This eight mile stretch of water connects the north Everglades to the south. At the beginning it is deceptively wide, but after a few miles it becomes a mangrove tunnel.
It is so named because of the feelings you might have if you were paddling it in the Summer.
Picture this: endless twists and turns, maneuvering a hard to find path between the trees that block your path. You can't see the sun through the trees overhead, but you might see water moccasins dangling from trees and thick clouds of mosquitoes. Every now and then you might glimpse a 20 foot python circling up a tree. As you look closer at that branch you were just about to step onto to stretch your legs, you see the mangrove crabs. From a distance, you didn't see their black figures in the dim light, but there are armies of crabs swarming up from the water. You hear their scratching and clicking as they work their way upward to cover the trees. You might see the huge spiders building webs over the water; huge circular webs that block the only passage through the trees.
The Nightmare is impassable at low tide because the water is too shallow for even a kayak. You might feel like you're in a nightmare if you have to wait for the tides to rise with mosquitoes buzzing while you conjure up images of being lost in here forever with all the fearsome creatures.
We had perfect conditions for our paddle and rather than being a nightmare, it was a good dream. We were on a rising tide and the current was flowing in our direction of travel. The weather was neither hot nor cold and the bugs were calm. The only critters we saw were birds and mangrove crabs. No alligators, pythons or water moccasins. And no motor boats either.
We started the day from Highland Beach and paddled into the Broad River. The current carried us quickly to milepost 24 - the beginning of the Nightmare. In fact we rode the currents perfectly toady - up the Broad River and Nightmare, and then back down the Harney River to the chickee.
The Nightmare is great on two fronts: scenery and paddling. The paddling was a great chance to practice all of the maneuvering strokes we have learned over the years. There was often insufficient room to turn the boat around a branch or root by just paddling on one side. It was handy to be able to side slip with a hanging draw or moving draw. But we used everything: bow draw, bow rudder, cross bow rudder, even cross bow draw, as well as rear rudders, draws and prys, and we sculled in every direction. It was great technical practice to try to go through without touching anything. Note the word "try".
The scenery was not diverse, consisting of only mangroves. But as we traveled down the creek we pushed a flock of tricolor herons and a few ibis along just ahead of us. For several miles the lead boat would get to see the 20 or 30 tricolor heron dart ahead a hundred feet, wait for us and then dart again. In a rare opening, they circled around and gave Roger quite a show. And speaking of wildlife, Pat continues to get more experience with manatees. Today one rose under her boat with a fitful noise, rocking and splashing.
So what's a chickee? The Calusa people before us erected platforms in the sections of open water. The breeze helped keep down the mosquitoes, and a thatched roof gave protection from the sun. Today the park service has constructed chickees of more modern materials but the same basic design. A night on a chickee is a night on a platform about 20 feet square, a miniature private island (or Alcatraz if you feel penned in). The platform is 1.5 to 5 feet above the water depending on tide, which makes loading and unloading kayaks interesting. The safest approach is to tie two kayaks against the ladder and unload the adjacent boat and hand items up to another person on the ladder. However that means one boat at a time, and loading can take 30 minutes per boat. So faster methods involving hanging off the side of the chickee, flat on your belly, trying to stuff bags into little compartment holes while the kayak bounces around. Even getting in and out of the boat with the high dock can be a challenge, but our skills improve and Rod is able to stand in one kayak to reach gear on the dock and then reach down to load the adjacent kayak.
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