When the only decision you have to make after sunrise is whether to take out the canoe or the kayak, you realize you’re living in a magical place.

I love Saturday mornings when my thinking goes like this: Do I take the canoe or kayak? Do I wear a cap with a bill or a beach hat? Do I take the fishing pole or the binoculars?

The Calusa Blueway Paddling Trail – all 190 miles of its meandering loveliness – welcomes those who make decisions big and small. And lately I’ve found myself talking with visitors about which type of paddlecraft to use.

Yes, most anecdotal evidence suggests the trail is more popular for kayakers – recreational yakkers, sea kayakers, sit-on-top yakkers, etc. But America’s longtime love affair with canoes has not waned.

Many sites on the trail offer canoe rentals, including Koreshan State Historic Site, Lovers Key State Park and Manatee Park. Some outfitters have big canoes that multiple people can paddle just the way the native Calusa Indians did. One example is Calusa Ghost Tours in Bokeelia on Pine Island.

On a recent trip to Caneocopia, the nation’s big paddlesport show, I noted that as many canoes as kayaks were displayed around the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wis. In fact, most of the Midwesterners who stopped at my blueway display booth mentioned they like canoeing in protected water.

Come on down, I told them.

The people who stopped by from Maine, Washington State and California and many points in between – yet outside of the Midwest – talked about kayaking our topaz waterways.

Come on down, I told them.

The beauty of our blueway lies not just in its protected waters, which make it amenable to canoes and kayaks both. The beauty also lies in the fact that you don’t need to show up with your own boat and gear. Lee County-based outfitters are thriving, and visitors can find just about any kind of paddlecraft they want.

So check out the outfitters on this site. Check out the trail maps. Then join the club of those of us here in paradise – the club that has to make those big decisions just after sunrise. The kind of decisions that lead to days full of saltwater memories laced in mangroves and sunshine.