The docile giants - picture sea lions with elephantiasis - give us
more than a humpback sighting. Then the still morning explodes, and
a great plume of water, flung by a powerful fluke, soaks Rick. He
manages to retain his aplomb and his upright position, though I
note he takes a few backward strokes.
"Never seen that before," he says. "Maybe they're mating."
During the next several hours, we slide across the lightly ruffled
waters of Pine Island Sound. We skirt the eastern edge of Cayo
Costa, making our way past several mangrove islands that not one of
us recognizes, despite the maps Rick and I carry. We're hoping to
find our way to Cabbage Key, where there's the bar at which Jimmy
Buffett purportedly penned "Cheeseburger in Paradise." We
eventually find both key and bar, and we toast our navigational
skills with cold beers. After another hour or so, we even find our
way back to Pine Island. We hone in on the marina by simple, and
altogether pleasant, means: The marina is the only sign of man
along the mangrove shore.
THE NEXT MORNING, I paddle with Connie
Langmann, owner of Gaea Guides, and with some 20 other kayakers.
It's a Sunday, and the second day of Pine Island's first Calusa
Blueway Paddling Festival, a low-key gathering that includes
various paddling outings as well as demonstrations at a local park.
Our outing begins with a stroll along the Calusa Heritage Trail,
the
archaeological site on Pine Island that was once the Calusa
Indian village of Tampa. We follow Connie through the hot morning
as she explains how the Calusa made the most of their environment.
Lacking stone, they used shells for everything from tools to
foundations, which still remain, in the form of enormous shell
mounds. The Calusa also made the most of their size, since the
average Calusa male was six feet tall. In the 1500s, they were the
equivalent of today's Shaquille O'Neal, only with more attitude and
with an impressive array of sharp weapons.