America’s Blue Highways

May 15, 2007
By Ken McAlpine
American Way Magazine

Paddle the Great Calusa Blueway, and you’ll not only stumble across a slew of hidden wonders — you’ll also discover the moments in life that truly count.

From the helm of the Cayo Costa Star, Vince Tapager gazes out at the sun-bright waters and the mangrove islands of Pine Island Sound. He considers the sky, a dome of pale blue, and the wind, a soft exhalation from the west. He turns back to us, four soon-to-be kayakers. The plan is simple. Vince will ferry us out from Pine Island and drop us off at Cayo Costa, a lovely slice of barrier island and a state park off the coast of southwest Florida. Then we will paddle back to Pine Island Marina.

Vince operates Tropic Star Cruises, one of dozens of local outfitters offering myriad ways to enjoy these lovely waters. In the manner of all watermen, Vince is dry.

“With the wind at your back, you can make it back to the dock in a couple of hours,” he says. “Assuming you don’t get lost.”

Since we left the dock, Vince has kept up an easy patter of history, ecology, and meteorology. He has talked about the Calusa Indians — the fierce, thriving, mound-building tribe of giants who paddled these waters from about 300 AD to the 1700s, when the Spanish saw them to their end. He has pointed out various flora and fauna, and he’s addressed the wrath of Hurricane Charley, whose August 2004 landing created new passes between the islands overnight and sent kayaks where they were never meant to go.

“I found one kayak stuck 20 feet up in a tree,” says Vince.

It’s all very fascinating, and I’m listening — but not too closely, because in absorbing my surroundings, I have observed another important fact. Debby, one-fourth of our merry band of paddlers, voices my thoughts:

“All these islands,” she says. “They all look the same.”

Vince nods appreciatively.

“Big place,” he says. “So much nature and open space.”

I HAVE COME HERE  to southwest Florida to paddle the Great Calusa Blueway and to get a firsthand look at the water trails that continue to spread their blue-veined arteries across America. There are already water trails in almost every state, and, even as you read this, more are in the making. On them, with a map and some minor navigational skills, you can traverse lovely swaths of wilderness, whether it be for an hour, a day, or a month. Paddle sports — kayaking, rafting, and canoeing — are booming, and as they boom, more and more folks are grasping an elemental, and wondrous, truth: Water is an alchemic portal to places and rarities that would otherwise remain unseen. After all, when was the last time you saw a manatee as you drove down the interstate?

It’s not just about the water, though. Most of the water trails offer access to camping, of course, but for those who tire of dealing with freeze-dried stroganoff and grit in their teeth, many trails are laid out to deposit you at the landing ramp of civilization so that you may haul your vessel ashore, shower at a fine B&B, and then, surrounded by the boisterous buzz of locals, tear into half a pound of fat, fresh shrimp. Why are the locals so happy? Because the shrimp are as sweet as candy and the people live on an island accessed only by boat.

The Calusa Blueway trail currently stretches about 100 miles, meandering through Estero Bay — tucked roughly behind the barrier islands of Lovers Key and Fort Myers Beach — and snaking northward into Pine Island Sound, Charlotte Harbor, and the sable-palmed, white-sand islands of Sanibel, Captiva, and Cayo Costa. Soon the trail will officially continue up the Caloosahatchee River and its tributaries, too, though frankly there’s nothing to stop you from paddling there now. There is ample opportunity to ply waters fraught with great blue herons and mischievous manatees. But the Blueway also leads to places where you can immerse yourself in the simple joys that make life worthwhile, like desolate beach hikes, the sand soft beneath your feet; cold beverages served up at dockside juke joints; and watching sunsets from a veranda, with rustling palms applauding the purpling demise of day.

Better still, Florida’s Gulf Coast moves with a soft, egalitarian sibilance. In Miami, you are judged by who you are and what you wear. On Matlacha, a thin sliver of water’s-edge restaurants and shops along the causeway that enters Pine Island, you can walk into Moretti’s Waterfront Seafood Restaurant wearing a kayaking skirt and neoprene aqua socks and receive the same attentive service and mouthwatering grouper as Paris Hilton would.

“We’re still a little undiscovered,” says one Pine Island resident, “and a lot of good things come with that.”

VINCE DROPS OFF the four of us — Debby, me, and Rick and Janet (husband and wife kayakers from St. Petersburg, Florida) — at the dock at Cayo Costa State Park, which is 2,416 acres of hardwood hammock and lovely beach abutting the Gulf of Mexico. We slide our kayaks into the water. Within minutes, we are tracking a pair of manatees, watching the water’s mirrorlike surface for telltale ripples.

The docile giants — picture sea lions with elephantiasis — give us more than a humpback sighting. Then the still morning explodes, and a great plume of water, flung by a powerful fluke, soaks Rick. He manages to retain his aplomb and his upright position, though I note he takes a few backward strokes.

“Never seen that before,” he says. “Maybe they’re mating.”

