I am partnering with NRDC to paddle my outrigger canoe 1200 miles around Florida and west to New Orleans. My goal is to build support for a Healthy Oceans Act and steps to protect our oceans from global warming and ocean acidification. For those who do not know, I paddle to inform and for those who don't care, I paddle to inspire. I am documenting my journey on this blog during the month-long paddle.You can read more about the paddle, see photos, and take action here. You can also check out my personal website with information about this and other adventures here.

I'm inching my way to the Big Bend of Florida, the "armpit" of Florida, as Joy Towles Ezell likes to call the Fenholloway River area. This area has been the most surprising part of the paddle. The wildness of the area, the diversity of wildlife, especially the birds, the sheer pristine nature of the coastline here, amaze and boggle the mind. This is Florida? I thought Florida's only wilderness was the Everglades! Wrong! I'd bet that this area is even more pristine and wild than the Everglades. I sure hope that the state and the people keep it that way. Well, the people here at least know what they've got, but it's a constant battle to keep it pure. Certain big interests have no care how they impact the people's resources here.

Anyone visiting this area would be blown away by this place. Right now I'm sharing a room with a rifle at Patti and Rick Causey's most amazing home in Dekle Beach, population 14 full time families. This is how much of this area is, and this how these folks want to keep it. 

It takes a special person to want to live out here. You have to live by the tides to boat and fish, as at low tide the mudflats will stretch out for miles. You have to deal with"no see 'ems" that will bore holes into you in seconds, and you have to be self sufficient and very resourceful. It also helps if you can live off the land, hence the abundance of guns and fishing rods. If you ain't tough, don't live here! This ain't no place for showy, prissy condos, and big drafted boats or pampered folks. You gotta depend on yourself, a few good friends, and your ability to ride out the tide. Oh, and it also helps if you've got the guts and gumption to fight those interests that would defy common sense, and good manners, and mess up this place that plays such a vital role in maintaining a healthy coasts.

Joy and Joe's network amaze and amuse me with their tenacity to "fight the good fight." the hosts at each stop seem to be in a competition to out do one another. On Tuesday, Joy and Joe and Joy's friends, Gale & John Dickert of Steinhatchee, met me in the water in their sailboat and escorted me in and treated me to dinner and drinks, and yesterday Rick and Patti had a dinner party with about 20 "friends of the waters." Yes, I'm totally blown away by this, but this paddle, like our battle for a clean and healthy ocean and Gulf, requires a tremendous amount of group effort.