, it feels like we’ve sailed into a remote part of the world. For a while it’s all mangrove and sandspits and small sand coves. Te canoe makes a whooshing sound as we glide along the shore then land at an exposed sandbar. Tough from here we can see a dock
and a few boats at anchor, we have the beach to ourselves with surround-sound of lapping water, fluttering mangrove, and crying osprey. It’s a sweet entry to a couple weeks camping at the state park on Cayo Costa. And since we have a lot of gear to unload, we soon set sail for the landing.
“Not to worry you but
a rat just landed on me.” I don’t like rats.
I especially don’t like a lot of rats.
Te little beach is plenty wide enough
for us and two kayaks paddled by a couple from Pineland Marina on Pine Is- land. We land and haul up enough so the boat won’t float away while unloading gear. The park provides wheelbarrows for the haul up a slight hill to a sand road where a jitney circles by almost contin- ually throughout the day. Aſter hauling the canoe above the tide line, and check- ing in with the office (reservations can be made 11 months in advance) we catch the jitney. For a mile we glide on a sandy road beneath an arch of tall fern-draped oaks. At the gulf-front campground we unload then carry all our gear to the farthest, most remote campsite and set up camp.
SMALL CRAFT ADVISOR
Walking to the showers later we’re
assured by a ranger that the persistent raccoon problem has been ‘solved’. As I’m halfway through my shower,
listening to scratching sounds in the crawl space above my head, Michael says, “Not to worry you but a rat just landed on me.” I don’t like rats. I especially don’t like a lot of rats. More especially rats over my head. Cold showers are okay, even on a cool day like today. But rats? I hurry out, grab my towel in a rush
to avoid becoming a landing platform, and move away to get dressed. Back at camp we make sure all food is secured in our creature-proof boxes, throw our bath bags into the tent and head to the beach. Now comes the sweet part: sitting in a comfortable chair on a wide white beach overlooking the Gulf, watching a setting sun splash paint on clouds. Dinner by fading light then to bed inside a mos- quito and no-see-um-proof tent. For these two weeks there are cool
days for hikes on the long wide shell- strewn beach, as well as inland over dunes and through shady forest. Gentle weather allows us to explore by sail all around Pine Island. With a light easterly we sail across the mile wide Boca Grande
channel to Gasparilla Island State Park, where we land on the sandy beach for a long walk. Another day, with the same gentle easterlies, we sail out the channel and around Cayo Costa to cruise right along the Gulf-side beach for miles. A west wind sends us south towards Sanibel Island through the protected waters of the Sound. On a dead calm day we paddle to a nearby mangrove island where we discover a hidden bay with a couple otters scrambling through man- grove roots. Two manatees in another bay surface next to us for a breath of air. On our first cruise to the island we
paddled the five miles across and back. Launching had gone something like this: “Would you hand me the mast?” “Not here.” “No mast?” But we did have paddles. And paddle
we did.
Since the mid-seventies Ida and Michael have been canoe-sailing and coastal camp- ing in the Bahamas, Martinique, Florida, New England, and Canadian lakes and rivers. They wrote Beachcruising and Coastal Camping which is available at the SCA store.
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