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From: Peter Osman <rebyl_kayak_at_hotmail.com> subject: [Paddlewise] Paddling with Sandy - Trip Report on Long Key Clean Up>> (long) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 07:58:54 GMT · This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:09 PDT

G'Day,

Heres a promised trip report together with a photo website address.
courtesy of Sandy, PeterO, Marinell and the Paradise Paddlers: -

Paddling with Sandy - Trip Report on Long Key Clean Up>> (long)

149, 150, 151, 152, 153!!! It all started with a bet! Sandy reckoned I would 
get more than three replies to the Who's Who List and I staked a few beers 
that I wouldn't. 153 replies and two months later, and a bit wiser, I tried 
to work out how to pay 153/3 beers to Sandy. Soooooo, given that honour must 
be satisfied, it was onto a plane to Fort Lauderdale with an invitation to 
go paddling with Sandy and her friends at the weekend.

After 35 hours travelling and a week of work, the weekend arrives and I'm 
standing on the pavement in front of the Holiday Inn with a six pack of 
Fosters Lager and two bottles of Lindemans (Sandy let me off the other 147 
beers claiming they were symbolic!!!) I've never seen Sandy before but her 
two Hobie Pursuits should be easy to identify! There they are on a Honda 
station wagon and a small fair woman with the hugest smile in the world is 
flashing the lights on her car.

The road to the Keys is fast and so is Sandy's trip briefing - we're going 
to clean up the Keys - not all of them - just a little one. We're going to 
see the sunset on Lake Surprise and visit the site of the film Key Largo, 
Alabama Jack's and a couple of kayak stores. As the Keys hove in view and we 
cross the Jewfish Creek bridge Sandy breathes a sigh of relaxation and 
starts waving at all the vans with kayaks - she seems to know them all and 
at least half belong to the Paradise Paddlers, the group we are going out 
with.

Now we're having breakfast and discussing the trip. Its high tide, we are 
putting in at Long Key State Recreation area and there's no wind. All is 
serene and we take off.

Sandy observes that I have a decided tendency to paddle to the right as our 
boats keep drifting together - I maintain that this is a well known 
hydrodynamic interaction between Hobie Pursuits or else there must be 
magnets in the hulls. After about half an hour we round Layton Point and 
land on a small beach between some black mangroves.

Kim, the assistant park manager, hands out dustbin bags and the scavenging 
begins. We find the strangest things - why  would anyone want to bring face 
cream to an island - let alone leave it there? And full size 
fluorescentlights! And rope! You wouldn't believe how much rope and fishing 
line gets tangled in those mangroves! I learn the true meaning of 
biodegradable - there's plastic in every stage of disintegration.

Anyway we pack up 20 or so bags of debris and stack them on the shore for 
the rangers to pick up. By now the spirit is on me and I'm happy to clean up 
all the way to Miami but the Paradise Paddlers gently apply restraint and 
force me to drink a glass or two of beer.

Its time to settle the bet. Sandy inspects the bottles and glances at me 
quizzically! Did you bring this all the way from Australia? I confess that I 
bought it in a supermarket in Fort Lauderdale - "Well did you know it's made 
in Canada?!"  Sacrilege!!!!! Export Aussie beer made in Canada!!!!!! But I 
have to say that it tasted pretty authentic and no one complained. And there 
were cheeses and hams and salads and dips and snacks and Sandy's famous 
brownies. I'm beginning to understand just how hard the rugged outdoors life 
can be.

So now the island is cleaner, we are replete and it's back to the boats for 
a slow trail home. Why slow? Well, Kim has discovered a fork
lift pallet floating in the sea and has tethered it to her kayak. We don't 
realise this and keep pace with her until gasping and red faced she asks for 
help with 10 metres to go. So Ken and I step forward, strong, bronzed, and 
muscular (I don't expect you to believe all this) and gallantly we grasp the 
tow ropes jump from the kayaks and stride towards the beach. We slowly 
stride towards the beach, we struggle squelching toward the beach, we 
finally collapse helplessly into the mud. A totally unsympathetic and 
guffawing set of Paradise Paddlers shout advice and take photos without 
actually getting too close to the mud. I'm told people pay for this kind of 
treatment and if I keep it up I will wind up beautiful!

Thanks to Monica, Frank, Marinell, Ken, and the rest of the gang.  It was 
great meeting you.

Back to Bill's (Sandy's ex-husband) place, a delightful mobile home with its 
own slipway into the canal leading to Florida Bay. Bill cooks up a steaming 
dish of pasta and veal. We chat through the evening and Bill provides some 
recollections of shipwrecks and the Navy and then we're off early to bed for 
tomorrow's sunrise kayak.

Its 6:00 am and Sandy is bright as a button, but it's a bit cold and windy 
so we put on Polartec fleece and Cagoules. We slide quietly down Bills boat 
ramp and out on to the bay. There's a slight chop on the water and Sandy's 
going strong and steady so I can barely keep up - this lasts for 10 minutes 
when I shamefacedly observe my paddle leash is clamped round the bottom of 
the SOT and my paddle is upside down. Problem corrected and we're now well 
matched and glide on across Florida Bay.

passage through to Lake Surprise.  There's a sailboat moored to what we 
thought might be an entrance, but it was in the wrong direction.  There's 
cloud on the horizon and the sky is lightening. We push further to the point 
and there's the channel, about 5 metres wide and 20 metres long and across 
we go into Lake Surprise, a stretch of water about half a mile in diameter.

The sun has tipped the eastern clouds with a halo of shining crimson while a 
dusky refracted red bathes the western horizon. All is quiet. We paddle on 
to the northern end and the redoubtable Sandy finds a landing site to 
portage down a 4 lane highway to look at the osprey (sea eagle) nests on 
power poles on the other side of the highway (this is now on the ocean 
side).

Time for home and we cut right across the bay instead of following the
shore. A beaming Sandy surfs on some small breaking waves. Seduced by some 
beautiful old houses we round the point but realise it's too far and 
backtrack across the bay to land back at Bill's house. Throughout the 
morning we have the whole bay to ourselves.

It's somewhat off topic to describe the rest of the trip but suffice to say 
that I saw the site of the Key Largo film, went to Alabama Jack's (lots of 
local colour, country western music, and cloggers) and finally, two hours 
before flying back to Oz managed to paddle Sandy's very own lake, which is 
huge being about four lakes rolled into one, with 23 beaches!

I'm writing this on the plane home, ready to transcribe into my computer. 
Sandy and Paddlewise have given me some wonderful memories of your beautiful 
country and I can heartily recommend the Florida Keys for any of you with 
Wintertime Cabin Fever!

Very many thanks, PeterO

For photos, visit Marinell Davis' Website: http://www.netrox.net/~marinell/  
and click on Long Key State Park

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