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Paddling Journal February 2010 The outage is coming! Paddle while the paddling's good! Trips this month: 11
2/1/10
Since I had a dentist appointment up in Fernandina this morning, I had long planned to take advantage of being up in that area by paddling somewhere I don't usually go. The weather forecast called for a 40% chance of rain and winds of at least 15 mph so I very nearly took my boat off the rack before I left the house. It was more effort to pull it off, so I decided that it could make the trip with me and since I already had a beer packed for the trip I decided to leave it on. My appointment was over quickly and by 9:30 I was on my way - the only problem was that I had no idea where to go. It was too blustery to even consider staying on the coast so I headed west on A1A and, after picking up a sandwich, I passed the turnoff to Goffinsville and crossed over Lofton Creek and turned north on US-17. I considered heading down Page Dairy Road and launching at the pull off along Lofton to see if the higher than normal water would let me get a little further up that creek but I decided against it and continued north until I reached CR-108. That pretty much settled where I was going to go even though I had done no research on the tides at Kings Ferry. I drove up Lessie Road and was greeted by the Pit Bull population near the boat ramp which I am certain outnumbers the hoomin population. I knew the coastal tides were around 10 so I was sure that the tides this far inland would be after noon at least and sure enough the current was flowing westward aided by the strong NE breeze. Since on my only other trip here in 2006 I had traveled west, I decided my best bet was to head into the current and wind so that my return trip would be an easy one. I passed by the few houses and docks that line the Kings Ferry and Flea Hill sides of the river and was greeted by a gaggle of Mallards who apparently live on one of the docks. They quacked noisily at me before returning to their home where there were a few more sound asleep. I rounded the first bend where the river cut sharply to the south before heading back north. There was an entrance to a creek that was lined with the long yellow grass I see so much in the freshwater areas. I followed it until a tree blocked me and since I had not put my pruners where I could easily reach them I turned back and headed further down river. Just beyond the creek on the Florida side I found some high ground in the forest that looked like a great place to camp so I marked it. I knew that Temple Creek Landing was not too far downstream but I couldn't remember exactly how far. I was pretty sure that it was further than I had time to go but as I paddled along, some of the shoreline started looking familiar and some houses loomed ahead of me on the Georgia side. I was nearly even with them with I suddenly realized that I was at the landing but the high water had changed the shoreline enough that I didn't recognize it. I pulled over and sat on the bank to eat my sandwich while an Eastern Bluebird came down to the water to drink and a pair of Red Shouldered Hawks flew overhead. I pushed off and since the current and wind were going my way I was back at Kings Ferry in less than an hour. It wasn't much of a trip but it was nice to connect a couple of the dots on the Middle St. Marys River.
See the pictures from this
trip
2/3/10
There was a break in the weather today so I made plans to hit the water somewhere close to the house and was out the door a little after 10. I headed east with the intention of putting in at Hannah Mills and possibly heading up to the Pelican Pool but as I crossed the Clapboard Creek bridge I could see that it was a lot windier than they had forecast and I began to have second thoughts. When I arrived at the put-in alongside Heckscher Dr. and saw a pair of vehicles blocking it, I turned around and headed back toward the west.
I thought briefly about pulling into our driveway and spending the day inside but decided to drive down to the other end of the island to see what Browns Creek looked like. I found the water there relatively calm and was soon setting out toward the big island. I could see some fishermen hanging out on the leeward side of the island where I knew the birds would be perching so after shooting an Osprey on the eastern point I skirted that edge of the island and then paddled around to the backside, shooting a trio of Great Blue Herons along the way. I decided to paddle between the second and third islands in the chain and was thinking about circling around to the north when a tree full of Egrets along the SJRPP shoreline caught my attention and I paddled over. They flushed and many of them seemed to head in the direction of the runoff pond so I paddled along the shoreline toward the entrance of the pool. Just before reaching the entrance, a Little Blue Heron caught my attention as he was feeding in the flooded grass, so I spent several minutes shooting him before heading into the pool.
I could see that the trees near the spillway were full of Egrets and Ibis and started toward them. I spotted an odd looking blob in the branches of an oak tree near the entrance to the pool and stopped to investigate, thinking that it was probably just a nest. As I got close, I could see that it was a Raccoon who was sound asleep in the fork of a branch about 15 feet above the surface of the water. I could only see his ears and the very top of his mask as his face was buried in the branch as he lay curled up in the fork. I shot him for a few minutes and then headed over to the spillway where I shot the birds there until they flushed. I returned to the entrance of the pool and found the Raccoon laying exactly as I had left him a few minutes earlier. I shot him some more and thought briefly about making him stir but decided to let him sleep in peace. When I returned to the open waters of Browns Creek I found that the sky had turned from mostly clear blue to a dark band of gray that had blown suddenly in from the ocean. It looked imminently threatening but never produced any precipitation so I paddled back around to the south side of the first island and after shooting the same Osprey on the same branch - I headed home.
