Yes. Warning....lengthy story of misery.

A little background first. In 91 ( I was 21)3 college buddies and myself did an overnight canoe/camping trip in the Okeefenokee. Canoed about 6 miles to Cravens Hammock which is a small island in the swamp. Easy paddle in and out and had a good campsite. Really enjoyed the trip.

Fast forward to 2016. I am now 46 and wanted to re-live the trip with my 12 year old son. I enlisted another coach of our baseball team and his son to join us because I wanted another adult in case I stroked out or had some other freaky incident occur. You have to reserve an in swamp campsite months in advance because there are only 6 overnight locations available. So I made the reservation in March for a June weekend trip to Floyd’s Island. This was an 11 mike paddle in and 11 miles back out. I spent 3 months talking it up to the other dad and his son. It was going to be a great experience.

When we arrived at Stephen Foster State park to sign in, the park worker said that the water level had been very low and that nobody had gone out to Floyd’s in about a month. I asked if it was okay to go and he said yeah but there would be some real shallow areas that we would have to work to get through. I thought, “no problem” , how bad could it be.

The first 3 miles was in a deep and wide channel and didn’t pose a problem. At mile 4, the signs took us off the main channel through about a 20 ft wide trail that meandered through trees. Still deep enough to not really be an issue other than we were going against the current.

At about the 8 mile marker, a sign directed us to Floyd Island and said it was 3 miles further. This trail ended up being an old 10ft wide ditch that had been dug for loggers half a century ago. It was only 5-6” deep most of the way and was covered with a canopy of overhanging tree limbs. This is when the yellow flies began their assault. I didn’t know about yellow flies before this trip. I didn’t know that they hatch in May-June either.

They were relentless. I was in the back of the canoe paddling and there were constantly 10-15 on my toes, feet, and ankles for 3 hours. We were only making about a brutal 1 mile an hour in that shallow water. My son was getting murdered as were the father and son behind us. I finally had to take clothes out of a bag and wrap my son like a mummy to cover all of his skin. I just sucked it up and paddled for us both. He was no help anyway as I was having to push through the muck below the canoe to solid ground to move us through the water

Through that 3 mile hell on earth I saw 3 cottonmouths on logs against the bank. Luckily, I was able to push us over limbs and downed logs until we got about 200 yards from the island. It became so shallow there that I had no choice but to get out and pull the canoe with a rope. All I could think was that I was going to get tagged by a cottonmouth and die out there with no cell service. I finally saw the bank for the island up ahead about 50 feet. When I was about 20 ft from the bank, the bottom dropped out and I was in chest deep water and the muck was damn near to my knees. I lost both sandals in the muck but was able to struggle to the bank.

I was muck caked from hips down and sweating like a son of a bitch by the time I pulled the canoe up on the bank.The other man had to do the same thing and he was cussing like hell. “ this is some bull shite! What is this shite you have got us doing? Etc.” I felt terrible. This was not what I had in mind.

Anyway, we were supposed to stay 2 nights on the island. We had to sleep on the hard arse floor of an old logging cabin and there wasn’t shite to do but build a fire and act like we were having fun. Put on an act for the boys but we were miserable. Couldn’t even fish because there was no open area to cast. About 10:00pm that night I said that I was cool with bugging out the next morning and going back to the Gator Inn in Fargo to take a shower and sleep in a bed. There was unanimous consent.

So we had to do the reverse to exit the next day. Had to pull that canoe 200 yds before I could hop in and push through the muck until we hit deeper water about 3 miles away. Didn’t really worry to much about gators on the narrow and shallow trail but they were everywhere on the deeper channels. I was literally praying that I could just pull us out without getting tagged by a cottonmouth. That shite was cottonmouth city.

Anyway, made it back to the State Park and went to the hotel. It really was the most miserable trip I have done and I was sorry that I exposed that man and his son to that misery. My son and I still laugh about it and I am kind of glad we shared the experience but it truly sucked at the time.