Goat Island Journal--July 22, 2008

This past week, Tom and I headed to Caddo Lake, Texas, for a few days of camping and paddling. We had planned the week in Texas to coincide with activities of our children, one on a mission trip with her best friend from Temple, Texas, and the other working on a solar car at the University of Texas. Here is my journal of our Goat Island experiences. Goat Island is part of the Wildlife Management Area of Caddo. Note: Click on each picture for a full-screen view.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008
We have arrived at Goat Island, have unloaded the boats [kayaks] and have eaten lunch. Tom is digging a latrine. He found a large, forked tree limb at the campsite which he is using for a seat to set above the latrine. A crow calls very loudly nearby, and another answers him in the woods of Goat Island. The two crows seem to be communicating. Then, with a sudden squawk, the crow nearby flew across the clearing toward the middle of the island, cawing as he flew. I now hear his distinctive call again, cawing, then pausing as another crow answers.

Two red-shouldered hawks began crying loudly; I watched as they flew, silhouetted against the afternoon sun, and settled in the top of a cypress tree near the campsite. Maybe they have a nest nearby; they're very screechy. Now the hawks are communicating with one another. One is right behind me in that cypress tree. They sound uncannily like those scary dinosaurs-- velociraptors--in Jurassic Park.

I can also hear Tom digging away at the latrine.
   By the sound, I suspect he is now scraping bark off the tree limb to make a smoother seat He is so thoughty. Or at least he is thoughty in the matter of woodsman latrines.

After we pulled our kayaks ashore and checked out the campsite, the first wildlife Tom encountered was a water moccasin. Tom walked from this designated campsite--with its iron fire ring--to the campsite where we had camped last time [June 2005]; the two campsites are within sight of one another. 


On his way back to the first campsite, Tom saw the water moccasin, looking at him from under a stump.

We had a little difficulty locating the campsite. We had a nice paddle down Cypress Bayou, and then we took the Carney Canal cut-off which takes you back to the island and then around, north of the island.

We turned too quickly, at the C26 or C27 marker, when we should have continued on to the C31 marker. Tom tried to find a way through water hyacinth to what looked like might be the island. The water hyacinth has expanded rapidly since we were here in the summer of 2005.

4:15 p.m. Central Daylight Savings Time

Tom has just taken my kayak out to the water, loaded down with what fishing paraphenalia he brought with him. He paid $30 for a fishing license, so he's hoping that he will catch some fish.

Anyway, back to the water hyacinths. The flowers are beautiful; I paddled close to a couple of flowers to observe them. However, the plants form dense mats that cover the water, making navigation through them almost impossible. Someone--the park service or those associated with the wildlife management service--has undertaken an eradication program that includes spraying the green mats of water hyacinths, leaving behind a brown soggy mess [more] difficult to paddle through. Tom got bogged down a couple of times in these stinking brown mats and had to curse his way out. . . .

The sun is slowly setting--it's mid-afternoon, actually--past a tall pine tree, and peeks through [its] limbs...and the large drapings of Spanish moss. My head and shoulders are bathed in the sunlight; my legs and feet are in shadow. A breeze cools the hot air, and cicadas sing loudly in the trees. The sky is clear and blue.

A barred owl calls in the woods: hoo hoo hoohoo hoo hoo hoohooaww--I cook for me; who cooks for you all? The hawks have started up again with their strident, imperious calls. They sound quite tetchy. Maybe there are young ones in the group. The air is now still with only the faintest of breezes stirring loose ends of moss hanging in a huckleberry tree on the other side of the tent.

Wow. I just saw one of the hawks flutter down from a tree limb and land in the tall green grass. It then flew up to a neck-high hollow tree stump where it seemed to eat something, wait a moment, and then fly again into a tree, hidden from my view. A few minutes later came that call that reminds me of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park--then a loud, kind of clucking noise--then the velociraptor call again. We may have invaded their hunting space by camping here in this clearing.

Thursday, July 17, 2008
morning
The sun is just above the trees, but we are still shaded by trees at our campsite. Soon the sun will cast hot patches of light in the camp. Now, however, I am enjoying the beauty of Spanish moss illumined by morning sunlight.

