Q&A With: Doug Alderson, Nature-Based Recreation Writer for the State of Florida

Doug Alderson was assistant editor of Florida Wildlife Magazine and now works in the state's department of nature-based recreation (part of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission). Doug talks about his September adventure in mapping a new state paddling trail (Big Bend Saltwater Paddling Trail), the merits of freeze-dried tiramisu, feeling like the Hulk and how the new trail compares to the Appalachian Trail.

EF: What are doing now, and how does it compare to your previous position?

DA: When the magazine was being phased out because of budget cuts, I was able to go aboard with the nature-based recreation program doing similar work. I'll be writing about those areas, taking photos, writing interpretive material for guides and brochures and also freelance articles for publications .... This is kind of my second full week of the job. My first week of the job was a 9-day sea kayaking journey on the Big Bend coast.

EF: What a way to begin!

DA: I was a little nervous about that, just because I'd only spent 2 or 3 hours in a kayak in a given time, just little day trips. I'd done some canoe camping, but never anything along the coast involving a sea kayak. So here I am embarking on a 9-day journey. I felt like I was in pretty good shape, but still, it's a new area for me.

I went with a woman named Liz Sparks. Liz Sparks works for the same program I do, and she has a lot more experience, and she is more the technical person who has the GPS unit. She's doing the mapping, she did a lot of legwork previous to the trip and designated campsites on state lands. Part of my job was to write interpretive material for the guidebook that we're going to be putting out at the end of the year. The guidebook will be over 30 pages and will involve detailed maps and all the GPS coordinates and the interpretive material to where somebody could start that journey with a GPS and pretty much be able to follow along and find all the campsites and figure out how far they're going and so forth. This trail is pretty much the wildest coastal section of Florida that remains, mainly because it's mostly public lands. It's all part of the Big Bend Wildlife Management Area.

Part of the way we designed the trail is you're paddling an average of 12 miles a day, and then we're going to describe areas you can explore once you reach your camp. So, 12 miles a day, you're going about 3 miles an hour, you should be able to make that in about 4 hours or so. That leaves a lot of time that you can go hiking around the area. You're camping, you can go paddling up a river or creek, check out a spring if there's one in the area. We're going to describe all that in the guide. So you're not just paddling along the shore and trying to make miles; you're exploring as you go to the different coastal areas where you're camping and taking your time to get to really know the coast.

One of the welcome surprises was the little towns we went in, like Keaton Beach, Steinhatchee and a little tiny hamlet called Spring Warrior Creek. The people are very friendly. They'd help us out, they'd give us cold sodas and water, and they would sometimes drive us to the store to buy groceries.

I hiked the Appalachian Trail when I was 18, and now I'm 46. Some of the towns along the Appalachian Trail have that friendly feeling. They're small towns, and they just had a good relationship with hikers and they just tend to open up their doors and let you come in, and sometimes they feed you or give you ice cream cones. It was a similar feeling. It's kind of my hope the same thing will happen on this trail. As more kayakers will use it, if they're respectful and friendly, and just be themselves, then the local folks will be the same, and they'll just have this interaction going on. Of course, it may benefit some of the local economies if they start buying supplies and maybe eat in a restaurant, so it's a 2-way thing.

EF: It's great to see the state open up other uses of these public lands.

DA: This kayaking trail isn't for everybody. We're putting in lots of warnings that it's for experienced paddlers, or go with somebody very experienced .... Even with our good guide, you still have to know what you're doing. It's kind of like backpacking in remote areas, it's very similar. Folks need to bring a GPS and a compass. We brought a flare gun. We also had a marine radio that we could probably reach a boat if something happened .... The best time to go would probably be late October through March.

When I finished, I felt like the Hulk. I did more work in the upper body than I have since I was a teenager lifting weights or something. But my legs felt like I needed to do some more walking. I still feel different. I thinned out my waist a little bit, but then I beefed up my arms and shoulders. It's kind of funny, backpacking is kind of the opposite. You tend to thin your upper body, and your legs start getting really muscular.

EF: Tell us about the campsites.

