Out Of The Pattern

Slow Boat To The Edge Of The Sea

The rain slaps my office window in sheets today-a late-season hurricane whips the wind vane and causes the pines to bend gracefully with its heavy gusts. Yesterday, the wind was a steady breeze from the east, and the only harbingers of today's foul gale were a steady stream of puffy cumulus clouds trailing each other in bands across the arc of the perfect cornflower-blue sky.

I was up flying in the Kitfox-what was supposed to be a quick hop down south to Everglades City, a little town that prides itself on being the gateway to the Everglades National Park, one of the few national parks in this country that contains as much water as land. One famous author, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, called it a "river of grass." A bird's-eye view of the southern tip of Florida reveals miles and miles of saw grass, most of which, in the summer months, camouflages a sheet flow of fresh water moving steadily on its way to Florida Bay. The saw grass is trimmed with a mangrove forest of estuaries that twist and turn in a nearly unnavigable maze toward an area of Florida's west coast known as the 10,000 Islands.

I followed the coast out of Fort Myers, down the beach-a ribbon of sand affording excellent emergency landing sites for miles at a stretch-past the Naples pier. Once past the Naples Airport Class D airspace, I climbed and turned east into the stiff breeze. Suddenly the endless tangle of mangrove swamp below seemed to move by at a snail's pace. My groundspeed eroded as the sun's rays seemed to intensify. I scanned the horizon and could just make out the place where the clusters of nearly identical islands seemed to open up into Chokoloskee Bay. The bay ends at the man-made Chokoloskee Causeway to Chokoloskee Island, the original area settlement. Some 15 minutes past Marco Island, the last major metropolitan area, I finally saw the town, all 14 blocks of it, then the airport, situated on a spit of land that juts into Chokoloskee Bay. My airplane settled onto the 2,400-foot-long, 50-foot-wide asphalt runway after an overwater approach that would have made a carrier pilot nostalgic, and made me glad I came down in the "little" airplane. It amazes me to think that the approaches used to be worse.

In 1996, the Collier County Airport Authority saw fit to upgrade the 29-acre plot that had, for the past 50 years, been the town's municipal airport. The county came in and cleared obstacles, repaved the runway, built ramp space with tiedowns, constructed eight T-hangers, and even installed a self-pay fueling facility. Then the county built a lovely old-Florida style terminal building, complete with a front porch and rocking chairs positioned for runway viewing.

Once the building was finished, there remained only one task-to find a caretaker. By then 27-year-old Dave Blalock had finished an internship at Detroit Metropolitan Airport and was looking for work. He'd lived in the town with his grandparents some 20 years before and applied for the job. It wasn't long before X01 became his, and he became the airport's first manager since the town's heyday in the 1940s, when the airport and town were owned by railroad tycoon Barron Collier.

Blalock met me at my airplane, which was the only airplane on the ramp that day. "In the off-season, sometimes I feel like the Maytag repairman of airport managers," Blalock joked as he surveyed the empty ramp gleaming in the early fall sunshine. There are eight tenants at the airport, but not all are year-rounders. Upstairs in the air-conditioned terminal building, he took time to show me everything from the airport authority's master plan-admirable for an airport with some 5,000 total operations a year-to the fishing rods and bicycles that he rents to pilots who come down on day trips. There is also a sightseeing operation that will take passengers for air tours of the park. This early in the season, the tours must be scheduled in advance. In fact, the only things moving on the airport today seem to be the nesting pair of American bald eagles that occupy the lone Australian pine left standing on the property.

We left the building and walked less than one-quarter of a mile through a mangrove tunnel to the Gulf Coast Visitor Center of the Everglades National Park. From here, one can join powerboat or canoe tours of either the saw grass river or Chokoloskee Bay, all guided by park rangers.

There's more to the area than the park, Blalock assured me after he locked the terminal door, leaving the "Back By?" sign in the window, and escorted me to his truck. "The year-round population of Everglades City is 551 people, a number that pops up to 1,200 residents in the more tolerable winter months, and swells to the bursting point with 60,000 attendees during its one-weekend-long Seafood Fest every February," he said. "Last year, in one day we had 130 aircraft!"

In its early days, the town was to Florida what Tombstone was to Arizona. Everglades City was the perfect place for outlaws to "lose themselves," and the rugged conditions on the edge of the 'glades discouraged most law enforcement from sailing after them (roads did not exist through the swamps). We cruised by the infamous Smallwood's Store and recalled the shooting scene from Peter Mathessien's Killing Mr. Watson. More recently, the fishing village's reputation for harboring society's outer fringe has faded, and ecotourism has overtaken contraband and fishing as the town's major source of revenue.

Over lunch, Blalock told me of the airport authority's plans to extend the parallel taxiway (eliminating the need to back taxi) and clear the mangroves from where they chew the wind into challenging eddies along the shoreline adjacent to the runway. Altogether, the master plan has $1.3 million in improvements slated for the little airport, and Blalock has plans for getting people to stop by. He's canvassing flying clubs around Florida, offering them pancake breakfasts and hot dog lunches if they will plan fly-outs to his field. Pilots do fly for food, so the marketing plan may work.

I had to dash out after our meal because of the clouds beginning to pile up on the horizon, but I have to admit, it was hard to leave. Blalock's hometown hospitality hearkens back to a slower, easier time in aviation. As I flew away, I imagined him strolling leisurely back to the cracker-style building and flipping the sign back to "Open" as he unlocked the door. He must have gone right to the radio, because I heard him working the frequency for an inbound aircraft a few minutes later. Downright conversational. So, if you're in deep South Florida, do drop by. I know Blalock's sitting by the radio, even now, watching the rain, as I am, and waiting for someone to call.