100 miles in 8 days off the gulf coast of the Everglades. I arrived to the ranger station just before close. "You're not going anywhere today." "It's my thing. I always end up paddling in the dark." "We strongly recommend you reconsider." They advised me against planned distances. "I promise I feel good about it." On my second night, I got caught in shallow water after the sun had set. I reached in the water to unstick my boat and a glowing light shot up from the mud. I startled something large that thrashed in the water. Blue sparks danced off my paddle. Eventually, I made it around the island and turned my flashlight on to find a good stretch of beach to camp on. As I did so, dozens of footlong fish shot out of the water in four foot high arcs all around me. One hit the raised end of my paddle so hard that I cannot imagine it survived. The next morning, I woke up to a dolphin snacking on them. Below the sand line, the island was a long strip of giant spiral and clam shells. Little lights glowed among them and sparsely lined the shore where I landed. The winter Milky Way was smeared across the sky overhead. In the following days, I saw around a hundred individual dolphins, some turtles, seacows, and two sharks, one of which launched sideways out of the water multiple times as I made a big crossing in rough water. As I paddled to my last campsite in the dark, a heron tried to land on me twice only turning a way when within twenty feet of me I screamed at it. That night, strong winds that had created turbulent water with breaking waves that day ripped at my tent so loud that I woke up throughout the night to their howl. I interacted with no one for seven days until I had a brief exchange with a fisherman but on the last day, as I paddled out, I met my friends as they paddled in. It was amazing.
I don't freak about late launches and long days anymore. I don't stress about paddling in the dark. When the sun sets or the weather turns and things start to fall apart, I take a deep breath and wait for spectacular things to happen. They tend to.