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Tampa Bay’s Mary Mangiapia becomes the first woman to through-kayak 1,500 miles around Florida
By Marcia Biggs
When the 300-mile Everglades Challenge sea kayak race from St. Petersburg to Key Largo was cancelled in early March due to extreme weather conditions, it didn’t stop Mary Mangiapia. A few days later, with clear skies and calm winds, the 28-year-old Tampa Bay resident and her friend Andy Bartley set off to paddle it anyways. Four days later they arrived safely in the Florida Keys.
Paddling 300 miles is a fun weekend excursion for Mangiapia compared to her recent 1,500-mile solo kayak expedition around Florida. On Dec. 10, 2014 she became the 14th person and first woman to complete a through-trip of the Florida Circumnavigational Saltwater Paddling Trail (commonly known as the CT).
Beginning at Big Lagoon State Park near Pensacola on September 6, Mangiapia spent 95 days paddling an Epic 18 sea kayak around the Florida peninsula and Keys, ending in December at Fort Clinch State Park near the Georgia border. The CT includes an abundance of sea life and every Florida coastal habitat type, from barrier island dune systems to saltwater marshes and mangroves.
“The trip was amazing – life changing,” says the recent graduate of the University of South Florida, where she received a master’s degree in microbiology. “I saw amazing wildlife and experienced a lot of bad weather, but in the end it made me a stronger, better paddler.”
During her journey, Mangiapia endured extreme conditions – from driving winds and rain to exquisite sunsets and star-filled nights camping in the Ten Thousand Islands. Loaded down with 130 pounds of gear, charts and a compass, plus a handheld GPS as a backup, she encountered wildlife from manatees and sea turtles to manta rays, cannonball jellyfish and even a pod of dolphins who escorted her into a marsh in the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge.
Perhaps most memorable, she says, was her run-in with a 6-foot bull shark, which hit her boat and bent her rudder as she paddled near Cayo Costa State Park one evening before sunset.
“He tried to take a bite out of the kayak, swam away and then came back for another go,” she recalls.
Mangiapia has been kayaking since the age of 9 when she was growing up in Venice. Sport turned to passion a few years ago when she joined Tampa Bay Sea Kayakers and WaterTribe, a group of serious paddlers and sailors who compete in endurance races in kayaks, canoes and small boats around Florida and along the East Coast.
“I did my first challenge in 2013, a 65-mile race from St. Pete to Englewood,” says Mangiapia. “Then in 2014, I did the Everglades Challenge. That took a huge amount of endurance training because you had to paddle 40 to 45 miles a day with very little sleep. After that I decided I could do the CT and the timing was right last fall right after graduating.”
She prepared a “flight plan” detailing her projected stops and filed it with the Coast Guard. She enlisted Bartley to be her shore contact, alerting her to weather conditions and possible sites for overnight camping or where she could seek refuge. She averaged about 25 miles per day; occasionally friends and supporters would join her for a day or two. She camped mainly on spoil islands, along with state parks and RV parks, and spent a few nights at motels where the first thing she did was order pizza.
Her favorite part of the CT was the Ten Thousand Islands in the Everglades.
“It was just spectacular,” she says. “Paddling through these beautiful islands with white sandy beaches and encountering incredible birds and turtles and dolphins along the way. It was like being in another world. At night I could even see the Milky Way.”
For more information, go to http://www.dep.state.fl.us/gwt/paddling/saltwater.htm
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