CRUISING ON THE GULF COAST OF...

CRUISING ON THE GULF COAST OFFLORIDA

CHAPTER II

CRUISING ON THE GULF COAST OF FLORIDA

THE essence of cruising is exploration and ad-venture. It is the individual's response to"the call of the wild" which fills the canoes

on the rivers and lakes of the country, lights the camp-fires which burn in its wildernesses, and puts feverin the veins of every man who has gazed upon thestars from the bosom of old Mother Earth.

I have no more thrilling memory than that of onelong ago February night, when, with another truant,I rested upon a bed of hemlock boughs and firsttasted the joys of the campfire. Without blankets,freezing in body but exalted in spirit, the very starsseemed to sing together for joy. Ten years later thatcomrade's name was given to his last camp, the Alamoof the plains, Beecher's Island.

An attraction, which can no longer be the enthu-siasm of youth, draws me irresistibly from the roarof the machinery of modern civilization and givesrest when the wilderness is reached, whether I paddleamid rapids of icy water in the frozen north, ordreamily drift with the sluggish current of sometropical stream.

Cruising in the waters of Florida is the ne plusultra of outdoor life. You are in the open all day,

Florida Enchantments

sleep on deck at night, wear little beyond your birth-day suit, and treat the water around you with thefamiliarity of an amphibian. The life can be strenu-ous enough to strain the stoutest muscles and satisfythe wildest craving for excitement, or restful to themost worn-to-frazzles nerves.

The experiences of a recent cruise ranged fromeating sapadiloes and sea grapes on a boat becalmedin the emerald water of the Bay of Florida, to beingthreatened by waterspouts and struck by lightning;from watching wonderful sunisets and talking phil-osophy to a girl, to chasing rattlesnakes with a launchand being towed by a devil-fish; from playing tarpon,to dragging a crocodile out of his cave, and fromtreading clams to a ride on a manatee.

In cruising it is what you do yourself that counts.You may take prescribed drugs by proxy withprobable advantage, but you must live the cruisinglife for yourself. Catch your fish, shoot your game,gather your oysters and tread your own clams, andif you also cook them it will make for appetite andhealth.

Don't keep a sailors' boarding house. You willneed a captain who knows the coast, but you shouldlearn his trade for yourself. In a week you ought tounderstand the rationale of the simple navigationthat concerns you and be able to execute all ordinarymaneuvers. You will make mistakes as do all whomake anything. I have myself borne the accusationthat when during a heavy squall the sharp commandcame from my captain:

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Cruising on the Gulf Coast of Florida

"Let go the peak halyards, quick."I promptly turned loose the big chain of the hurri-

cane anchor.It is now a score of years since the late Colonel

Ingersoll, not Robert, but a relative, handed a pencilsketch to Fogarty of Braidentown, on the ManateeRiver.

"What's this to Hecuba? I'm a builder of boatsand you show me the plan of a house," said the latter,in substance.

"But I want you to make that house and thenbuild a boat around it."

Thereafter, while the genial Colonel lived, thehospitable Karena, known to the natives as the Ark,threatened most of the water ways and ran agroundon all the bars of the west coast of Florida, from CedarKeys to Key West. It was the prototype of thecruising houseboat of that coast of to-day, and as theColonel with prophetic instinct once remarked, lackedonly a little steam tender to run its errands.

In place of the Karena we now see floating houseslike the "Whim Wham" with every attribute of ahome, from a chef to a canary, from a library to apet cat, with sixty horse power engines in the base-ment, in which the owner changes his residence whilehe sleeps and only knows where he is living whenhis captain tells him. Glittering launches, polisheddingeys, and a uniformed crew go with this outfit,which suggests yachting rather than the cruising Icare for.

Stately yachts, at stated times, rattle their anchor19


chains just within the mile-wide, ten fathom deep,Boca Grande Pass, while near-by their charteredcraft lodge the guides who know the tricks of the tidesand the tarpon, and reduce the labor of the fishermento a minimum.