The morning is almost silent compared to the cacophony of night when all the cicadas [or katydids or crickets--I always confuse which ones call at night and which ones drone during the day] tune up. I also heard a few bull frogs, with their deep voices, and the higher-pitched calls of other frogs. Barred owls hooted for hours in the woods, and one lit for a while here in camp, hooting a few times before flying off to hunt elsewhere. I was disappointed, however, not to hear the large numbers of frog calls we heard last time. Tom thinks that since we were here a month earlier last time, that perhaps the breeding season is now over--that would account for the fewer frog calls.

Tom also said that frogs are declining world-wide, as are most amphibians. People have theories as to why this is happening, but no one knows for sure. Some suggest the causes may be chemicals in the environment that mimic hormones, chemicals in the environment that are toxic, and increased temperatures. There is also a disease that causes amphibian die-out. Perhaps the decreasing numbers of amphibians are due to a combination of these reasons.

Even though it took us two hours to paddle here (subtracting the 45 minutes we lost getting stuck in water hyacinth and trying to locate the campsite), we are really not far from civilization as the crow flies. We can hear traffic on a nearby highway and the whistle of a train. We also hear dogs barking in camps on the mainland. Last night we heard the pop-pop-pop of fireworks. I thought the sound was a gun at first, of someone hunting, but it's not hunting season now--not that that means anything in East Texas--and Tom identified the sound as fireworks. After several pops, it was apparent to me that someone was shooting off fireworks. Oh, and add to the sounds of civilization the occasional roar of jet engines overhead.

There's one of the barred owls again, singing a single "hoooo" in the woods, and the staccato-call of a woodpecker, probably a pileated woodpecker, Tom says, since there are pileated woodpecker holes in all the trees around here.

Add to those sounds of civilization the sounds of motorboats on the lake and bayou.

Recently I watched a television news piece about a man who was searching for a place of complete silence--by silence, I think he meant silence absent of any of the sounds of civilization, of motors and airplane jets and such. He had been tramping around woods in search of such a place, which he thinks should be maintained for all who wish to experience it. He finally located such a place, in some park in California, I think. Now people can go there and experience the kind of silence that was once available everywhere on this continent where there wasn't an Indian settlement.

There is no such place here at Caddo Lake though at least the sounds of the motors are diminished. 

Now we have the sound of the camp fuel stove on which Tom is preparing a breakfast of biscuits.

9:25 a.m.
First sighting of the day of one of the hawks that obviously nests near camp. I first saw movement out of the corner of my right eye--a sudden movement of Spanish moss on a tree near the place where we camped in 2005. I turned and looked closely but couldn't see anything unusual. Then a few minutes later, the hawk flew from that tree, low over the cleared space and into the shadows of hardwoods here on Goat Island. 




Sitting here at the camp, Tom identifies:
black gum
water oak
live oak
mulberry
hawthorn
bald cypress
loblolly pine
shortleaf pine
sweet gum
yaupon
water oak
vibernum
sparkle berry

 We think about Mary-Margaret as blue and green dragonflies dart through the campsite, settling for a few minutes on the bare ground and on the edge of the biscuit pan. Mary-Margaret spent hours photographing dragonflies when we camped on Goat Island in June 2005. Benton may have taken a couple of pictures, too, but Mary-Margaret was most interested in getting as close as she could to capture the best pictures. She maintained a scientific interest in dragonflies for a while, learning how to identify them from a handbook we gave her and accompanying Gill Ekrich, an environmental educator on Ft. Hood, on jaunts where they located and identified dragonflies. Gill is also an amateur dragonfly enthusiast. Tom would accompany Mary-Margaret on these excursions, too.

Now her passion has cooled, but Mary-Margaret retains an interest in anything related to dragonflies. I had hoped that her interest in dragonflies would lead her to become a scientist or naturalist or environmentalist, but, no, she wants to be a high-school English teacher.

about 12:45 p.m.
"There have to be fish in this lake," Tom complains as his kayak drifts past, "but I'm damned if I can catch 'em!"

