THE MANGROVE MAN

Andrew Otazo has retrieved and hauled more than 44,000 pounds of trash from South Florida’s mangrove forests and coastal habitats.

What began as a “weird little hobby,” as Andrew calls it, has grown into one of Miami’s most inspiring conservation stories—and now, a book.

The Mangrove Man, part memoir, part popular science, and part adventure narrative, is filled with Andrew’s unmistakable wit, unexpected discoveries in South Florida’s mangrove wilderness, and enough near-death experiences to keep readers turning the pages.

Following our feature on his award-winning The Miami Creation Myth, we're delighted to share this exclusive excerpt from his forthcoming book.

Photo courtesy of @andrewotazo

Day 45: 190 Pounds

Dying feels odd.

That may be an overly broad statement. Some demises, I assume, are awful. Others may be peaceful or terrifying or even pleasurable. I can only speak to my own half dozen (give or take) brushes with death, so take my description with a grain of salt.

Not all near death experiences are made the same. Rather, they lay on a continuum. At the least deadly end of the spectrum are “I’d better not fuck up” (IBNFU) situations. They include the time I held a live M67 fragmentation grenade with the pins pulled out while a nervous 82nd Airborne instructor looked on wondering if I was about to blow myself, or him, or both of us to hell. Or when I scrambled up a cliff face with a broken shin I could quite literally feel separate and rejoin with every step. I don’t necessarily count these as capital “N”, capital “D”, capital “E” Near Death Experiences, but they provide a handy minimum criterion, as one slip or miscalculation would spell certain doom.

Toward the middle of the killy continuum are “that should have ended me” (TSHEM) situations. These are instances when, if things pan out slightly different–a milimeter to the left or right, a millisecond before or after–I’m a goner. Representative samples include the two separate times (aged five and 16) two different German shepherds mauled me. Another example was when I flew 15 feet through the air on a mountain bike before landing square on my neck, smashing my helmet in the process.

Finally, at the deadliest end of the spectrum is “death as a process” (DAAP). Sometimes, expiration isn’t instantaneous, but a well-documented, step-by-step shutting down of my biological machinery that I’d better damn well do everything in my power to stop because my life depends on it. Almost drowning in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef was one such experience. 

It’s June 2018, I’m dying, and it feels very, very odd. 

The greatest dangers I face in the mangroves are not crocodiles, poisonous snakes, spiders, or crazed squatters with machetes. They aren’t stalking me from the water, creeping silently through the undergrowth, or writing manifestos in a lean-to. Instead, it’s the most blatantly obvious object in my surroundings: the sun.

Heat kills quickly and brutally in South Florida’s mangrove by cooking your brain.

The first step is heat exhaustion. In the mangroves, especially during the summer, the humidity routinely peaks above 90%. Sweat can’t evaporate from your skin, which doesn’t allow heat to transfer from your body into the atmosphere. As the ambient temperature shoots above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, it feels like you’re in a boiling pot with the lid on.

It is my 45th day cleaning the mangroves, my first summer out there, and I spend the afternoon collecting 190 pounds of trash. I also have no idea what I’m doing. In that heat, my heart rate easily shoots past 155 beats per minute (the equivalent of a multi-mile run in cooler temperatures) while standing stock still. It flirts with 190 should I do anything taxing like, say, collecting about 200 pounds of garbage. There are ways to navigate the mangroves–slowly, methodically, with periodic pauses–that mitigate the risk of pressure cooking my cerebellum, and I’m doing any of them.

I collect four 42-gallon bags full of trash into a pile in front of my GoPro and try to sound triumphant about just passing the 5,000-pound mark, but I’m in deep trouble.

I do take after take after take because my speech is slurring. My fine motor skills disappear. My fingers feel enormous and unwieldy, like pool noodles attached to my palms. I have a hard time holding objects or removing my knife from its scabbard on my hip. I can barely stay upright. The horizon swings wildly. I feel the Greek goddess of war and wisdom smashing her way out from inside my skull. Most worryingly, my vision is blurring. Blackout curtains roll in from the sides. 

I am moments from heat stroke, at which point I will collapse and probably die. I have no cell phone reception, no way to cry for help, and no one knows where I am. In layman’s terms, I’m screwed.

