Possibilities

So, where are we going?

At first I looked at the Eastern Continental Trail as a good route, changing the finish to Halifax instead of Cape Gaspe. It starts with the Florida National Scenic Trail, then uses a couple of state trails and road walks to get to the Appalachian Trail and then International Appalachian Trail.  I'll take a right turn just on the Trans Canada Trail instead, and drop into Halifax.

 

But have you been to the Florida Keys?  That barren road walk does not sound like much fun at all, so my mind turned towards a sea kayak for that segment.  And then, the southern end of the Florida National Scenic Trail is largely underwater, so why not kayak that part too?  So my first ideas were to more or less follow the Florida National Scenic Trail in a kayak up the center of Florida as far as Orlando.


As I learned more about Florida kayak destinations, my route begin to shift towards the Gulf Coast. The Everglades Wilderness Waterway and Ten Thousand Islands are just the start.  The Great Calusa Blueway with Estero Bay and Pine Island sound great too.  Hey, all the way to Cayo Costa State Park looks good - that's over 300 miles of nice kayaking!  And then in the north Big Bend area, the entire 230 miles from Apalachicola through the wildlife refuges below Crystal River sounds amazing.

Very recently, a paddling trail has been mapped out all of the way around Florida, the Florida Circumnavigational Saltwater Paddling Trail.  The guide book provides some great resources on camping locations, water sources and resupply.  So now I am playing with a 700 mile itinerary from Key West all the way up the Gulf Coast to St Marks in northern Florida.  In the middle is a highly developed stretch running 160 miles.  That is much less exciting for paddling, but I'm not sure how to avoid it.

So here's the current plan:  kayak the Florida Circumnavigational Saltwater Paddling Trail from St Marks to Key West, hike the Florida National Scenic Trail and the connectors of the Eastern Continental Trail to the Appalachian Trail, take a short jaunt on the International Appalachian Trail up to the Trans Canada Trail, and follow it to Halifax.  That's somewhere around 5,000 miles and will take about ten months.

Which direction?  The prevailing wind is from the east, a bit more north than south.  So we'll do this as a flip - start at St Marks and kayak to Key West, and then flip back to St Marks to start hiking north.