A day in the life of a Florida Redneck
4.30am, what a time to set an alarm clock. But set it was, so John, Zed and I blearily got ready and drove into town. We met up with Bill, a gardener who works with John and unloaded 2 1-man canoes and 1 2-man kayak from the back of his truck. John and Zed took the Kayak and Bill and I the canoes. We pushed out from a small inlet near the car park of the Ritz hotel and paddled out into the dark lake.
After a couple of minutes of paddling, I looked and listened. Apart from the sound of the paddles from the others, everything was perfectly calm and still. The moon had set and apart from the glint of corridor lights in some of the big hotels nearby, the only light was from the stars of the northern hemisphere above. It served as a reminder that I'm on the way home. I had six months of looking up at the Southern sky at night and seeing, at first unfamiliar, but soon recognisable stars, planets and galaxies. Since coming back to the northern hemisphere I've felt closer to home, which isn't as comforting as I thought. I don't want to come home, I'm quite happy being out here in a canoe before dawn.
After half an hour of skirting shallow sandbanks, following Bill's lead and going under small dark bridges, (which my brain told me may have 'gators under them but there probably wasn't) we found a lake and tried to paddle up a tidal creek. By now, dawn was breaking and the sun was silhouetting the nearby $400 per night hotels.
My arms and head were itching. We stopped off for a while to sort the 2 fishing rods we had with us. My arms had little flecks of black dirt on them where I was itching. Little black flecks.... with arms and legs?!? They're called sand flies (not like the biting Challenger Tank sized versions in Oz) or more commonly called no-see-me-s, but they descend on you and feast away which itches like crazy! Bill had some parfum-de-deet which seemed to do the trick until the sun came up and the heat caused them to go away.
While they were fishing, I paddled up to a passage where the backwaters met the gulf. Hundreds of sea birds sat around warily watching and flying off when I got too close.
Soon after, the others met me and we stretched our legs on the banks of the passage. Bill and Zed had both caught Snook . I tried a bit of fishing but didn't catch anything. Zed took the canoe out and John and I took the kayak. We paddled up a small winding tidal creek against the current for about an hour or so before ending up in a huge lake populated by mullet that kept jumping out the water. I think Bill caught something but I didn't see what.
The paddle back was a lot easier as we were going with the tide, it was almost relaxing paddling that way. Apart from the fact I kept telling John there was a theory to 2 man Kayaks called 'Team Work' but he wouldn't believe me. He kept saying 'Its not a Computer! Stop trying to find the logical answers! There are none! Just paddle!' Then whenever we'd be heading towards some low hanging branches it'd be my fault as I was meant to be steering. He'd swap sides oversteering us into the mangroves.
"Come on you're meant to be steering!"
"I Can't Steer If You're 'Just Paddling!' I'll steer You keep paddling on one side!"
"Just steer and stop trying out think everything. Thats exactly what Zed does. Look Mind the.."..BUMP..Mangroves..Birds Flying off...
"Now Push Back and Start Paddling"
I've come to the conclusion you can't have 2 'Alpha' personalities in a Kayak. One of the reasons I swapped was because Zed and John had quite a hot step-dad/teenage son rivalry going on. I figured if I sat there they could drop back a couple of levels of being 'wound up.' We passed 2 couples from one of the hotels in fancy kayaks and life jackets (though the water was only a few feet deep) going the other way. You could tell from their expressions as they pushed up stream who'd lost in the 'Just Paddle!' or 'Do As I say!' Kayak ego battle.
I reckon to make a kayak go, it needs teamwork in the Michael Caine (The Italian Job) sense of the word. (Do the voice) "Now, if you want to pull this off, We all need to work, as a team." (Adjust thick glasses) "Which basically means. You all have to do, exactly wot I say." Person at the front keeps paddling consistently (the power) to the left or right, unless the driver says so. The person at the back (the driver) steers using the oar, and paddles on the opposite side to the 'power' to keep in a straight line. Any Outdoor Activity people, or if you've had a similar experience, feel free to agree or disagree in the guestbook.
Anyway, it was a bloody good morning.
Followed by a bloody good afternoon. John dropped me off at (Sandi's friend) Bernie's house, who I'd met the week before. After being slobbered on by Brigadier General Bauerguard, or 'Briggs' a 10 yr old Boxer dog, we went out to Naples very own 'Swamp Buggy Races!'