We've been paddling Carney Canal north of Goat Island. Some of the pleasant sights have been some fairly close observations of a woodstork, whose wing noise alerted me to him as he flapped up from some nesting or resting place closer to the island. He perched on the limb of a cypress, eyeing us as we eyed him. 

 The loud percussion sound of wings hitting air alerted me to the second bird, which flew up and then perched out of sight.

Just a few minutes ago we spotted a "fish hawk," an osprey, and both Tom and I got good looks at him through our binoculars.

The much less pleasant sight has been the acres of water hyacinth that has pretty much taken over the water since we were here three years ago. The hyacinths have drowned out the native water lilies and yellow lotus. From where I sit in my kayak, tied up to a cypress tree near the canal, I do spy some blooming lotuses across this open lake and nearer the shore--but between me and them are acres of these exotic water plants. Their flowers are beautiful but their presence toxic to native flora. Whoever is "managing" the Wildlife Management Area has made some attempt at eradicating the hyacinth, but it seems to have been a losing battle.

"As long as the duck hunters can get to their blinds, damn diversity," was Tom's comment. Carney Canal, which is dredged through the lake, has been kept fairly clear of the weeds. By the map, we're at Gravier's Slough, and Goat Island is still south of us.

5:50 p.m. Central Daylight Savings Time
About ten minutes ago a motor boat traveled north of Goat Island, toward Cypress Bayou. It was going fast [and loudly!]. Now I hear another boat--maybe the same one, traveling on Carney Canal from the bayou; another follows it. These are the first boats I've heard today near the island.

Tom is walking around the island, with my binoculars in hand. He said he was going to see if he could find the nest of hawks that screech so frequently near this clearing. He has now been gone about thirty minutes; oh, here he is now. He said he got a good look at a red-shouldered hawk, but he didn't find the nest.

The boats were jet skis--"three idiots on jet skis," to quote Tom. The motors of those vehicles are very loud.

"Did they see you?" I asked.

"Nah--they can't see anything but what's right in front of them," Tom replied. "I was standing behind some trees. But I could have been wearing a bright orange vest and waving flags and they wouldn't have seen me."

Later, he added: "To people like that a lake--or any wild place--is nothing more than a roller coaster. Just like the people who snowmobile through Yellowstone. They are just seeking thrills. They may as well ride a roller coaster. I don't have any use for them. If that sounds uncharitable, I'm sorry."

I understand Tom's attitude. Those people on jet skis will not have noticed anhingas flying overhead, the woodstork or osprey, the beaver dams that dot Caddo Lake and its sloughs.



















Nor would they notice the water lily or the yellow lotus. Nor would they notice the green expanses of water hyacinth clotting the water and burying the lilies and lotus in their green, choking embrace. Nor would these jet skiers care. They are most concerned that the water lanes on which they race are free of such debris.

It's not that every person who ever rides a jet ski or a snowmobile is mindless of nature or the encroachments upon it. I've ridden a snowmobile. It's fun--but the bike is too damn loud, and it encourages a mindset focused on speed and daring.

And a mind thus focused and nurtured is not conducive to the slowness needed to observe and to analyze. The trick, however, is to get the jet-ski mind to care about the environment in which its desires for speed and daring are attained. Saving the last bits of wildness in the world--too often and unfortunately, perhaps--depends upon getting the attention and maintaining the interest of the jet-ski minds.

Paddling back from Clinton Lake this afternoon, I imagined an idea of hell: a long canal cut through a swamp with green, impenetrable vegetation on each side of the canal. In this watery hell, there would be no potable water, just the moldy stew of swamp water. Each day would be clear and hot. The channel, too, would be clear of weeds and stretch interminably ahead, with those little white markers on posts suggesting a destination that would never arrive. No bird would call across the waters. No drum of wings would be heard as woodstorks startled up from the water's edge. No beaver lodges would be built between stands of cypress. No hawks or anhingas would fly overhead. No Great Blue Herons or other water birds would stalk the shadows along the banks. No fish would disturb the placid surface of the water. Only the loud motors of jet skis would inhabit sound in this place, a jet skier's paradise with sunny days and a clear sky. Only there would be no rest at the end--and no end to the watery lane.

