Lost in Place

I have always been afraid of getting lost. Maybe it's an effort to conquer that fear that's led me, as an adult, to seek out situations in which it is possible to get lost. My wife and I enjoy travel in Southern-hemisphere, third-world countries, armed only with a map and paltry Spanish and the willingness to let an older woman and her crated chicken sit on my lap on a crowded bus, the small statue of Virgin Mary trembling on the dashboard as we rattle over the craters and bumps of the Pan American highway. I'm certain I put myself in such situations because my fear of getting lost is only exceeded by my fear of growing soft and predictable and inadaptable and incurious. A photojournalist friend told me years ago, as we fled a rental car that had been set afire in a Miami riot, "You don't grow unless you're in over your head."

I am now in such a place. Lost. For half an hour I have been looking for something that the Cape Coral Parks and Recreation Department map calls The Lost Pond. I have tried to find this pond on three other visits here, to the Four Mile Cove Biological Preserve, just west of the Midpoint Bridge in Cape Coral. (It is difficult to miss; paradoxically, there is a life-size replica of the Iwo Jima memorial near the entrance.) Like the stand of pines behind Grandma's suburban house, it is one of those places where the thrill of getting lost is cushioned by the realization that, if you walked and waded far enough in any direction, you would find humanity and a telephone and a cool beverage.

I am sitting atop my trusty, red SeaDart kayak, and despite being in the middle of the largest city between Tampa and Miami, in this swampy, subtropical Central Park, I sense no sign of civilization, not even the requisite, sun-faded, water-filled Pepsi can. A helicopter could not spot me. I am covered by mangrove canopy so dense and low at times that I must lean back, almost parallel to the kayak, to pass beneath some roots that protrude from the water like woody rainbows. It is these roots that makes this paddling experience so fantastical. Roots, after all, are supposed to be underground, just as Cheshire cats are not supposed to talk.

Though the middle of summer, the temperature in here is 10 degrees cooler, maybe even more, than the world outside. My kayak glides so quietly through the water-tannic and brown but remarkably clear ... the color of bourbon-that I startle bird after bird: herons, including the tricolored, little blue and great blue; a great egret; several white ibis. I hear the airy fwup fwup fwup as they flee. Indeed, what is most startling about this place is its absolute silence. I note the sound of the water dripping off my paddle. Two feet beneath me, crabs scurry along the mucky bottom in that diligent, focused manner of theirs that makes me feel impertinent and lazy.

I look everywhere for signs to The Lost Lake, and I am both pleased and angered that I find none. Rick Schill of the Cape Coral Parks and Recreation Department has told me the omission was intentional-they want to make the paddling experience as natural as possible. Navigating these mangroves is difficult, with no signs and entrances to paths intentionally obscured, I'm told, to ward off the less inquisitive and infinitely more destructive jet skiers.

After hitting three dead ends and having to paddle backward to escape, I finally spot light at the end of the tunnel and follow it to emerge in a sunny, breezy cove and what might be my favorite feature of the preserve: three floating, tin-roofed shelters-square islands-on which you can beach your kayak and have a lunch in the shade, watching the boats pass by on the adjacent Caloosahatchee River. It is such a remarkable view that I feel I am here illegally, on some wealthy industrialist's private, back yard dock.

I have brought a sandwich lunch for the occasion. I love sandwiches-they're different every time, custom-built according to the craving and whim du jour. I'm not certain why, but they always seem to taste better when someone else makes them, and because of this I often go to my neighborhood Publix.

On this day, my sandwich includes sliced Boar's Head smoked turkey; prosciutto; a slathering of herbed goat cheese on one piece of sourdough bread, peppery Dijon on the other; leaves of arugula; calamata olives; and, for added moisture and an astringent note, roasted red peppers from a jar.

As I eat, two young men on jet skis suddenly rip the solitude of the cove. Sounding and looking like errant mosquitoes in search of nourishment, they buzz and whine aimlessly along the mangrove coastline before getting bored and retreating to the Caloosahatchee.

Shoo! Shoo! I think. Get outta here. Go ruin someone else's picnic.

I have an idyllic lunch to finish here ... and then I must get back to the task of finding myself.

If you go

The Four Mile Cove Biological Preserve, just on the west side of the Midpoint Bridge in Cape Coral, is open Saturday and Sunday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Canoes, kayaks and double kayaks can be rented by the hour or half-day. In addition, there is a small interpretive center, pier and network of boardwalks that lace the mangrove preserve.

Ad Hudler is a novelist who lives in Fort Myers. His most recent book is, Southern Living, (Ballantine Books, 2003). Readers can reach him through his Web site, www.adhudler.com.