It’s not how I want to go, but it’s also exactly how I want to go. If I have my way, upon my death, my naked body will be laid in a tidal pool deep in the mangroves to be picked clean by crocodiles, turkey vultures, mangrove snapper, land crabs, and raccoons. It’ll only take a few weeks before all that is left of me is a scattering of sun-bleached bones. My only hope is that my leering skull be placed prominently in the crook of a tree to terrify would-be litterers. 

Luckily, I remember enough of my combat first aid training to recognize the symptoms. I lay on the sand, place my hat over my face, lift my legs on a stump, and wait. Hermit crabs scuttle by to check if I’ll be their next all-you-can-eat buffet. Black vultures circle a thermal overhead. The sun sinks slowly behind Key Biscayne and into the bay. The temperature cools, and I don’t die. But, sunset is also when stinging insects are most active, so nature gives me one final kick in the ass in the form of hundreds of mosquito bites as I stumble toward my bike.

The headache doesn’t dissipate for two days. My entire body aches for a week. But I don’t die.

I return the following week. And the next one. And the one after. I’m still going, 200 days and 44,000 pounds of trash into my weird little hobby.

Photo courtesy of @andrewotazo

What is a Mangrove Forest?

A person unfamiliar with a mangrove forest might take a good look at one and conclude it is a broiling, bug infested morass of foul smelling, soul and boot sucking mud no rational person would want to experience from any closer than a chartered boat anchored a mile offshore–and they wouldn’t be wrong. 

The mangroves aren’t for everyone, nor should they be. Modern humans evolved in open African savannas and woodlands, so the habitat to which I’ve dedicated my life is deeply alien to most people. The mere act of traversing it can be disorienting and frustrating. When leading group cleanups, I often have to wait for participants to catch up because they instinctively attempt to walk in straight lines. There are no straight lines in the mangroves. Traveling from one point to another is a meandering, acrobatic experience that involves constantly calculating the ground’s firmness as one ducks, weaves, climbs, crawls, and doubles back through a verdant tangle of roots, trunks, and branches that can restrict visibility to 10 feet. With no landmarks or terrain features, someone lacking a compass, GPS device, or knowledge of how to utilize the sun for wayfinding can find themselves walking in endless circles.

But a mangrove forest is so much more than a quagmire. It is a landscape in perpetual transition. Channels open and close. Centuries-old trees the size of mid-rise apartment blocks fall over and die to be replaced by thousands of seedlings all competing to fill the same patch of sunlight. Sandy grasslands transform into waterlogged strands of man-sized saplings packed so densely as to be impassable.

Mangrove forests are tidal brackish water ecosystems residing on the blurriest possible frontier between land and sea. Water levels rise and fall dramatically twice a day. Yellow rat snakes slithering around prop roots at midday replace balloon fish darting around those same roots through three feet of water at sunrise. 

Indeed, a patient observer can watch the tide fluctuate in real-time. Dark striations on the roots and trunks demarcate their maximum height. Someone lost in the mangroves can simply walk either with (when the tide is falling) or against (when it is rising) the flow of water to the ocean, where they are more likely to find rescue by boat.

The mangroves also change drastically on a yearly cycle. Twigs and branches cracking underfoot during South Florida’s winter and spring dry season float atop a knee-deep muddy plane the consistency of lentil soup during the rainy summer and fall months. October’s and November’s king tides cover the forest in several feet of cool, crystal clear water, even at low tide. Hurricane season augurs the most sudden alterations, as tons of sand pile overnight into new dry ground or are swept to sea, carving out deep tidal pools that soon brim with snapper and bonefish.

The planet is ringed by a belt of mangroves roughly spanning the latitudes of 25 degrees North and South. Their range is limited to the subtropics because even a few hours of frost exposure can kill most of these trees. However, as global temperatures warm and sea levels rise, mangroves’ territory is expanding north, south, and inland.

Depending on which scientist you ask and how pedantic they want to be, there are anywhere between 54 and 80 mangrove species found in 118 countries. They cover an area of 77,000 square miles, 42% of which is in Asia, 26% in North and South America, 21% in Africa, and 12% in Oceania. This book, however, focuses on the mangroves’ northernmost Western Hemispheric foothold in South Florida because, well, that’s where I pick up trash.

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This excerpt is reprinted with permission from The Mangrove Man by Andrew Otazo. Read the full first chapter here.