Friday, July 18, 2008
7:15 a.m.
Last night was miserably hot. Mosquitoes are more active here at dawn and at dusk, so we crawled into our tent before the last light had faded from the sky.

After two days of paddling in swampy water, we were musty and fragrant. I longed for a nice hot shower. We had two liters of water left at evening, plus what remained in our water bottles. Thus, Tom had filtered some lake water--swampy stuff--about two liters, all told. So we were going easy with the water, using just a little to brush our teeth and to wash our faces and hands.

But the tent was hot--our skin sticky with humidity and grime. We each claimed our side of the tent and crawled in on top of our blue mats and sleeping bags.

If it hadn't been for the heat, the night would have been entertaining. All kinds of critters rev up their sound boxes at night. A couple of barred owls perched in a tree at the campsite and hollered loudly a few times. Crickets or cicadas built a wall of constant sound in the tree canopy. A bull frog "hooomed" loudly at the water's edge a few times, and soprano frogs chimed in. We also heard sounds we couldn't identify. The moon rose and bathed everything in a silver wash.

2:09 p.m.
We're back in the Prius, with the kayaks tied down on top and the air-conditioning cooling off a rather ripe-smelling interior. Although both of us washed off at camp this morning--I even used soap!--we had to don dirty clothes in which we sweated again on the paddle from Goat Island to Caddo Lake State Park.

The swamp water Tom filtered last night became our hot tea this morning. I wasn't very hungry, so I munched on some dried apricots and papaya. Tom packed enough food to last another four or five days. We will probably unload some of our trail mix on Benton when we visit him in Austin tomorrow. We will make it sound like a treat.

We piddled around camp this morning, not leaving until 10 a.m.. As we carted the kayaks to the edge of the water, I noticed raccoon footprints in the muddy ooze. I had also noted some recently upturned earth in the mossy shade of some small trees near our camp, so the area might have also been visited by armadilloes. The only mammal we heard was a dog barking, probably at one of the camps on the nearby mainland.[Actually, I did hear a startled beaver in one of the beaver lodges we observed up close.]

We leisurely paddled away from Goat Island, stopping to take photographs along the way--of each other against the backdrop of Spanish-moss-covered cypress and duckweed-covered water; of water lilies; of lotus flowers. At times we stopped paddling just to sit in the cypress shade and look around. Herons would startle up, honking loudly.

In the last stretch of Carney Canal, approximately half a mile before the canal ended at Cypress Bayou, we met a sight-seeing boat motoring up the canal, with about ten people on board. We paddled to the side of the canal, near a sand bank, to let the boat pass.

"Are you sitting on the bottom?" one woman asked, eyeing our boats. "The water doesn't look deep enough."

"No, we're right on top," I replied.

"But the water seems so shallow."

"It doesn't take much," Tom added.

The boat continued on, and we detoured into the swampy area behind the sandbar where acres of lotus flourished, their big fan-like leaves shining bright green in the morning sun.

I entertained myself for a few moments by rolling a large bead of water around and around in the bowl of one of the leaves. Tom paddled around taking photographs of the flowers. 

Because we spent so much time here, the pontoon boat passed us again on its return trip before we reached Cypress Bayou.

Seeing someone on the boat taking pictures of us in our kayaks, I remembered that we are probably on someone's home video now, too. When we first paddled to Goat Island, we were passed by another boat with four people, a man, two teenage girls, and one rather lumpish teenage boy. One of the girls was standing in the boat, aiming her video camera toward the passing scenery. She was taping us as she went past.

The only other non-motorized vehicle we saw was a canoe painted in camouflage colors and paddled by three young kids, the oldest maybe twelve or thirteen years old, at the most. We passed them on Carney Canal this afternoon, right before we entered Cypress Bayou.

Now we are back in our motorized vehicle, heading toward Carthage and then to Mama's and Daddy's farm in Chireno, where Mama has promised to prepare us a nice hot dinner.

Goodbye to Goat Island. If we ever camp there again, we'll choose a cooler month!