PART 2 - THE FLORIDA CROSSING
January 4th - Day 15
St Marys has a long boardwalk along the riverfront pier with many shops, bars, and restaurants. Business and tourism must be booming; there are renovations happening everywhere, the town’s public works is building a new boat ramp and dock that will let ships load and unload from the town center rather than about a mile away in the back of town where I arrived. If I ever return here on my kayak, this will be the new arrival point.
Last night I was overjoyed to eat a hot meal. I went to the Seagulls Pub on Osborne Street and ordered an appetizer of 16 fried mozzarella sticks, followed by a burger and fries, but even after all that I didn’t feel full. I decided it was best to stop there or my biological rhythm might be thrown into a sort of jet lag. These past two weeks trained me for a 6am appointment, do or die, as I don’t know how I would heed the call for number 2 off the kayak in the ocean.
On the pub wall over the spirits cabinet was a poster of a vintage mustang advertising for an event called the “Damn the Torpedoes Race.” The waitress told me that once a year there is a vintage car race from Athens Georgia to St Marys. “The rules are that your car has to be pre-1976, you must only use backroads, and you cannot get a speeding ticket,” she said. Only the race organizer knows the route at the start; the racers find out as they go through checkpoints and solve clues to point them where the next checkpoint will be. The finish is always at St Marys, and the town fills with a cast of showy characters and their vehicles in what was described to me as “the equivalent of the 70s Wacky Race Cartoon” but in real life. I wonder who got to play Dick Dastardly and his snickering dog Muttley ub the Mean Machine. Those who partake in the race officially join the The Car Tribe brotherhood and are christened with a Tribe name to be used when interacting with other members of the Tribe, which made me think it of the Water Tribe that organizes the Everglades Challenge kayak race from Tampa to Key Largo.
In the morning while washing my wetsuit pants in the shower I noticed a large hole developing on the lower back. The cursed British minimalist kayak seat chewed on it like the edge of a fine knife. I added some marine flex tape around the seat edge which hopefully will fix the problem, but I’ve also ordered new wetsuit pants on Amazon which I plan to pick up at the post office in Fargo Georgia. Hopefully it will be there when I arrive; I called the post office and told them to hold it for me. I don't want this mean seat to eat through my back.
I spent the day wandering around town. I came across a building called “The St Marys Submarine Museum,” which had an enormous torpedo large enough to fit a man inside, dozens of submarine models, and a deep-sea diving suit that reminded me of Jules Verne’s "Ten thousand Leagues Under the Sea.” The biggest portion of the museum, however, was the gift shop. Rent must be expensive on the waterfront.
I returned late in the afternoon to the Inn where the innkeeper told me I was in luck. “There’s another room for you tonight, but you have to move downstairs. It’s getting cleaned up for you right now,” she said.
January 5th - Day 16
A cold front moved through in the night, and through the early morning hours all I could hear was rain and wind. I wondered if that would be a good excuse to stay another day, but I was anxious not to fall behind schedule. Sleeping in a warm bed for two nights was softening my resolve; I dreaded the thought of setting foot outside and dreaded how cold it would feel to put on my damp boots. Fortunately, when I did walk outside the front had already passed, and although it was windy and cold, at least it was sunny, and lifted my spirits.
I got a late start as my two camp choices were either a close camp not too far up the river, or one too far to reach with daylight. I chose the closer camp so it will take me 3 days to reach the put-out point at Trader Hill. Even so, the river meanders a lot near the sea, and distances that are short as the bird flies are far with the river flow. I traveled only 8 miles west of St Marys, but covered almost 20 miles of river, and at one point was paddling due East around a large oxbow.
The color of the St Marys River is dark red like oxygen rich blood from the arteries. I cannot see even half a foot deep into it. When the paddle strikes the water the light penetrates a little deeper and makes ruby colored whirlpools. All kinds of creatures could be hiding down in the depths, and sneak right under my hull, and I would never know they were there. It was too cold to do a roll , but I’m sure if I went under water, it would be as dark as the silt laden Shube River in Nova Scotia.