On the way there, Bernie said "I just thought I'd warn you, there's gonna be lots of Rednecks there, is that OK?' Now I always thought Rednecks were a bad thing, but having spent a month in Florida, John calls Bill a Redneck, and Nicole is happy to be a 'Little Redneck.' So I thought 'No Problem.' We crossed the field/car park, which smelt of manure, past rows and rows of 10ft tall trucks (no SUVs here!) We went into the park and I got my first view of real rednecks. They do actually have red necks, red shoulders, red arms... It comes from wearing no suncream. Their faces are OK as they all wear cowboy hats or baseball caps with slogans about Divorce or Beer.
Berni's friend Tim had put up some scaffolding on one side of the arena so we headed that way. We passed rows of mud covered trucks with Redneck families sitting on them with redneck kids all playing tug-o-war in the mud. For some reason, none of them seemed to have any front teeth? As we walked through some 2 inch thick mud, my flip flops sinking right in and covering my toes, we saw the scaffolding.
We got there just as the first race started, a curtain of water and a roar of engines flew passed. I was introduced to Tim, who didn't seem much like a redneck to me. He had a 'These colours won't run' stars and stripes T-shirt on, which makes him more like your average corn-fed American. We talked about the races and how they started (something along the lines of two farmers saying "My Swamp Buggy is faster than yours" - the rest is history) and how Naples is the only place in the world where they do this sport. Over the afternoon I was introduced to most of the Rednecks at that part of the fence ("You came all the way from Lerndern to sae theas?"). Including a guy with no front teeth and only one arm (his right) called 'Leftie.'
The racing itself is pretty insane, it mocks the laws of racing as most of the time, you need to have a big engine, then reduce the weight and drag to be the fastest. With this, the drag is massive (the water and the mud) and they don't much care for weight and often take the wife onboard for a drive! They do have big engines though. The ultimate winner of the day used a $35,000 ex-NASCAR racing engine in his. Combine this with the fact that if you're anything but first there's generally a 30ft curtain of water landing on you from the driver in front and it really is quite mad!
It creates quite a spectacle though as the engines roar and the water lifts up behind them.
There were also other swamp races between the smaller swamp-jeeps and the mini-racers. The swamp jeeps were funny as there are deep ditches on the track they all have to go through. There's a huge roar of engines and water as they lunge off the starting line, then they all dip into the ditch at about the same time and all that sound and momentum crawls to a gurgling, muffled near halt as they sink down to shoulder height, before lifting out again and noisily powering away. The full size racers don't worry about the ditches as at 80-90mph they hydroplane straight over them!
The mini-racers are just scaled down versions of the full size racers.
These were the tourist buggies that took people around the track during the intermission.
I chatted away to the various Rednecks, who were all pretty much open, friendly working class people. This event has been theirs since 1945, back before the millionaires moved in and looked down on them from their massive houses (And they are massive houses, Sandi drove me around some of the richest areas and the places were like glass and pastel coloured castles.) In fact, the money for the buggies comes from local business', mostly building firms who see this as an integral part of being a Cracker. (A born and bred Floridian.)
Personally, the one downside for me about them and a lot of the people i've met in Florida is the racism. There were 'Nigger' jokes and 'Dumb Mexican' jokes and looking around, the only non-white faces I saw were the kids caked in mud. The parenting was a tad inconsistent too, they only stopped the kids starting fires when the wind blew the toxic smoke from the paper trees in their direction. Then later I heard one of the Dad's say to his 10yr old son who swore, 'Now don't you fukin' use that language again ya son of a bitch'!
Most of them were good fun though. Bernie and I were talking to a guy with most of his front teeth who said "Ma Waaf don't come here n'more cos she's a Yuppie.... Like you folks! An at leas' yow here!" Leftie told me his party trick was to pretend one of the big trucks had run over his 'arm' as Mothers with kids walked by. I don't know what would be more disturbing. Seeing him under the truck, or seeing him pull out his stump laughing away?!? Then there was Frank, a good guy who had a 'Hayseed Dixie' CD. They're a country/bluegrass band who cover AC/DC and Aerosmith songs. Their banjo pluckin' version of 'Walk this Way' was hilarious!
Leonard Chester, a 62yr old Cracker won the final race against his daughter and cousin. (don't worry, they're not the same person.) Their whole family is into Swamp buggy racing. They live just down from Bernie. She drove me by their house which is basically a huge barn converted into a massive garage with a couple of living areas. He wins most of the races as hes been doing it most of his life.
Bernie dropped me back to John and Sandi's in her convertible. It seemed apt watching the sun go down from the small sports car on the freeway, having seen it rise in peace of the canoe. It was a great day, but I let myself down a bit. I'd been drinking beer all afternoon and had forgotten to lube up with another layer of suncream. I didn't have my hat on 'neither. As I was gettin' ready for a shower to wash the mud off ma feet and hands, I caught a glimpse of myself. I turned and... You Know what? Ma neck was gettin' a little red.