I have seen a well-known yachtsman quietly enjoyhis magazine and cigar, on the deck of his boat whilehis guide trolled for tarpon within a few hundredfeet. When a tarpon was hooked, the sportsmanlaid aside his magazine and was rowed out to theskiff of his guide, from which he captured what wasleft of the fish.

There are house-boats of simple construction whichare moved about by tugs and often anchored for theseason in one place. They make inexpensive homeswith attractive features, but they are not cruisers.

Occasionally a should-be cruiser becomes con-ventionalized and vibrates between Fort Myers,Punta Rassa and Boca Grande, fishing in orthodoxfashion on predetermined dates.

The interest in a cruise is often in inverse ratio toits cost. Two young men, with some knowledge ofsailing and a genuine love for the campfire, arrivedon the west coast of Florida with two months in timeand two hundred dollars in money to spend. Theybought a sloop, with a small skiff, for one hundreddollars, enlarged and fitted up the cabin at a costof seventy-five dollars, invested twenty-five dollarsin supplies, and buried themselves among the TenThousand Islands. Two months later they emergedwith clothing in tatters, faces and arms red as the

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The conventional houseboat, with every convenience from a chefto a canary.

"'Becalmed in the emerald water of the Bay of Florida."

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Indians with whom they had consorted, bodies ruggedand stores of experience sufficient to illuminate theirlives. They sold their outfit at cost, reducing theirnet expenses for two months to the twenty-five dol-lars paid for supplies, to which the wilderness hadcontributed without cost, fish, game and fruit.

A friend, of some mechanical skill, has a smallcruising boat fitted with many conveniences of hisown devising. He is something of a sailor and hiswife is a better one. They are their own crew, andwhen a son and daughter are with them the familydivide up the offices of captain, first officer, engineerand cook, and the outfit for cruising is ideal. Afriend of the lady once said to her:

"Some day you'll all be drowned together.""Yes, that's another advantage, if we go we go

together."Florida cruising is statistically safer than staying

at home. Even taking cold seems impossible, al-though one seldom hesitates to go overboard on theinstant to push the boat off a bar, dive up clams, orhelp with the nets.

On a recent cruise the girl of the party, who wasenjoying the surf one evening, having been in thewater continuously since the midday meal, repliedto a remonstrance:

"My physician told me it would not hurt me tobathe four hours after eating, and I'm doing it."

My latest cruise began as a family affair, with thegirl, the Camera-man and a captain. Another girlwas needed, and we borrowed the tree lady, who

21


having just evolved from her inner consciousness atree book, which was counted authoritative, was nowanxious to see some real trees.

Our equipment was the result of compromises be-tween the requirements of deep sea cruising, andshallow bay exploration, and between cabin capacityand seaworthiness. It consisted of a yawl rigged,flat bottomed boat of thirty-seven by fourteen feet,with a draft of three feet. Our cabin was twentyfeet long by twelve in breadth and we had with ustwo skiffs and a small launch. Fittings and furnish-ings were severely practical and included dark room,tools for all ordinary repair work, and fishing,hunting and photographing outfits.

Starting from Marco we gave the tree lady herchoice between tarpon and crocodiles, and as sheselected the former, sailed for Charlotte Harbor andthe tarpon resorts of Captiva Pass and Boca Grande,where the season was at its height.

On the first day at Captiva Pass the tarpon scored.The tree lady was in a skiff with the Camera-man,making tarpon jump while he photographed them;the girl was on Captiva Beach gathering shells, leav-ing me to fish by myself, which I did by placing mytarpon rod on the seat beside me with the bait trollingbehind the skiff as I rowed in the swift current of thePass. There came a highly pitched buzz of the reel,a wild leap six feet in air of a frightened tarpon, andmy rod flew over the stern of the skiff, leaving astraight wake to the Gulf. I fancy that the wholeoutfit, rod, massive reel, and six hundred feet of

22


costly line, was an exhibit that night at some club oftarpon, devoted to the baiting of fishermen. I shouldlike to see the legend attached to it, to know at whatmy weight was estimated, and to hear the accountsof the contest, that I might compare the stories toldby fish with those told about them.

