Friends hike on Elliot Key in Biscayne National Park. Photo / Christopher Boykin

On Oct. 4 Visit Florida, the state tourism bureau, is scheduled to launch a website that will help people plan paddling, hiking and horseback trails vacations in the Sunshine State.

With more than 8,000 miles of existing land trails and 4,000 miles of water trails, according to a Visit Florida report, the state won the inaugural award of “Best Trails State in the Nation” by American Trails in 2008. Additionally, according to the report, in 2009 more than 4 million visitors to the Cross Florida Greenway and eight state trails generated an estimated economic impact of $95 million. Two-thirds of visitors to Florida in 2009 participated in nature-based activities. Almost every Florida resident (80 percent) suggests nearby natural, cultural and historical sites to out-of-state friends and family when they visit Florida.

In other words, Florida’s trails are pretty damn cool. Even the animals like them.

The new trails website will be trails.VisitFlorida.com. It’s supposed to have detailed maps and photographs.

Blazing Paddles has practiced at West Lake Park in Hollywood since March 2008 but controversy has erupted. The South Florida Sun Sentinel summed it up by reporting, “A lone kayaker failed to slay Broward’s only dragon boat team today, but the battle is not over.” Kristin Deffler, an attorney who has attained the rank of “pirate,” shared with South Florida Adventures her team’s position.

(Editor’s note: FLCT stands for Fort Lauderdale Children’s Theatre, for which Blazing Paddles fundraises.)

Here is a summary of what is going on.

FLCT’s Blazing Paddles is a team that competes in dragon boat races. In 2008, the team negotiated for and received a permit to engage in dragon boat training and store related equipment, including dragon boats, in West Lake Park. The team needed a place on or near water to store its boats because dragon boats cannot easily be transported. The team purchased a storage container, after approval of same by park management, placed the container in a spot approved by the park and has been training there ever since. The relationship was uneventful until April 2009 when one, and only one, park patron made it his mission to get FLCT’s Blazing Paddles evicted from the park.

This individual contacted Broward Parks and Recreation director Bob Harbin, threatening press attention if his demands for the team’s ouster were not given the attention he wanted. Surprisingly, this heavy-handed tactic worked initially, as Harbin attempted to summarily compel the group to remove the container, despite the permit and the tremendous hardships this would impose. Harbin’s main concern was, and is, that if he allows one group to store equipment onsite at a park, then he will have to allow all groups to do the same.

The team presented to Harbin and the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board the following points:

• Permission for one does not have to mean permission for all; people with easily transported boats would not be seeking to store them at the park;
• Blazing Paddles is not exclusive and welcomes all park visitors into its boats and to its practices, thereby providing an activity for the public;
• Dragon boating fits within the park’s slogan, “Commit 2B Fit;”
• County parks around Broward County already store dragon boats onsite and there have been no issues to date.

On May 6 the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board overruled Harbin, ordering that the parks would honor the permit, which is valid through the end of September 2009, and requesting that the Board of County Commissioners determine a long-term solution.

FLCT’s Blazing Paddles is waiting to be placed on an agenda for an upcoming meeting with the Broward County Board of Commissioners. In the meantime, the team has created petitions for both residents and non-residents of Broward County to sign in its quest to keep dragon boating in Broward County Parks by way of storing boats onsite. Those petitions can be found at:

If you live in Broward County, please sign this petition: petitiononline.com/WLPBoats/petition.html

If you live outside Broward, please sign this petition: petitiononline.com/FLdragon/petition.html

Cheers,

Kristin Deffler