The campsite was under the State Road 17 overpass. I was fortunate that the concrete pavement extending to the water I saw on Google Earth was indeed the boat ramp I thought it was; that made landing easy. I was greeted by an old man with missing teeth fishing off the boat ramp next to his pickup truck. I thought this was a strange spot to fish as it was the proverbial middle of nowhere, unless it’s a secret spot where the fish bite a lot, but he said he hadn’t caught anything all day. As I was scouting a place for the tent, he lost one of his lures when it tangled in the marsh. He must have been either lonely or needed to vent his emotions like a customer with his trusted barber, because me being there was his cue to tell me the story of his life. His name was Karl, 68, born on December 1st in Tennessee. Recently he went back to work as a car repair man because his daughter’s husband is a dead beat and he has 3 grand-kids to keep a roof over their heads. There’s a lot of age discrimination in the car repair business; he said he can repair any vehicle no matter how bad the crash it’s been in, but he gets constantly asked in job interviews for when he graduated high school which is coded language to screen off elderly applicants. Once he answered 196F.U!!! And walked out.
After 30 minutes of him talking and the sun close to setting he finally packed up and went his way, much to my relief to finally get to pitch the tent.
January 6th - Day 17
Last night was the coldest yet. I got fully dressed and used one more of my hot pocket hand warmers which I tossed inside my socks. I did not want to have to go outside to pee, so I commandeered one of my empty water bottles for that purpose. Incredibly, I peed over a liter of urine in the bottle like Jim Carry in Dumb and Dumber, and I was close to needing a second. A freshly used pee bottle is also a good hand warmer...
A different fisherman showed up in the morning while I packed up. He was an African American man with a pickup truck towing his dinghy. He wore a Gortex suit which I assume must have been waterproof as he waded knee deep into the cold river water to get the boat off the trailer.
“You fish off that kayak of yours?” He asked me with a thick New York accent. I noticed asks me that.
“No, just paddling. I started in Miami two weeks ago. Now I’m here. If all goes well, I’ll go around the whole state.” I said.
“And you have no motor on that?! You in some sort of spiritual journey?”
“No.” I said. “Just vacation from work. Got to be back by February 10 or the bosses won’t be happy...”
“Well I’m on a permanent vacation,” he said. “I sold my business for $8 million. Now I go fishing everyday... I’ve always been my own boss, and now I order myself to go fishing so I go.” And with that he motored away into the morning fog towards St Marys. He was the only person I saw all day.
Paddling upriver is slow. I only averaged 2.6 miles per hour. On a kayak even a 1 mile per hour counter current really drags down progress. Today I paddled 10 hours, so at least 10 miles I gave back to the river.
The vegetation on the riverbank has changed. On the coast there were many marshes and tall grasses; now there are thick woodlands of pine trees and willows covered with hanging threads of Spanish moss. It’s also remarkably quiet; if I stop paddling, I can hear even the faintest bird call somewhere deep in the woods, or even no sound at all.
Occasionally I passed a house or two. Usually the houses had a small peer with a pontoon sticking out into the river. Some were down beaten ramshackle things I would have been scared to stop and stretch my legs; a rotten board or two and I'd fall through in the water. Others were palatial estates with manicured lawns, a sturdy sea wall, and a private boat ramp. I looked at them with some jealousy, " What a great place it would be to pitch my tent on those beautiful lawns," I thought. Both the poor and rich houses had plenty of signs and flags supporting Donald Trump. Some were haughty and eager to flaunt their support, with several Trump themed drapes hanging over their balconies. It’s probably a good idea to avoid discussing politics with the locals.
I stopped a little before the point I had marked to camp. It was past sunset when I saw what looked like the perfect spot on the river; a beach with a gentle slope up the riverbank and a patch of grass big enough for one tent. I struggled with my thoughts if I should stop here. It looked so inviting, but I didn’t want to fall short of where I had set myself to get to. I kept going; but two turns of the river later, I saw another inviting campsite location, not quite as good as the first, but nothing thumb my nose at. I concluded this was a sign from the above not to press my luck. Perhaps the river beach I had marked further up didn’t really exist.
January 6th - Day 18
Another very cold night. In the morning I noticed that the water level on the river rose considerably . The small river beach I landed was almost all gone and was fast reaching the kayak; thank goodness I had had the forethought to pull it high on to the riverbank. By the time I was packed up, the beach was gone. I think I’m far enough upriver that the change in water level wasn’t due to the tide, but from the heavy rain two days ago.
