Everglades Challenge: Scouting Routes

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the shapes of those passes...or something.

When Hurricane Irma spun through last fall, the sandy landscape of Florida changed.  My old stomping grounds of Shell Key, for instance, bifurcated. A fresh new pass split the barrier island.

In preparation for the 2018 edition of the Everglades Challenge, my favorite skipper TwoBeers and I hoped a bit of leisurely scouting might save the Spawn team some misery.

Navigating is tough enough when the islands hold still. 

​Particularly late at night. Particularly if the weather is awful.

2017 Everglades Challenge Team on board Spawn. Jahn Tihansky, Jeff Linton, OH Rodgers.

We'll camp in the Everglades National Park. It's not our first venture into this wilderness. It's a place less full of shady Spanish moss and swampy mud than one might expect.   

​It's pretty darned pleasant, actually: we pitch a tent on the sandy beach, maybe catch a few fishes, play with driftwood.

In general, the hazards that are most worrying on this venture off the map are, oh, I dunno –– mosquitoes, sunburn, getting stranded and having to be rescued.  

​THIS is not what I expected:

Mormon Key is our favored camping spot. George was almost 10 feet long last time they checked, and weighed in at 700 pounds. Good lawsey day. 


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More Everglades Challenge?
Okay, here's a story about the adventure race by the late great Meade Goudgeon. We'll miss seeing him on the beach this year.  

​The Challenge starts on March 3 off Fort DeSoto Beach. 
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