Explorer

As a frequent visitor to a house on Captiva's Roosevelt Channel, I've spent hours staring across the water at Buck Key, wondering about the mysteries of the 300-acre island that was home to a thriving Calusa Indian village thousands of years ago. My curiosity finally led me to Wildside Adventures, based at McCarthy's Marina on Captiva, for a kayaking trip in and around Buck Key.

I hadn't canoed for many years-the last time was on the Connecticut River-and I had never kayaked, but I was willing to give it a try. I booked a 9 a.m. guided tour for a friend and me with Greg LeBlanc, who, with Barb Renneke, has run Wildside out of Captiva for the past three-and-a-half years. It offers guided tours, often from sunrise to as late as midnight, or rents kayaks and canoes to people who want to explore on their own. About half of Wildside's customers choose to go without a guide. They often come back with loads of questions, however. Mangrove tree crabs, for example, inspire an oft-posed query: "What were all those spiders on the trees?"

Upon spending only a few minutes with LeBlanc, you discover he is a passionate naturalist and environmentalist, who will fill the two-hour kayak tour with a ton of information. Mostly self-taught, or "un-degreed," as he calls himself, LeBlanc grew up in southern Louisiana, where he spent much of his time hunting and fishing. He worked for many years at the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium in Ft. Myers. "Greg was involved with eco-tourism before it was called that," Renneke says. (See related story on eco-tourism in this issue, page 46.)

"Well, for me, eco-tourism is the working relationship between plants, animals, and the environment," LeBlanc explains. "I'm trying to provide experiences for other people, expose them to kayaking, combined with observation of the local environment, our estuarine ecology." The guide points to a kayak he is about to get into and adds, "This kayak can be traced back thousands of years. Eco-tours are a great step compared with something like Jet-Ski tours."

Mixing Nature with History

"Buck Key is a good trip, because you can make a nice three-mile loop," LeBlanc says. "There's a beginning and an end. I particularly like it because it's a tropical sea-grass meadow, there's the importance of the mangroves, and it's an island that supported Calusas."

The Indian mounds on Buck Key have yielded artifacts and other clues about the lives of these early inhabitants. By the mid-1700s, most of the Calusas had been killed off or forced from the area by European interlopers. The island was probably uninhabited from then until the late 1800s, when several homesteaders arrived to grow citrus and other farm crops on the small island. At one time, Buck Key was even home to the only public school in the area. When hurricanes wiped out agricultural interests there in the 1920s, Buck Key returned largely to its natural state. Today the island remains undeveloped. Much of it-but not all-is protected land.

My friend and I climb into a double kayak, carrying a lightweight paddle with a carbon-fiber shaft and fiberglass blades. But we "cheat" by using one of Wildside's few motorized kayaks. They are equipped with a two-speed trolling motor that has 20 pounds of thrust. It's perfect for our use-taking notes and photographs; binocular-toting bird watchers also favor it.

A small switch on the right side of the kayak controls the motor. I steer with foot pedals that operate the rudder.

The weather is glorious, sunny and calm, as we head toward the north entrance of Buck Key. We glide over turtle grass and spongelike macro algae. Suddenly, our guide asks me to turn off the trolling motor. "I just spotted a manatee's nose," he exclaims, pointing out the swirls on the water's surface, created by the tail of the lumbering sea cow. "Sometimes, they even scratch their backs on the kayaks," he says.

"Needless to say, a lot of manatees are around here," LeBlanc continues, "especially when they are aggressively mating." Then he warms up to one of his pet peeves: boaters who speed through the channel's idle-speed, no-wake zone. "Too many people go too fast here." Later in our trip, we will see a Lee County Sheriff's boat stop a speeding motorboat and issue a ticket for violating the no-wake zone. It pleases LeBlanc, who says he sees many boats traveling even faster, but they usually aren't caught.

In the distance, I see fish jumping. The guide uses a scoop net to show us a clump of algae, pointing out several different species. "We're fortunate in Pine Island Sound, as we still have about 70 percent of our sea grass. And that's also the trouble with boaters speeding in here. They can destroy the sea-grass meadows. So this is really a water-quality issue. It's an invaluable resource. You can't put a price on it."

LeBlanc uses his net again and retrieves a comb jelly, explaining that they are "bioluminescent and beautiful at night."

A Big Laboratory

By the time we enter Buck Key through an old mosquito-control canal, I'm starting to get the hang of kayaking-how you are supposed to "become part of the boat." But I'm not getting the hang of steering adeptly enough to avoid mangrove roots and branches, so I turn off the trolling motor and begin to paddle. It's easier from then on, wending our way under the lush arching mangroves; it gets much easier when my friend takes over the paddling.

On our right, where mangroves end, upland area begins, home to such trees as sea grape, gumbo limbo, and sabal palm. On our left is wetlands. The stillness is pierced only by bees, busy pollinating the trees and "sounding like a symphony," LeBlanc notes. I detect a slight sulfur odor, which, LeBlanc explains, is from the decomposing mangrove leaves.

We pass a section with pink ribbons on trees, marking property owned by South Seas Resorts Co. This property has put Buck Key in the news recently, as a source of leverage by the developers, who have proposed forgoing development on Buck Key if allowed to increase building density at South Seas Plantation on Captiva.

Buttonwoods and Spanish moss envelop the elevation that rises on our left. Our guide says it is a midden from Calusa times. "Some people think middens are garbage heaps, but they are the remains of a working fishing village." We enter the lovely lagoon known as Hurricane Bayou. "Calusas built this harbor," LeBlanc informs us. "Just think, people have been paddling here for thousands of years."

As we wind up our tour, LeBlanc philosophizes about the value of kayaking tours like his. "It's all a big laboratory," he says, looking around the mangrove island. I see the kayaks as tools to teach environmental education." He notes that the growing popularity of kayaking and environmental awareness has both a good and a bad side. "Eco-tourism is being exploited," he says. "People are taking, taking, taking and not giving back. We want to show how private business can give a little back. We lend our boats to the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, for instance, and do tours for fund-raisers."

LeBlanc and Renneke prefer a day's notice to book a guided tour. They offer special rates to groups, such as children's birthday parties or field trips. Weather permitting, they work seven days a week, providing tours from morning into the night.

A bumper sticker posted near their office sums up Wildside Adventures' philosophy: "A bad day on the river is better than a good day at work." -Libby Grimm

To make reservations for a guided eco-tour or for information on boat rentals and sales, call Wildside Adventures at 941/39K-AYAK (395-2925).