DA: They're not going to have any facilities .... They're not going to have bathrooms or picnic tables. It's pretty much going to be primitive camping most of the way. We put up a couple signs already, saying these sites are for paddlers of this trail only, and you basically have to call up and get a free permit to use them. Most of the sites aren't used by people anyhow. They're pretty remote.

Also, we didn't want any campsites that you can drive to. So you wouldn't get possible noise from folks coming out, like a party or whatever. We didn't really want that. We'd rather have an isolated spot you wouldn't have to worry about people driving up on you .... We tried to avoid the busy, public campsites. There is one stop where we recommend to take a day off just to camp in or stay in a motel or something, Steinhatchee. There's a variety of motels there and marinas you can stay in not that aren't that expensive, and you can eat in restaurants, stock up on food, take a shower, wash clothes and stuff. It's kind of a neat town.

This coast is still relatively unpopulated. If you want to find solitude, this is the place to go. You just have to know what you're doing. And you really need to go with somebody. You really shouldn't go out alone doing this whole thing because it is tricky. You need somebody to be there in case of emergencies. But this is a very unpopulated part of the state. It's just wild. A lot of places, in every direction, you will not see any sign of people except for maybe crab trap buoys. Once in a while in remote areas, you'll see a fisherman or 2 if it's high tide. If it's low tide, you won't even see fishermen. When you get near some of the towns, you'll see more boats and things, obviously, and then a few miles away, they'll start dwindling down. But you can find very remote places where you won't see any people on this trail. I was surprised how wild it was.

And as far as wildlife goes, there's an incredible amount of bird species .... In the winter time, you'll just see thousands of ducks. That's when the bald eagles come in. It's a big bald eagle area. You'll still see the nests in the warm months, but they won't be there. Year-round, you'll see osprey. We saw several ospreys every day. They seemed to be constant companions, you'll see them fishing along the coast there. Sometimes you might see manatees this time of year in the warm months out in the Gulf.

The water gets kind of dark near the Suwannee River, and I guess I went right over a couple manatees. They didn't see me, and I didn't see them because the water was dark and they just kind of erupted. They lifted up the back of my kayak as they got away. Liz said, "What's that?" I said, "Well, they're not whales. They're definitely manatees. Those were huge. See the big tails flap up?" That was neat. Obviously, a kayak can't hurt them, so they just got real startled. So did I.

But in the middle section, the water got real clear. It hadn't rained for a while, and it's like you're paddling over a big, giant aquarium of seagrass beds and sea turtles and lots of stingrays and fish, jellyfish, maybe some small sharks. So there's a lot of sea life you can see on this trail, especially when the water clears up.

This is a pretty shallow coast here. It doesn't drop off very quickly. At low tide, you have to paddle out sometimes a mile just to get deep enough water to paddle .... It adds a whole new panorama. You could look all around you, you could look at birds above you, and below you, you can see life. So in every direction, you're just constantly looking. Just a lot of stimulation. You'd think it was boring if you're just paddling hour after hour, but it's not, especially when it's clear and you're seeing all this stuff.

EF: What is the name of the new trail?

DA: Well, we're fine-tuning that. At the moment, we're calling it Big Bend Saltwater Paddling Trail.

EF: You begin at the Aucilla River, and where is the end?

DA: The end is in the town of Suwannee on the Suwannee River.

EF: So it doesn't quite go to Cedar Key.

DA: No. Not yet. I think some folks from DEP want to extend it down to Yankeetown and I think they're working on campsites and forth, too, but that gets beyond our property, so we can't really help with that as far as using our lands for campsites and stuff.

EF: What did you eat on this trip?

DA: We had freeze-dried food with us for dinner and breakfast. You wouldn't believe the type of food they have now. They have lasagna, all these incredible foods, and they taste good. We had Denver omelets for breakfast, potatoes and all kinds of neat stuff. With dinner, we had desserts, these freeze-dried desserts, tiramisu and what not.

EF: Freeze-dried tiramisu?!