We were fishing for the camera, and when thehooked tarpon ceased to pose they were turned loose,with a single exception. The tree lady wanted sometarpon scales big enough to weigh the fish storiesshe was preparing for her family.

At Boca Grande we anchored north of the Pass,safe from everything but a gale from the northeast,which is what came to us with the setting of the sun.The strong tide held the boat in the trough of thesea and a wicked roll caused havoc in the cabin,where a bottle of oil breaking on the floor madewalking thereon distressing. As the tide rushedpast, it created a wake of phosphorescent fire, and anoccasional wave breaking over us bathed the boat inliquid moonshine, while filling the cockpit withwater that had to be bailed out.

We hoisted the jigger to hold the boat across thesea, and gave the hurricane anchor a few morefathoms of chain. Our captain was on shore unableto join us. Four times he dragged his skiff throughthe surf and tried to row to us, but four times he wascapsized and swept back. As the night wore on,the launch filled and sank and the remaining skiffwas swamped, broke her painter and was washedashore.

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In the morning the captain succeeded in reachingus, although his skiff sank under him just as he caughtthe line we threw him. We made tackle fast to thelaunch, lifted it until it could be bailed out, and thenhoisting a sail with many reefs, spent an excitingquarter of an hour in clawing away from the beckon-ing beach. We sailed to a little land-locked harborsouth of the Pass, and the next day returned anddug our skiff out of the sand where the waves hadburied it, and recovered the widely scattered oars,lines, seats, and other boat furniture.

Following the storm, the fishing at Boca Grandewas marvelous. The mile-wide Pass was filled withminnows by the thousand million, making darkpatches upon the water, often many acres in extent.Among them porpoises rolled, thousands of tarponleaped, the fins of hundreds of great sharks cut lanesthrough them, uncountable cavalli, Spanish mack-erel, bluefish, ladyfish and other predatory smallfry, devouring and being devoured, beat the waterinto surf-like waves, while, moved by a single im-pulse, here, there and everywhere, minnows by theyard or acre were leaping three feet in the air, fillingit with rainbow tinted masses of spray. Everywherethe water was covered with dying minnows andspangled throughout with their scales.

As our skiff was rowed among them, tarpon leapedabout it drenching us with water and throwing hun-dreds of minnows and other little fish in the boat. Asmall fish, which had fallen aboard, was put upon atarpon hook and as it dropped overboard it was

24

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swallowed by a jack-fish which in turn was seizedby a tarpon. A great shark took up the trail of thetarpon and a moment later had bitten him in two,at the same time striking the skiff so vicious a blowthat I was glad to remember that, contrary to currentsuperstition, the sharks in this country never attacka human being.

Tarpon fishing with the camera is the apotheosisof sport. There is yet to be discovered anythingmore picturesque and thrilling than the leap of thenear-by tarpon, filling the air with prismatic drops,and the gleaming silver of its gracefully contortedbody brilliantly reflecting the rays of the sun.

Only less spectacular, because of its Lilliputianscale, is the leap of the lady fish, sometimes calledskipjack, which rises to a fly and gives an acrobaticperformance that makes the best work of any knowngame fish look like thirty cents.

Sea trout, Spanish mackerel, channel bass andother game fish kept the larder full and gave con-tinuous sport at every pass in Charlotte Harbor andPine Island Sound from Gasparilla to Punta Rassa.

Half an hour with a landing net on the shore wouldfill a bucket with crabs, while on any moonlight nightfrom May to July great turtles could be foundcrawling on the beach and turned over for stews andsteaks, or followed to their crawls for the one hundredand thirty to one hundred and eighty eggs that wouldbe there in the morning.

We beach-combed for shells, from Gasparilla toBig Marco Pass, all but the tree lady, who explained

25


that she was under contract to produce a standardwork of reference on conchology and must approachthe subject with a mind that was blank. She left ablank when she sailed for the north from Marco,whence we turned south for the crocodile country.

From Coon Key to Sand Fly Pass our course layoutside the Keys and we ran before a gale under jiband jigger, landing disgracefully among the busheswhen we tried to stem the tide that flowed fromChokoliskee Bay. Here we found a party of Semi-nole Indians, laid pipe for a visit to their camp, andobtained a full-grown wild-cat, or lynx.

