by josh wall

Guest Writer

``Dolphin!''

``You sure?''

``Yeah...well...maybe not....nope....shark!''

This last spring break people went to a quite diverse range of places to enjoy the rare and glorious time off. The trips ranged from home on the couch to clubbing all night in Mexico. During this time of glorious respite from class, two friends of mine - Brad Nydam, and Katie Miller - decided to take an atypical spring break trip. We were going to paddle the Everglades National Park, against my mother's express wishes for a ``safer location.''

We planned a trip that was going to be rigorous and exhausting, but also breath-taking. At a total distance of 94 miles, and seven days in the park, we had ambitious goals and hopes for exciting experiences.

We left on a cold and early Friday morning, ran by Washington D.C. to pick up Katie, made our run down to Florida's southern tip. We finally pulled in and made our final preparations for our early start on the next day. Some of these preparations included packing our food, which consisted of canned goods, water (since all the water there has salt in it), pasta, junk food, cheese, bread, peanut butter, some ham, and beer.

We also taught Katie how to kayak because she had never done it before, a fact unknown to me until that day. This began to get me a little worried for we hadn't known our exact distances until we arrived down in Florida that day. It turns out most of our days were longer than expected. What we imagined as 15 approx. mile days were all 17+ miles a day.

We hit the water at 8:00 that morning, which meant we were up before six. Right from the get-go, we ran into some trouble because of the tide level, and got to enjoy walking our boats across two inch deep water (with knee-high mud).

We were also introduce to the Florida boating culture, which, as far as we could tell, consisted of driving by us at top speed, and alternating between smiling and waving (as they created waves as tall as we were) or yelling the profanities.

We were also introduced to the glory that is Florida sun, and consequently the Florida sunburn. Despite sunscreen, we were all a little red.

We began to get a taste of what the wildlife was like down there. We saw two dolphins, a variety of birds (herons, sea gulls, egrets, swallow tailed kites) and fish.

The fish were quite an interesting situation, seeing as they all continually had this urge to jump out of the water. This included the fish that almost jumped into Brad's boat, and the many that just would smack into ours as we progressed along. Finally we made camp, and collapsed.

We awoke at 6:00 the morning, and were on the water by 8:00 and began paddling. It was a long and, for the most part, silent day. Neither Brad or I have strong urges to talk when surrounded by gorgeous lakes and mangroves. These lovely creations abounded everywhere, and campsites were normally marked by a break in the mangroves large enough to have a tent.

But along we paddled for nine hours, seeing our first set of alligators along the way. We spent the night on the edge of the lake 50 yards from shore, and had a nice quite meal with no bugs, and watched the stars come out.

Our next day was to be our longest yet. We spent another early start, this time we were on the water at 7:30, and had to paddle up a river to the coast where we would spend the night. By the time we stopped for lunch my arms were a band of fire from all the effort.

Katie had also contracted sun poisoning on her lips and they had swollen to twice their normal size, and Brad was also beginning to get the early signs of it. Fortunately we saw some folks at lunch that gave us some SPF 45 chapstick, which prevented a lot of pain on Katie part. We pushed on and pulled into camp at 6:00 that night. We ate in the dark, and all slept well.

The next day we awoke and paddled a short jaunt, only 10 miles, and stopped on the beach when we ate lunch. Along the way we came within close proximity of a 8-10 ft. shark, which had fun following me. That was more than a little scary. We pulled into an island that was 6 miles off of shore, and 100 yards away from a national bird sanctuary.

Our final day, was one filled with getting stuck in a river six miles off of shore (the tide is something I don't think I'll ever really understand), and seeing more wildlife, including more sharks thought not nearly as large as the first one. And, finally, we came to our final stop, Flamingo, where we had our van waiting for us. We loaded up, ran back to D.C. to re-adjust to society and then came home Monday night, just in time for classes on a bright and early Tuesday morning.

It was a great trip: a rare opportunity, and a challenge. I saw some things I never thought I would get to see in the wild: sharks, dolphins, alligators, a bald eagle, manta rays, and something that I can only presume was a manatee. I spent time listening to nature and God, saw the glory of creation, and was silent in its grandeur.