DA: Tiramisu. Unbelievably good, too. I probably ate better, as far as variety, on this trip, because it's all made for you and you just put in hot water and let it sit for 10 minutes. And the desserts you put in cold water and let it sit .... Liz bought it online. It was great. And the quantities were plenty. She'd get a dinner for 2, and it was fine. It wasn't like you're just hungry afterwards. So you'd a dinner for 2, plus dessert, and that's fine, or you could eat some raisins or whatever for fruit. But I was never really hungry on this trip. I ate trail mix, too. For lunches, we just ate bagels ... and then we had these pouches of tuna fish. You just whip them open. There's different flavors. We usually just had that with bagels and maybe some dried fruit for lunch, and that was it. And that was fine. Because you can eat a little extra protein when you're doing that much paddling.

EF: Sounds as though you had a very eventful trip.

DA: Sometimes, the wind would be at our backs, and we felt like, "This is easy," and all of a sudden, the wind would change and be facing us, and we'd really have to work because there's no real current. So you're pretty much generating your movement by yourself. You're not floating down a river. You're along a coast with no real current.

EF: What kind of equipment did you take? A cell phone wouldn't have helped you much out there.

DA: We had coverage until Rock Island, which was the 2nd night. But we didn't have coverage all the way to Steinhatchee. That's over 50 miles with no cell phone coverage. So you can't really depend on the cell phone .... Cell phones are tricky all along that coast, so you take a marine radio for emergencies. A flare is probably a good idea. You should have a life jacket. If it's rough, wear it or have it right in front of you, with a whistle attached to it. In case you fall in, you can whistle to your partner. And your partner should always be within earshot of you, so if you tip over, you can whistle to them or yell to them.

We had a good first aid kit, obviously, and tried to anticipate everything with that. The full first aid kit and not just the minor mini kit. You're kind of on your own for a while. Just be very careful, as careful as you can. Bring emergency gear. I always bring the basic stuff, too, like for upset stomachs, things like that that would come up. I always bring some antibiotics and pain killers just in case, snake bite kit.

EF: You have to be prepared because it's so remote.

DA: I would say it's the remotest coast you'll find in Florida, for sure, as far as not seeing that many people. There's not the white sand beaches, either, that attract the big condos for swimming, so it's never going to attract giant condos for that reason. Most land is in public ownership; hopefully we can keep that in public ownership, and somebody won't try to sell it off in the legislature or something. We will always have that protected to where it's always going to look wild because it won't be developed. I think the state owns almost 100 miles of coastline there in between the towns. I think our trip was 105 miles, and you take away 5 miles or so for our little explorations, which should be part of the trip. A hundred miles, then you have some little towns, so maybe a little less than 100 miles of coastline that the state owns.

EF: Are there specific names for these natural areas?

DA: The main area that we covered was part of the Big Bend Wildlife Management Area managed by our agency. In there, you have Econfina State Park. At the end, you have Suwannee River National Wildlife Refuge. But most of it is Big Bend WMA. It's like 4 different units.

EF: It sounds like a great place to explore Florida.

DA: If we get more people enjoying the outdoors, maybe they'll be more concerned about conservation in our state and help protect these areas to make sure they're there for our kids and grandkids.

One reason we want more people out there is we can justify the state buying up more of these environmentally endangered lands. It shows people are using it and enjoying it, then it's more of a reason to protect these areas in the eyes of those who make those decisions. If they feel that lands are being "locked up" and nobody's using them, they may not be as open to buying up more of these lands. There may be a move to sell them, heaven forbid, with all the time and money it takes to protect an area, we don't want somebody to turn around and sell them at a future point. It's almost justification to keep them and to expand them. To do that, people have to know what opportunities there are. That's what people who lobby tell me. They get in these arguments sometimes, saying, "Well, you're just buying too much land. Nobody knows about them, and nobody knows what there is out there." Part of our job is to let them know what they can do out there, what's out there.

The guide to the Big Bend Saltwater Paddling Trail is expected to be ready by the end of the year, at which time the trail will be open. To request the guide or brochures for other state lands, please call 850-488-5520. The brochures are free, but the paddling trail guide booklet will have a price to cover the cost of printing.