Tomorrow I will start crossing the Okefenokee Swamp. I am hopeful that the rain will make crossing the swamp easier than the 37-mile portage from St George to Fargo. The portage to the canal on the swamp is much shorter, and there is less paddling upriver which is much slower.
The Trader Hill boat ramp put-out point was only another 8 miles up the river. There is indeed a modest hill here that rises some 50 feet above the river and was quite steep to pull the kayak up with all the gear in it. Back in St Marys I reserved a night at the Okefenokee Pastime, which is a cabin lodge on the side road that leads into the swamp. To get there, however, I had a four-mile portage along State Road 121 which I did not like at all.
I was told that when pulling the kayak along a road I should keep the sail up to be as visible as possible to the oncoming traffic. That was very good advice. There was heavy traffic, and in both directions, there were logging trucks running up and down the two-lane road at great speed. The shoulder wasn’t all that wide and more than once I pulled out into the grass when the biggest vehicles lumbered through. I had images in my head of the time an 18 wheeler semi-truck scrapped me while I rode my bicycle in the California desert; that time I escaped with my life by an inch with just a deep cut on my butt cheek and wasn’t keen to repeat the experience. Perhaps the strange circumstance of seeing someone pulling a boat high and dry along a country road like a whale out of the water was awkward enough to make most drivers slow down and keep their distance.
I arrived at the cabins around 4:30pm which was good timing as I had been told on the phone that if I arrived after 6pm there would be no one to receive me. “You did indeed come on a kayak,” Said the receptionist. She was eager to talk and ask me about where I had been thus far on this adventure. When I told her I was from Brazil, that really piqued her interest. She told me of her hopes of one day moving to Rio de Janeiro where she heard the locals are super friendly to foreigners and would love to learn Portuguese. I thought of whether I should douse her dreams with the cold splash of reality; the number one advice Brazilians give to foreigners in Rio is how to minimize your chances of being in an armed robbery. Instead I indulged her fantasies; I told her that Rio is indeed the most beautiful city on Earth, a sort of paradise where San Francisco meets Yosemite National Park, and carpeted with lush palm trees on a beach. That isn’t technically a lie, but the truth is that the Rio situation is more like that of a beautiful woman married to a violent wifebeater. You want to help her out of the abusive relationship, but she can't help herself.
January 8th - Day 19
Today sucked.
I obtained the overnight permit to cross the Okefenokee Swamp two days ago and thought I had been clear with whomever I had spoken on the phone that I would be crossing the swamp. The person raised no issues, so I was confident there would not be any. Early in the morning, I started the 6-mile walk to the boat ramp on the canal that leads into the swamp. I stopped at the park office on the way to check in and reiterated to the park ranger that I would cross to the other side. That’s when the problem started.
“You can’t cross the swamp,” she said. “The water level is too low. There is a two-mile section that isn’t passable. You won’t make it across.”
“Are you sure?” I asked exasperated. “The St Marys River is full, and we just had a lot of rain two days ago. If it’s just two miles surely I could walk that?”
“You can’t walk it because it’s all bog and swamp and the park hasn’t cleared the trail section in a year. They’ve only just started working on that. Maybe next month you can, but not now.”
I hated the feeling of second guessing what the ranger was telling me. I’m sure she was being overly conservative, and following orders. But to risk paddling the 12 miles to the campsite only to find that the way after would indeed be impassable and turn back would waste at least 2 days. I thought about it for a while. Back in my 20s I would have said, “the hell with it, let’s see what happens,” and I would have pushed until I made it to the other side. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve become more cautious. I turned around resigned to walking to St George and going around the swamp.
When I again reached the intersection with State Road 121, I a huge logging truck rolled by , and the fear of being run over made me consider turning back again and taking my chances with the swamp; surely a place with a funny name like “Okefenokee” can’t be all that ominous . Yesterday it was a four-mile walk; today would be 25. I also thought of walking back to Trader Hill and paddling to St George but that would take two days if not more; at least walking I was confident I could reach St George in one day. I would think about what to do about the even longer portage to Fargo later.
The road was straight like an arrowhead. The logging trucks ran up and down the road barely giving me enough space to breathe, though a few gave me a wide berth and a honk or two for encouragement. I stayed mostly on the left side of the road so I could see the incoming traffic, but on the uphill sections I had to switch sides as there was barely any head on visibility. Those were terrifying moments, I would listen to the sound of a roaring engine and look over my back constantly to know when to jump off the road.
