Almost To the Coast Day 5 12.30.11 by David Welsh

Waking up this morning, looking out the screen of my tent and seeing the

rippling water, I was immediately excited for todays trip. I stumbled out of the tent with the breeze on my face, and went over to the breakfast that was laid out, and filled my stomach with an apple, and a bagel covered in peanut butter and honey. Then, after packing our bags and loading them into the canoes, we were off on out trip.

Last night Ryan showed us the map and explained to us where we were going and how he was going to navigate through the islands. There are areas on the map that are harder to navigate through than others. The scale of how hard it is to navigate through an area is based from one to five. The section that we navigated today, and will navigate tomorrow, is rated the hardest, being a five out of five. Through the mangrove covered islands we went. Sun shining down on us, we made it to a chickee for lunch, and rationed out the thick slices of summer sausage, cheese, and tortillas.

Again, we were off on the final 4 miles of our day. We paddled to where we are now, the Oyster Bay chickee. When we saw the chickee, there was a tent set up where we had a permit to stay. After about an hour, a friendly man on a power boat pulled up, and kindly gave us the chickee for ourselves. He was even friendly enough to offer us ice and water. Mountain House meals were divvied out and we sat on the edge of the dock. We stared into the bay, and behind us, the mangroves. Their roots weaved together protruding from the trunk at about a foot above the ground. Small crabs scattered in their leaves, and before we knew it, we were all tired, sitting in our tents, waiting for tomorrow, when we’d be laying our eyes on the gulf of Mexico.

-David Welsh