Beach Cruising Everglades National Park

[jheldatksuedu]

Leave the paint at home, People that do that should have the paint used on their cars, it's wilderness "leave no trace." When I get by with a certain amount of water, every drop goes in my mouth, you might use fresh water to clean your food bowl, but then you drink it, It's only food scraps in the water, use no soap, it doesn't taste good. You can get lost, that's part of the adventure, it's how you learn navigation, I made a couple mistakes due to not knowing and figuring out the scale of my satellite picture vs paddling distance. Once I got that feeling for distance I had no problem, you have to keep track of where you think you are on the map and make sure everything you can see makes sense with each new island of the 10,000 of them. The satellite view will tell you where the beaches are, but inside the park, camping on most of them is not allowed. Visiting and anchoring off them should be fine.

[Cormorant]

FamilyVan -- this sounds like an excellent plan. I was wondering what boat designs you're considering for the trip. If you're not familiar with Jim Michalak's designs, I wanted to point you in his direction. His plans are very inexpensive, and his boats are designed for simplicity of build.

A couple you might want to look at are Jewelbox Jr. and Hapscut. Barebones simple, but with a bit of a cabin so you can get out of the rain (or hot sun), and make it easier to screen out mosquitos. Other designs go up or down the scale of complexity/size/cost. . .

Jim Michalak's Boat Plans

I'm a big fan of Jim's designs, obviously. I currently sail his 31-foot Cormorant design, and out in my barn are at least a half dozen others . . . Mayfly, Piragua, Toto, Vole, etc. Once you start building, it's hard to stop! Good luck with all this, and let us know how it all turns out. I hope to make that trip myself someday.

[mserafi1]

Bring a good chart for your DR, a hand held gps, and leave the paint home. It won't be of much use since once in the view in every direction is the same...which is why the GPS is necessary. The Everglades are mangroves connected by open water and distances are misleading. Once in everything in every direction looks the same and you can't tell where you are on the chart by looking around...to find a chickee takes that kind of accuracy...borrow a GPS if you must, but bring one. You can go from Everglade City to Flamingo by the marked wilderness waterway but the fun is exploring the wilderness/backwater areas. As I said, it's a bucket list trip and no matter how you do it, you'll be truly on your own in a vast wilderness of water, mangroves and sky...truly worth the effort. If you do need to bring a can of something...I recommend Magic Hat #9. Oh, and if you're still open to mode of travel....quiet is better. You would be amazed at the wild life you can get up close and personal to from a kayak.

Blue Skies and good luck with your trip.

[FamilyVan]

Cormorant, thanks for the boat designs as we haven't yet nailed down a design, it will definitely be a small engineless sailboat. I am leaning towards a Navigator because its sexy, supposedly easy to build and 16' sounds about right size wise.

Everybody has given great advice, it sounds like I've picked a plan that appeals to others and not just me- fantastic.

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[bwells79]

The August issue of Sail Magazine has an article titled 'The Joys of Sail-camping" that you might enjoy reading. We were in that area visiting family last year and driving along looking at those gators along the road side.........Big teeth, small brains!

[HopCar]

I've been thinking about camp/cruising from Miami around to Marco Island.
This is the boat I've been thinking about building for the trip.
Boat plans for amateurs |



If I bought the CNC kit, I don't think it would take long to put it together.
They are here in Florida so I could pick up the kit and not pay shipping.

[FamilyVan]

Originally Posted by HopCar

I've been thinking about camp/cruising from Miami around to Marco Island.
This is the boat I've been thinking about building for the trip.
Boat plans for amateurs |



If I bought the CNC kit, I don't think it would take long to put it together.
They are here in Florida so I could pick up the kit and not pay shipping.

This looks a little easier than plans I've been looking at. I like it.

Sent from my XP7700 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[RTB]

What an awesome place to explore. These guys have the right idea, using houseboats as base camp. This was at Little Shark River.

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A bit pricy though - Everglades boat rentals and everglades boat tours of Everglades National Park Florida

We saw our first manatee at Russell Pass, near Everglade City. Our first encounter with noseeums was at Little Shark, where they tried to eat us alive. We've lived with noseeums at many places, but never as bad as in the Glades.

Ralph