On the way, there were three instances when someone stopped to ask what I was doing and if I needed help, but there wasn’t anything they could do. One fellow offered to carry me and my kayak on the roof of his car, but I have no idea how he would have done it without straps. “I’m sure we can manage it,” he said, with an air of confidence I was sure would be the last words ever spoken to me if I took his advice. I thanked him greatly, and he drove off.
About a third of the way the front hand toggle frayed and ripped. I cursed Rockpool for their crappy rope. Surely I wasn’t doing something outside the intended use. At first, I thought this was disastrous; how was I going to pull the rest of the way? With some of the spare rope but it was much thinner than the toggle. It fixed the toggle and it worked fine, but by the end of the day it was fraying again, and would not last a lot longer.
After some 6 hours walking, I began to wonder if I had been arrogant with my fate when I turned down help from people who offered to give me a ride into St George. Perhaps I could have sat on the back of an open trunk held tightly to the kayak, and they could have driven slowly into town. I doubt it would have been much faster than walking, but at least I wouldn’t be walking and dogging lumber trucks. If right now someone stopped in front of me on a pickup truck with an empty bed to give me a lift, I most definitely would have said yes.
I finally arrived in St George after walking some 10 hours. St George is a tiny hamlet. There is a gas station and a dollar store, two churches, and not much else. I walked into the gas station with my kayak in tow feeling a sense of accomplishment, but also a sense of dread. Fargo is an even longer walk. I asked the cashier at the gas station if there was anywhere to stay in town. “In St George? No.” he said in a sort of “are you kidding me, this is St George” voice. He could see that his words had demoralized me, and I indeed must have had the helpless look of someone who was lost and no idea what to do. “Here’s what you can do. The field across the road is right in front of my brother-in-law’s house. You camp there in between the trees, and if someone bothers you, you tell them that Michael said you can camp there. Damn, you walked from the Cabins to here, you’ve suffered enough.” I thanked him and did exactly that.
January 9th - Day 20
My phone rang me awake. People were calling me. They saw that I deviated from the planned route through the swamp and wanted to know what happened. I told them the issue, but that all was fine, it’s all part of the story. What will be, will be.
At 7am the temperature was down to freezing, the night is always coldest until just before dawn. Everything inside the tent was cold to the touch, especially the water bottles, and the condensation under the rainfly from my breath and body heat was dripping. When I broke some water off to the side of the tent, so much steam rose up that it reminded me of the morning fog over the St Marys River three nights ago.
Yesterday’s long walk gave me some pause for thought. The base of my toes developed some thick calluses where they grab around sandal straps. These sandals are comfortable padded flip flops, but they are not made for walking 25 miles, never mind more. I concluded that some way or another, I was not going to walk to Fargo.
I contemplated my first option, to call an Uber or Lift. Unfortunately, no drivers were willing to do a drive from no place to nowhere all the way from Jacksonville, only to have a long unbillable empty ride back. St George is just too out of the way.
My second, and I suppose only remaining option, was to ask around if anyone with a pickup truck would drive me and my kayak to Fargo. Surely in this town, pickup trucks and people with nothing to do must be like hand and glove. I prayed that given there was not one, but two churches in town, at least one of the ministers must have sermoned about the Good Samaritan.
I first went to the dollar store, but the clerk said she didn’t know anyone. I then went by the gas station where I again met with Michael the cashier, who seemed happy to see me, but said he couldn’t leave the store. I supposed he’d already done his part. I asked a guy filling up at the station with what was the perfect empty pickup truck, but he said he couldn’t though I think he just didn’t want to. I was more than aware that I was asking for a big favor.
With no one else around this early, I was running out of people to ask, so I decided to try a more sweetened approach. There was one small pub in town across from the gas station open for breakfast. I walked in and saw one table with 4 elderly gentlemen drinking coffee and eating toast. “Good Morning friends! Lovely day isn’t it? I’m the guy who was camped just out front. I need to get to Fargo with my kayak so I can continue my journey. I’m going around Florida. Would anyone be willing to drive me and my kayak there? I’ll pay $100.” I said in my most friendly voice I could infatuate.
