Lost in the Everglades

By Tricia Workman • Photos by the author

For half an hour we had been fighting to move our canoe through twelve-foot-tall, razor-sharp saw grass. Clearly, we were no longer on the canoe trail. We rinsed our bleeding hands in the tea-colored water, then faced facts. With night only a few hours away and no dry land for miles, we were lost.

A great egret hunts for fish and other small animals.

My friend and I had spent the day paddling a canoe trail in the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. We had wanted to experience the Florida Everglades firsthand, hoping to see egrets and ospreys.

The Everglades are not the dismal swamp I had imagined. They are more like a flooded prairie. To the north, Lake Okeechobee gathers water from rain-filled streams and rivers. At the southern and western edges of the lake, the water spills out. The water flows for a hundred miles to the tip of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, much as water from a tipped bucket spreads across a kitchen floor.

And all across these millions of acres, the tall, tough plant called saw grass grows in the water as it has for four thousand years. This great “river of grass” dividing the east coast of Florida from the west is the Everglades. No other place on Earth is like it.

Unseen Creatures
Lost, we paddled down a narrow channel through saw grass ten feet tall, where unseen creatures grunted and gabbled. Then the channel opened out into a maze of channels. Here, the saw grass was much shorter, growing among water lettuce, lily pads, and pickerel weed. As far as our eyes could see, the shallow water glittered among the grass blades under the bright Florida sun. Endlessly it stretched, broken only by a few tree islands, which are floating islands of bushes and small trees.

Entering the maze, we passed some of these islands. A small deer emerged from one. She daintily picked her way through the shallow water to a neighboring island, where she disappeared into the tangled growth.

Water-Loving Reptiles
In other tree islands we saw large turtles sunning, and a snake curled up under a fern. We recognized it as a poisonous water moccasin, a rare sight in the refuge.

An alligator basks in the sun.

Farther on we heard a strange rustling. I felt the back of my neck prickle as we rounded a bend and came eye to eye with an alligator as big as our canoe.

We stopped paddling and held our breath as it slithered into the channel just ahead of us. Using its powerful tail, it swam lazily in front of the canoe, then sank beneath the surface. Goose bumps rose on our skin as our canoe drifted over the spot where the gator had disappeared. Fortunately, like most alligators, it preferred to avoid humans.

Shaking off our shivers, we paddled on, watching for birds, muskrats, raccoons, and otters. We must have fallen under the spell of the Everglades. Suddenly it was late afternoon.

Lost at Sunset
We tried to find our way back to the trail, without luck. As the red sun dropped below the tops of the saw grass, we realized the safest thing to do was to stop and wait to be rescued.

Many kinds of reptiles make their home in the Everglades.

Remembering that water moccasin, we stayed away from tree islands and tied the canoe to an old post. Luckily, the weather was good, and our windbreakers kept us warm. Our lunch was gone, so we would be hungry that night.

All around, the water reflected the sunset sky, making it seem as if we were suspended in a shimmer of sherbet-colored light. As darkness fell, a few mosquitoes added their humming to the noises of frogs and alligators. “This hasn’t changed for thousands of years,” I thought. It wasn’t going to be a fun night, but it would be an adventure to spend a night in this great wilderness.

My friend was not so content. “I hope someone finds us soon,” she said.

A Distant Droning
After several hours a distant droning joined the night chorus. It sounded like a ranger’s airboat, which goes over the water on a cushion of air, roaring like an airplane. But why was it starting and stopping? Was someone out studying alligators?

“Maybe they’re looking for us,” my friend said hopefully. She decided to yell for help each time the engine stopped. A long beam of light bobbed in the darkness, drawing closer. Suddenly, through a break in the saw grass, it shone on us. My friend stood up, waving her white windbreaker over her head. “Hello!” she cried. “Over here!”

The ranger turned off his engine, and the boat glided alongside our canoe. “You folks OK?” he drawled. He didn’t sound at all cross for the trouble we had caused him. He explained that he had seen the note we left on the dashboard of our car saying we would be back by four o'clock. When we hadn’t returned on time, he started looking for us.

We climbed aboard the airboat and brought our canoe onboard. With a deafening roar the boat rose, taking us over the miles of saw grass back to the landing.

Later, I found myself wishing I could have stayed longer under that wide sky, with no noise but the creatures and the wind in the grass, and no light but the stars and the water shining all around.