Explorer
Kayaking Buck Key
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).