It was Mr. Benjamin, however, who had the desired effect. “Oh, one of us can get you there for sure. I have a van, and my brother Wayne here has a truck. Either one of us can take you. I’m Bud by the way.”
And so, I got my ride to Fargo. Bud and Wayne got up and soon reappeared with a big bright white van that only had the front seats. They fitted a hair with some rickety metal legs for me to sit on. I broke up the boat into the 3 pieces, got everything loaded, and we were on our way.
Bud and Wayne had a southern accent so thick it was a bit hard for me to understand them, but over the ride they told me a bit of their story. Both were born in Jacksonville and had lived in St George all their lives. Bud sometimes goes down to Jacksonville, and he’s been to Tampa once. Wayne has been as far as Atlanta. None of them, they said, had ever gone to Fargo Georgia. That’s the extent of their world. I was not surprised. Some 13 years ago I was in a little town called Lagunas in the Peruvian jungle where I talked to a local who said he had never been farther than Iquitos a half a day’s boat ride downriver and had never seen the ocean. I suppose that if all your basic needs are taken care of, there may not be a need to go farther; not being bored with the sameness of everyday life is a skill which I do not have. I was once told that you have success when you get what you want, and happiness when you want what you get. Perhaps I might get success in life, but happiness, probably not, at least not for a long time...
We arrived at the Fargo boat ramp at 10am. Bud and Wayne dropped me off and were soon on their way after filling up with gas. They gave a honk and a hand wave as they passed me on the road and disappeared. I was glad to be here but also a bit disappointed. If I complete the journey around Florida, there will be a small asterix to note that I didn’t quite go “all” the around. I would have liked to have crossed the swamp. I wondered if I should have risked doing it, but I’ll never know.
I took the time to do two things. One was to eat a hot meal at the gas station pub where I got a thick double patty cheeseburger with bacon and fries. The second was to go by the post office and pick up the new wetsuit pants I ordered on Amazon, to replace the one with the hole. When I was in St Marys, I took the time to order a few other things as well; a new spare pair of paddling gloves as the one I’m using is worn thin, and a huge supply of sour jellybeans. These jelly beans are special. They come in 100 calorie serving packages and supposedly are like chewable Gatorade to give me an energy boost. I’m not sure if they work based on the placebo effect, but they work wonders for me. They are my magic beans.
While reassembling the boat I noticed that one of my stern hinges became loose. I tightened it as far as I could by hand, but still it wouldn’t hold closed. I don’t have a pair of pliers with me, that’s an item to remember to bring next time. I covered it with flex tape until I can find a place to buy one. Hopefully 5 good hinges are enough to hold my boat together.
I started down the Suwannee River in the early afternoon. The water here is even darker and redder than the St Marys River. The river seems quite high, there are sturdy cypress trees in the middle of the channel, and their wide buttressed trunks look like castles surrounded by a dark moat. The trees and the submerged logs make the path through the river like skiing between pole gates. I have to be careful; my kayak is long enough that If I get pinned sideways the force of the water will throw me out the seat and hold the boat as I float downstream. I didn’t see anyone else on the river, so there would be no one to ask for help.
January 10th - Day 21
There are so many twisted trees, roots and logs in the river channel that my imagination sometimes gives character to their odd shapes. Some trunks look like folded legs, others have the look of human faces, and some look so much like giant snake heads, that I would not look away just to be sure my eyes were not playing tricks on me, which of course, they were. The human mind sees patterns in randomness whether they exist or not. When I traveled through South America, I lost count of the cliff faces named "The Indian Face."
I passed by a ramp where a man pulling up his boat told me there were two people on a green canoe about 2 hours ahead. That encouraged me. I was concerned about not knowing where the put-out point to go around the Big Shoals waterfall was. Maybe these people ahead of me would know better, and if they were in a canoe, I might have a chance to catch up.
Time passed and I did not see them, and the GPS told me that the waterfall was getting ever closer, and I could see no put-out point or sign to indicate it. I thought that perhaps I could paddle down the falls, I have a helmet with me after all, and flipping over would not be a problem as I could roll back up, but I would at least like to take a good look to know the best way down so I would not smash my boat on a rock.
