Getting the flavor of...Paddling the Everglades, and more

Paddling the Everglades

The crocodiles weren’t what scared me, said Tristram Korten in The Atlantic. You don’t accept an invitation to kayak through Florida’s Everglades, after all, without having made peace with the idea that large predators have free rein in this “wide, slow-moving, life-sustaining river.” More worrisome was the storm advisory that a friend and I were ignoring as we paddled into Florida Bay, planning on a two-day excursion that would bring the storm into play. Our intent was to get a small taste of the new, 1,500-mile Florida Circumnavigational Saltwater Paddling Trail, which is a kind of “aquatic Appalachian Trail.” The trip didn’t disappoint: We spotted a manatee almost right away, then a pair of crocs, a bull shark, and a near-constant display of herons, egrets, and ospreys. Two bald eagles were warming the beach where we decided to camp for the night. Amateurs that we are, we decided to put off our worries about the storm until morning.

Clamming the Oregon coast

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By reputation, the wide, flat beaches of northern Oregon are prime habitat for razor clams, said Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan in The Washington Post. But trying to harvest a bucketful is more of a challenge than you’d think. I hit Agate Beach at low tide just before 7 one morning to find the flats already dotted with clammers. Before long, I learned that there’s more to this pastime than just spotting the clam’s “show”—the tiny airhole in the sand indicating where a clam is buried. One old pro I was watching spotted a fresh show, shoveled as fast as he could with his long spade, then dropped to his knees and reached in “all the way up to his elbow.” Repeat the same routine yourself half a dozen times and you might come up with a single clam. “Is it worth it for you?” I asked another clammer, who proudly displayed the six razors he’d bagged in the previous two hours. He laughed. “It’s a sport,” he said.