We made a cage for Tom, who day by day grewmore ferocious and had to be fed at the end of a stick.He knew the exact length of his fore leg and just whenit was worth while to strike at us between the bars.He nearly ate up his cage in his efforts to get free, butwhen the door was finally opened, hesitated longbefore he came out. He then walked slowly, growlingat everybody but so surprised by the indifference withwhich he was regarded that he soon began to makeadvances, and finally laid a tentative paw upon thehand of the captain as he stood at the wheel. There-after he became friendly, sometimes too friendly,occasionally jumping playfully upon anyone whohappened to be sleeping on deck, which, until we gotused to it, was exciting.

From Pavilion Key south the coast is one vastbank of clams, perennially inviting the visitor to gooverboard and tread for them. One night, whenanchored with light tackle a few miles below this

26


key, a gale from the southwest dragged the anchor, abig wave lifted us and at the top of a spring tidedropped us on a high coral reef.

The next morning we were many yards from waterwith the chances that we were settled for a month,but happily a favoring wind that day raised the waterenough to enable us to haul the boat back into herelement.

As our cruise led us through crooked channels inthe shallow waters of the Bay of Florida, we oftenran aground, but by promptly going overboard couldusually push off into deeper water. Once we had todig the boat out, loosening the mud under it with ahoe and washing it away by a current from the pro-peller of the launch.

At Madeira Hammock we anchored for a crocodilehunt in the interest of the camera, and for ten daysin skiffs explored creeks and bays in the pursuit.We turned aside once to follow with a harpoon threebig fins traveling tandem that belonged to a fourteenfoot sawfish, whose thousand pounds propelled abroad four-foot saw, armed with fifty-two teeth,through schools of smaller fish. He belonged to thedetested shark family and we wasted no sympathyon him as he towed us at racing speed through amile of creek and bayou.

We caught a number of crocodiles and took withus, for shipment to the Bronx, one ten-foot specimenwhich we had captured in his cave, and sailedfor Marco where the Camera-man left us for NewYork.

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On our way up the coast the cat and the crocodilequarreled and to save the eyes of the saurian we puthim overboard one evening with a rope around hisbody. During the night he died, mysteriously. Thelynx swam ashore in response to the crowing of acock and perished in a hen roost, but not myster-iously. Both had been prematurely promised to theZoo in New York and I was mortified, so I visiteda rookery, captured and shipped a dozen pelicans tothe Zoo, and again sailed for the crocodile country.

We started on Friday, wherefore the girl predicteddisaster and reminded us thereof on the followingday when a heavy rain squall struck us, shut us upin semi-darkness and proceeded to box the compasswith the boat. When the squall got through with uswe were under bare poles with the jib the only hoist-able sail.

Favored by the tide our launch carried us intoEverglade where we found material to put our rig-ging in order. Here I borrowed a couple of young-sters not quite in their teens, for the sake of theyouthful enthusiasm they presumably possessed. Yetwhen we reached Madeira Hammock they fished,hunted wild sapadillo trees and gathered the fruit,and cruised around in the launch, with tears of home-sickness streaming down their cheeks.

At Madeira Hammock I stood again, harpoon polein hand, in the bow of the skiff which my perspiringboatman patiently sculled among the keys, over theflats, and through the labyrinthic rivers that lie be-tween the Bay of Florida and the saw-grass of the

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Everglades. The harpoon was simply a pointed bitof barbed steel, only capable of penetrating one inchbeyond the barb and intended merely to maintaincommunication with the quarry until it could besecured by other means.

One morning, just after we had started on ourdaily cruise, a series of swirls in the water near us,the language of which was then unfamiliar, seemedto tell of a frightened crocodile and that the hunt wason. We followed the zigzagging trail of muddy wateras fast as we could scull and pole, getting occasionalglimpses of a fleeing something, until the full viewof it under the bow of the skiff gave me the chanceI was seeking.