I checked my phone and saw I had reception and internet, so I began to search for the number of the park ranger. I dialed in and the phone rang some six times before someone picked up. I proceeded to explain the whole situation, I was going down the Suwannee River, that I was upstream of Big Shoals, and I needed to know where the put-out point was and what to look for. “Let me transfer you,” the voice said. Another 4 long rings later the ranger picked up, and I re-explained my concerns.
“When you’re some 500 feet upstream of Big Shoals,” he said, “you will see a sign on your right indicating that the pull-out point is 100 feet ahead. It will be on your left where there will be a fluorescent orange pole. You’ll hear the falls long before you get there.” I thanked him and continued paddling.
After some 10 minutes, I saw the sign indicating the put-out point and did indeed begin to hear the rushing water which very soon became loud and clear. However, the 100 feet the sign indicated, came and went and I saw no fluorescent pole or any other pole to indicate the put-out. I called the ranger again. “Oh, yeah, we maybe were a bit too cautious with the distance. The put-out is maybe 100 feet before the falls. Don’t worry, if you are on the left bank you won’t miss it, but don’t go over the falls on your sea kayak. I don’t recommend it.” I hoped he was not the kind of person that confuses his right and left when giving directions.
A little later the lonely fluorescent orange pole did appear as promised, I got out and not a moment too soon. Maybe some 50 feet downstream was the point of full commitment. Going down would have been ugly. I walked along the footpath to assess the water conditions; the river drops some 10 feet down two sets of shallow rapids with jagged limestone rocks. There was a possible narrow passage on the right bank down the first rapid, but there was no way to know if the water was as deep as it seemed; from there it would be a frantic paddle diagonally across a quarter of the river to make it down another gap through the second set of rapids. Maybe it would have been doable, but failure would mean slicing through my fiberglass hull like a party balloon. The right decision was to walk around.
I decided to camp at the falls. The two people on the green canoe were camped here as well. They were two brothers, Nathan and John, on a three-day fishing trip from Fargo to White Springs. Nathan works as a programmer out of Atlanta, though he didn’t seem happy with his job, he described himself as a “soon to be former computer programmer.” John seemed more at peace with life; he was a guitar player and had his instrument with him. I would say he was quite talented with country music and even knew a few Beetles and Johnny Rivers songs. I asked him to play “Secret Agent Man” which he did on the flip of a hat. Best of all, he had a pair of pliers for me to fix my loose hinge and that took a huge physiological weight off my shoulders.
January 11th - Day 22
The put-in point down from big shoals was down a steep moss-covered embankment, and there was hardly enough space by the water to stand on, let alone to load up the boat with gear. I was thankful to have John and Nathan there to help me. As a two-person job this was difficult, but alone I would somehow have had to disassemble the kayak to get all three pieces down without slipping and smashing on the rocks. That loose hinge would have been all the more troublesome now. I gave my two new friends a big thanks and a thumbs up before the current carried me along.
Nathan said that after crossing I-75 I should keep a lookout for river camps. “They are pleasant and well maintained and they are free. Best thing your taxes have ever paid for. They have showers, a fire pit, and a bug screened hut. Not that you would need that now, it’s been unusually mosquito free these days, even with the cold.”
Downstream of Big Shoals the character of the river changes. There are hardly any cypresses in the channel anymore, and the banks have long sections of porous limestone rock. In some instances, the river carved out overhangs in the rock where I could paddle underneath and hide from the rain, while others looked like they were submerged caves. I don’t know how far they went, as only the entrance was visible, and the dark water obscured any vision of the depth.
Crossing the I-75 overpass I saw a strange thing. Up on the pilings of the overpass there was a ledge some 15 feet high were on was an enormous piece of hanging driftwood. Perhaps the river level is indeed much lower than normal if the water can reach so high. Big Shoals would have been a raging torrent with this much water.
As I paddled downriver, I reached a place called the Suwannee Music Park. The river here had an enormous sand beach on the inside bend shaped like a cone spoil some 30 feet high. It was filled with sunbathers, and there was country music blaring from out above the bank. One of the girls by the water told me there was a festival going on, and that the place was packed. They would be playing bluegrass and country music all day and night. If I want a good night's sleep I would need to keep going.
Seven miles later I reached one of the river camps. It was dead quiet though I heard a few voices up above the bank and saw that there were two other kayaks that had been pulled up the river beach.
I stopped here to see who this night’s campmates would be.