During the next several hours, we slide across the lightly ruffled waters of Pine Island Sound. We skirt the eastern edge of Cayo Costa, making our way past several mangrove islands that not one of us recognizes, despite the maps Rick and I carry. We’re hoping to find our way to Cabbage Key, where there’s the bar at which Jimmy Buffett purportedly penned “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” We eventually find both key and bar, and we toast our navigational skills with cold beers. After another hour or so, we even find our way back to Pine Island. We hone in on the marina by simple, and altogether pleasant, means: The marina is the only sign of man along the mangrove shore.

THE NEXT MORNING, I paddle with Connie Langmann, owner of Gaea Guides, and with some 20 other kayakers. It’s a Sunday, and the second day of Pine Island’s first Calusa Blueway Paddling Festival, a low-key gathering that includes various paddling outings as well as demonstrations at a local park.

Our outing begins with a stroll along the Calusa Heritage Trail, the archaeological site on Pine Island that was once the Calusa Indian village of Tampa. We follow Connie through the hot morning as she explains how the Calusa made the most of their environment. Lacking stone, they used shells for everything from tools to foundations, which still remain, in the form of enormous shell mounds. The Calusa also made the most of their size, since the average Calusa male was six feet tall. In the 1500s, they were the equivalent of today’s Shaquille O’Neal, only with more attitude and with an impressive array of sharp weapons.

“Calusa means ‘fierce people,’ ” Connie tells us. “Other Indian tribes would pay them tribute money so the Calusa would be nice to them. Kind of like the mob.”

The Calusa eventually met their match — not in the form of the Spaniards, who had tried vainly to dispatch them — but in the diseases the Europeans brought with them. At least, that’s the history according to Connie.

When she finishes, Joe Mullen leans in close to me.

“They drank a lot of rum, too,” he says.

Joe is attending the festival with his friend Ed Engel. Avid kayakers and Florida residents, these men have kayaked together along much of the Calusa Blueway, not to mention their adventuring on waters as distant as Scotland.

I immediately like Joe and Ed. It’s obvious that they love their home waters. Plus, they offer me a nice counter to the official party line I’d been given earlier, when I was told that there are only three places along the Calusa Blueway that allow camping: Cayo Costa Island, Picnic Island, and Koreshan State Historic Site, along the Estero River.

When I mention this to Joe, he snorts.

“You can guerrilla camp anywhere you like. Pull in after dark, set up the tents, and be gone by morning.”

In short order, the lot of us are paddling in Pine Island Sound. An osprey beats overhead, a fish in its talons. (Note to romantics: Ospreys mate for life, but each year the male must court the female again before breeding commences.) Mullet leap from the water, white undersides flashing in the sun.

I suddenly realize that Joe is right — the sheer breadth and loveliness of the natural world make man’s adherence to regulation seem silly.

DAYS LATER, near the southern end of the trail, I kayak along the shoreline of Lovers Key with Nancy McPhee and Trudi Edelman. Trudi has kayaked and guided in these waters for 38 years. Nancy was instrumental in seeing the Calusa Blueway become reality.

We rent kayaks from the Lovers Key park concessionaire. As we take our first strokes, nothing but mangroves and a riverlike spread of Zamboni-smooth water is visible.

“This is what the Calusa saw when they paddled here,” says Nancy quietly. “This is what we wanted people to see when we created the Blueway.”

Moments later, we see a trail marker, a post emblazoned with a pair of crossed oars and the number 11. This is my fifth day on the water, and this is the first Blueway marker — other than the one I spotted while jogging — that I’ve seen.

When I tell Nancy this, she shrugs.

“I didn’t put up a whole lot of markers. To be honest, I don’t want to see the next one. We want the Blueway to be an adventure. Plus, the hurricanes and the fishermen took a lot of the signs out. I think we might have marked some of their favorite fishing holes.”

The women turn their tandem kayak toward a seemingly impenetrable mangrove wall. We push through a narrow, shaded channel. The mangrove roots resemble the curved fingers of an emaciated pianist. The bottom of my kayak scrapes across an oyster bed, and then the three of us are out in the bright sunlight again. The world is nothing but caws and trills. We drift in our own private lagoon, watched by egrets and ibis, resting in the mangroves like white linen handkerchiefs. A roseate spoonbill registers our sudden intrusion — and perhaps his opinion of man — with a great gastric expulsion.

I LIKED PADDLING and exploring with my fellow kayakers, but, as anyone knows, in nature — and perhaps in life — true discovery comes alone, with silence.

On my last day, I push off again from Lovers Key. I plan on paddling for Mound Key, one of the centers of Calusa culture, but I get hopelessly lost. Over the next five hours, I see mangrove islands that all look the same, several bottlenose dolphins, and hidden backwaters so quiet that I can hear the sudden scatterings of tiny fish — they sound like a handful of tossed pebbles.

When I pull my kayak up onto a 10-yard scrim of shell and sand and sit alone in the middle of Estero Bay, here is what the wind whispers: It is the moments between the markers that matter. Even the Calusa, who no doubt knew where they were paddling, could not see to the end of the trail.