As the harpoon struck a broad back, which was notthat of a crocodile, the creature rose above the sur-face, and as it did so its big beaver like tail coveredme with a deluge of water. Then as it struck andnearly swamped the skiff, I realized that I had atlast found the manatee, which I had vainly huntedduring many years.

For hours we chased the creature, keeping a lightstrain on the harpoon line, frightening him as he cameup to breathe, until, exhausted, he rose more andmore frequently. I then made a score of unsuccess-ful attempts to lasso this specimen of the wild cattleof the sea.

Finally, the manatee came to the surface to breathe,so near the skiff that I put my left arm around hisneck as far as it would go, and tried to slip the nooseover his head with my right. The sudden lifting of

29


his head threw me upon his back, while a twist of hisbig tail sent me sprawling.

We were swamped four times while working themanatee into shallow water, where we got overboard,fastened a line around him and soon had him undercontrol, although when the captain got astride ofthe creature, he was promptly made to turn a backsomersault. Docile as our captive had become, hewas yet eleven feet long, of massive proportions anda weight which was difficult to handle. We tore theseats out of the skiff, sunk it to the bottom and stand-ing upon it succeeded in getting the sea cow over it.We lifted on the boat, bailed out the water and werepaddling the over-laden craft out in the bay when acataclysm left us swimming side by side while a sub-merged skiff was being towed gulfward by a rejoicingmanatee.

We soon recaptured the animal and persuaded himinto shallow water, where I herded him while thecaptain went to the big boat for an anchor and cablewith which we made our captive fast, giving him twohundred feet of rope in an excellent sea cow pasture.

We were now candidates for a dungeon and liableto a big fine because of our unlawful detention ofthis highly protected mammal, so we sailed for Miamiin pursuit of an ex post facto permit.

The authorities were good to me when convincedof the educational destiny of the manatee and in aweek I returned with permits in my pocket, promisesof free transportation by rail and steamer to the NewYork Aquarium, telegrams of congratulation from

30


the Zoo people, and lumber for a tank for the mana-tee, only to find no trace of anchor, cable or captive.Our cruising boat had been struck by lightning inMiami and the shock had been serious to all of us,but it was as nothing in comparison with this.

For a day we followed the zigzag trail of the anchorflukes, through a water glass, over half a mile of thebottom of the bay until we came upon the anchor,cable, and worn-through harness from which themanatee had escaped.

I returned to Marco, where I left the girl, tookaboard a thousand miles of gasoline and four weeks'provisions for two, and sailed south with my boat-man to capture a manatee. We explored the water-ways between the Everglades and the Gulf, fromCapes Romano to Sable. We sailed up broad riverswhich narrowed until the bowsprit plunged into thebushes at every tack, and the towed skiff gatheredoysters from overhanging mangrove branches as itswung against the bank. We followed the contract-ing channels with the launch until we were flying atfull speed through crooked creeks, with bushes fromthe banks sweeping our craft on either side. Whenthe branches closed over the stream, we dragged theskiff under them to the Everglades or the end of thecreek.

As we followed rivers through shallow bays thechurning of the propeller and waves rolling up behindus gave warning when we left the channel. Beinglost among the Ten Thousand Islands is one's normalcondition and without significance. So long as one

31


remembers that the sun rises in the east, he can findhimself, but if he leaves his boat for an inland tramp-that is different. Alligator hunters have told methat they seldom knew and never cared where theywere when hunting in the swamp. They just wentanywhere for a month or two and came out whenthey got ready.

We struck waterspout weather off Shark Riverwhen conical clouds sent swirling tails dancing overthe surface of the water which they sometimes touchedand drew upward in huge swaying columns. Thenext day our boat lay becalmed at the mouth ofRodgers River, which we explored in the launch.As we started, graceful frigate pelicans floated highabove us with motionless wings, while on the waterabout us their awkward namesakes filled poucheswith food for their families and flew homeward withthe curious intermittent strokes peculiar to thesebirds. The round head and bright eyes of the grass-eating green turtle bubbled up for a moment abovethe water, in pleasing contrast with the grosser headof his loggerhead cousin. Water-turkeys droppedheavily in the river as we passed, then quickly thrustout snake-like heads above its surface to gaze at us.Herons, big and little, blue, white and green, flappedlazily out of our way with discordant cries; browncurlews, roseate spoonbills, and white ibis sat undis-turbed upon near-by trees; egrets and long whitesforgot the bitter lessons that man's cupidity andwoman's vanity had taught them, and even a monkey-faced owl, big and white, unknowing how rare a

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specimen he was, turned goggle eyes upon the gunbeside me.