January 11th - Day 23
The river camp was fantastic. The showers were warm, the toilets clean and the bug screened enclosures even had a plug outlet for me to charge up my batteries. I have stayed in many previous paid camps that were not as good as this one, and here it was all free, I hope.
The only issue I’ve been having lately has been with my air mattress. I thought that it had deflated the last few nights because it had been extremely cold, however, even now that it is warmer it continued to lose pressure overnight, and I have woken up every few hours to pump more air into it. This angered me considerably as I don’t sleep well. I want the manufacturer condemned to sleep on it for the rest of their lives. I’ve ordered a new one to be delivered at a hotel in Suwannee when I arrive there in about 5 days.
The other folks staying at the camp were two kayakers also paddling their way down the Suwannee River, though they were planning to take two weeks to complete the journey. One of them, an older man in his 60s, told me he was recovering from cancer, though from the look of things he had yet to quit smoking. The other was a retired engineer from Boeing. We discussed at length the issues with the 737 max plane that had been in the news lately. He said that ever since Boeing had bought McDonald Douglas back in the 90s things had gone downhill as two engineering teams never really glued together. “When a merger happens a lot of people just end up fired. Management seems to think workers are like cogs in a machine, when really, it’s more like an arranged marriage with a bride you never meet. It could go well, but when it doesn't it really doesn't go well.”
Eventually someone mentioned if anyone had seen the news lately. A week ago, there was a sewage spill on the Withlacoochee River near Valdosta Georgia. A contractor doing maintenance work on at the wastewater plant forgot to connect the float switches at the influent pump station so the pumps didn't run, the high-level alarm didn't alarm anyone, and so the manhole overflowed with some 7 million gallons of raw influent ending up in the river. What the plant staff were thinking while for almost four days there was hardly any flow into the plant is sure to be a good story for the attorneys. I looked at the map and saw that the junction with the Withlacoochee river was still some 15 miles downstream so no problem here, but one week plus several miles of river will hopefully be enough to dilute and breakdown the waste. I wondered what the odds are of having to deal with two sewage spills in one journey.
Early afternoon when I reached the junction, but I did not notice any odors or difference in the water color (it’s all the same dark tea), I got in a cool off roll before the waters merged as I won’t be doing any for at least the next few days, just in case. Hopefully the slug of wastewater is past downstream already.
The Suwannee River is now about 150 feet from bank to bank. I saw a sign to watch out for jumping surgeons. The sign said these fish can be 8 feet long, weigh more than 200 pounds, and have a propensity to suddenly jump out the water. Sometimes they can even knock a person out of their boat. A few people had mentioned this to me, and that a few years ago there was a young girl who was knocked off her boat and drowned. I wonder why such a big fish feel the need to jump out of the water. Usually fish jump to flee from bigger fish, but I can’t imagine what creature would see a 200 pound fish and think, "oh, lunch!" Maybe there are things deep in the dark depths that are better left unknown...
I covered 35 miles today, but it hardly seems like a lot of distance on the map. The river has an uncountable number of bends. I think it will take 3 more days to reach Suwannee at the river mouth.
January 13th - Day 24
I passed the halfway point! Thus far I’ve covered 608 miles. Now I’ll be measuring distances in miles to get home, rather than miles from home. Still, there are a lot of miles to go and by the time I’m close, the 1,000th mile will be water under the paddles... Today is also close to the halfway mark in terms of time, so the journey is on schedule. Hopefully the winds in the Gulf of Mexico keep it that way.
My goal was to reach the town of Bradford where the river takes a hard turn south towards the ocean. It’s also a place for a hotel stop, buy food, and best of all, eat a warm meal. I saw on Google Earth that there was a McDonald’s within walking distance of the boat ramp, so I dreamed all day about how many delicious chicken McNuggets I would eat; I think the 20 piece box is the largest I can get.
All this thought of food, however, made the energy bars I eat everyday seem bland and uninteresting. I was hungry, but eating only out of a sense of necessity; it felt wasteful to eat such tedious food when I knew that in a few hours I would be drowning in deliciousness like a fat kid in a candy factory.
On the way I passed by a place called Troy Springs; a natural upwelling of ground water on the side of the river that comes from deep within the calcareous rocks. The water was clear like a glass crystal and I could have been paddling in an aquarium. It was also a few degrees colder than the river and didn’t immediately mix with it, for a while the murkiness of the Suwannee is pierced with a sleek of lucid clarity.