At the head of the river a tropical storm burst uponus, followed by a calm, and filled the western skywith massive clouds wonderfully colored, which wereduplicated in the mirror of the water until the illusionof a sky beneath us of infinite depth made me clingto the boat for dizziness. At the end of a long vista,the middle ground of slim palmetto and toweringroyal palm completed an unforgettable picture.

We had explored Lossmans River to the Ever-glades and were cruising the bays near its head whenabout dusk we saw a big rattlesnake swimmingtoward a mangrove key. To cut him off compelledus to run the launch full speed into the key. Theskiff in tow came surging up beside us and the snakewas between the two boats. We got the snake inthe skiff, where the captain held him down with anoar, until I had him safely by the neck. After ex-tracting the reptile's fangs I tied him in the skiff tobe skinned for mounting the next morning. He wassix and one-half feet long and had ten rattles.

Sometimes as we cruised, the big eyes of a wonder-ing deer gazed upon us from a bit of meadow. OnceI snapped the camera shutter on a black face withwhite eyeballs framed in an opening in the mangrovebushes, and on the same day we exchanged nods ofhalf-recognition with an alligator hunter in the depthof the wilderness upon whose head was a price.

The days left us were few. Sweet bay leaves hadtaken the place of coffee, palmetto cabbage was our

33


principal vegetable, cocoa plums, custard apples,wild limes and lemons, our fruit; and hour by hourwe measured the gasoline left in the tank. Onemorning, with scarce two inches left, I estimated thatwe could go through Shark to Harney River, up thatto the Everglades and return.

Far up the river we went, among beautiful keys,between richly wooded banks, past Golgotha campsof alligator hunters and trappers of otter, in chan-nels choked with grass which had to be cleared fromthe propeller every few minutes, along shores coveredwith wading birds, over waters alive with alligatorsand thickly dotted with the heads of fresh waterterrapin, until the launch was stopped by a solid massof lily pads covering the stream and held in placeby stems eight feet long, through which startled alli-gators made their way along the river bed settingthe pads above to dancing mysteriously. Forcingour way in the skiff through half a mile of the padswe reached the Everglades, and following an Indiantrail pushed far out on its surface for a final inter-view with a region which, although desolate, was yetstrangely fascinating.

When but a mile was left of our return trip, afrightened manatee just ahead of our launch rolledhis body half out of water, like a porpoise, and throw-ing his tail in the air started down the river. Thiswas our last chance and we followed his every turn.When he turned and headed upstream to escapeus we were so near that again he leaped half out ofwater and soon was so exhausted that he rose for

34


breath every few seconds. My hopes, which haddied, were resurrected and already I was drawingup the skiff for the final act, when the motor stoppedwith its last drop of gasoline and the manatee chasewas ended.

As we silently poled the launch homeward, mymind ran over the results of the hunt. We had seena dozen manatee and had a calling acquaintance withhalf that number. We were familiar with theirslightest appearance above the water and with thesigns they left beneath it. We had seen them asRomeos and Juliets and often when within a fewfeet of one had only been thwarted by the darknessof the water which in the rainy season pours fromthe cypress and mangrove swamps.

A tiller rope broken during the excitement of aquick turn had saved one from probable capture,and as I remembered that an impulse of emotionalinsanity had held my hand when a mother manatee,with an unweaned calf pressed close to her side, rosebeside me, I thought with bitterness of the poet whowrote:

" The quality of mercy is not strained."

But I knew where the creatures lived and when wereached our boat, just as the stars came out, I haddetermined that in the hunt for a manatee it wasonly the first chapter that had closed.

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