I stopped at the spring to wash off the river water and sweat from my wetsuit. Although the river water is fresh, the tea pigments leave residue that stains everything. I swam across the eye of the spring coming out feeling like I had washed away a ghost imprint of myself in the water. “Did you see the big alligator gar?” Someone asked me as I walked out of the water. The alligator gar is a huge fish with a menacing face snout like an alligator. It looks like a hideous man eater but feeds only on fish.
“No, I didn’t, how big was it?” I asked.
“About this big.” He said, forcing his arms to stretch open as far as he could. “Six feet. It was hiding right under the rock you stopped to stand on. Huge thing but really interesting.” Good thing I didn’t see it, or I wouldn’t have been in a blissful state of ignorance. I chose to walk the long way around the spring back to the boat.
January 14th - Day 25
Yesterday I overdid on the food. Not only did I eat the McNuggets, I also chugged down a pepperoni pizza at a local Italian restaurant. This morning I suffered from the revenge of the Seminoles which set me to a modestly late start.
A sign at the Branford boat ramp indicated that the town of Suwannee is still 70 miles away. I had hoped it would be closer. Tomorrow the high tide will be at 5:30pm which will probably negate the boost I’ve been riding on the downstream current. I’ve been impressed how effortless it is to hold a pace above 5 mile per hour, even without a sail.
I think I saw my first alligator this journey. Almost always when I see a floating tree branch or log on the water I wonder if it might be something more sinister, and almost always it is just log, but I cannot not help but think it is moving until I see it up close. But this one I was sure was moving. I thought the current was tricking me, but the more I looked the more I was sure it had a will of its own. When I approached it dove with a small splash and disappeared in the tinted water. I am sure it was an alligator.
Ten miles down from Branford, the Suwannee River picks up the flow from the Santa Fe River. I didn’t notice any increase in the width of the river, so I assume that the downstream current must have increased with the added flow. I will be happy with the change of scenery from river to ocean after 11 days of river paddling to cross Florida.
Spring is already arriving in the Suwannee River; although the cypresses, willows, and oaks are all denuded, the forest ground was full of bright yellow hues of grass flowers.
January 15th - Day 26
The longest day yet. I covered 40 miles. The last ten were grueling; predictably, the rising tide pushed against the Suwannee current, the wonderful friend that propelled me 220 miles evaporated and distances which at first did not seem far, were far indeed. I’m surprised that even when close to the Gulf of Mexico, the water is still fresh, and there were no mangroves; only the same cypresses, oaks, and willows. There were new plants too; the river course was carpeted with floating lettuces. I clung to the center of the channel or I could have been stuck.
When I arrived in Suwannee, I could not find the boat ramp I marked on Google Earth; the concrete I saw on the aerial was a seawall with no way of getting out. I went on a paddle tour around the canals through town to find where I could put-out. I located a small ramp not far from Bill’s Fish camp where I had planned to stay but once again my arrival was joyfully anticipated by a cloud of mosquitoes waking up in the dusk light. At least I wasn’t planning on staying in a tent tonight.
When I reached the camp reception, I was distraught. It was closed. There was a phone number to call, but I had no reception, and once the night set in there were no other lights around except for one faint bulb around which the flies congregated, and the odd car driving down the main road three blocks away. I was wondering what to do, but luck struck at the right time; a car pulled into the camp. It was a family from Ohio on vacation looking for a place to crash for the night, and they had a Verizon cell phone with one faint service bar that flickered in and out, but enough to call the number on the window. Bill from Bill’s Fish Camp soon appeared. He seemed happy to have customers.
Suwannee town (if you can call it that) is the true end of the road of place. A single road dead ends in the ocean, with hardly enough room for a truck with a boat in tow to turn around. There are no streetlights; once night sets in it is dark like a village in the middle ages. There was one lonely pale sodium lamp burning in the distance. I walked towards it and saw it was a fish restaurant, which from the look inside was quite busy. Food must be good, I thought.
The inflatable mattress I ordered never arrived. Amazon sent a message saying they could not deliver and had canceled the order. That’s bummer, I’ll have to figure out where the next possible drop off point might be.