See the pictures from this
trip
2/7/10
Super Bowl Sunday arrived, so once again I headed in the direction of St. George, Ga. to do my annual paddle/get the BBQ for the game trip. It was a cold, blustery day and when I launched from the ramp at the Folkston entrance to the swamp, I could tell that the rain we have been having in the area lately had raised the water levels in the swamp even higher than it was already.
I headed down the canoe trail as the sun came up over the pine trees behind me, briefly turning the morning sky pink before disappearing behind the gray clouds. There was nothing to see as I made my way toward the canal but I spotted a Wood Stork close to the end of the trail. When I entered the trail to Grand Prairie, I could see just how how the water was as it completely obliterated the trail and made it difficult to see the path. The trails in the swamp are well marked and so it was easy to find my way down to the intersection with the path to Cooter Lake. A lone Crane circled overhead honking occasionally as he appeared to be looking for his mates below. I decided to take the path down to Cooter Lake and then back to where the intersection with the trail that heads south into Grand Prairie itself. I took the path that headed back toward the canal pausing only briefly to shoot a pair of Cranes who were feeding in the flats. The water nearest the trails was deeper than what Cranes normally like to graze in and although I could hear the sounds of Cranes yodeling in the distance it was obvious that they were going to be in the shallower water away from the paths.
I re-entered the canal and began making my way around to the cut-off that leads back to the basin. It was cold and gray and I had just about decided that this trip was going to be a washout from a photography standpoint when a whiskered head popped up beneath an overhanging branch and disappeared. I stopped and waited for the otter to reappear which he did a few seconds later. I followed him as he swam along the shoreline looking for food. Unlike most otters that I encounter, he ignored me and only occasionally would look in my direction. For the most part, he was more interested in what was along the shoreline and at times I would see him behind the grass crunching something that he had found in his mouth.
At one point, he entered one of the places where it looks like the canal builders considered taking the Suwannee Canal but stopped making a dead end a couple hundred yards long. I entered the area and could see his bubble trail ending at a patch of yellow grass but could find no sign of him. Suddenly, I saw some movement on the bank and through a gap in the trees I could see him staring at me. Carefully I positioned myself so that I could shoot him and spent the next five minutes watching as he feverishly groomed himself. He scratched his head like a dog with fleas and then began grooming his belly with his mouth. At one point, he began dragging himself along the ground appearing to scratch his belly.
I turned my camera to video mode and shot him while he finished up his grooming and then finally turned his attention to me and scooted into the water. I followed him back out into the canal and was sitting waiting for him to emerge from some grass where I had seen him go. I was looking at some of my photos when I heard a splash and looked to see where he had popped his head up just a foot from my boat as he had come to check me out. He disappeared into the woods on the opposite bank and I decided to continue my trip back to the ramp.
I entered the cutoff and started back toward the basin under the moss laden cypress trees that make this part of the canal the most beautiful. I rarely see much wildlife in this section so I was surprised when I glanced over at a patch of grass to see a six foot Gator laying there. It was the first Gator that I have seen in the swamp since November so I stopped to get a few shots before continuing. I heard the call of a Barred Owl sounding from just ahead of me and slowed to see if I could pinpoint it. As I paddled by a cypress tree with Spanish Moss drooping nearly to the water, he called again and I could tell that he was right above my head.
I paddled under the overhanging branches and tried for several minutes to pick him out from the branches where I knew he was watching me. I gave up, and started to continue when I happened to glance over one last time and saw him staring at me from a perch just 10 feet above the water. I slowly moved in until I had a clear shot and spent the next several minutes shooting and videoing him as he stared at me with his huge black eyes. At times he seemed as if he was about to nod off but then would move his head slowly around and then looked down to see if I was still there. Occasionally, his head would snap around in response to a sound that occurred nearby, but for the most part he seemed ready to take a long nap and I finally eased away from him and continued my trip back to the ramp. That is sometimes the way my trips go - after three hours of not seeing much on a dreary day - in the matter of 30 minutes or so I have three encounters that more than make the trip worthwhile. Once back at the basin, I loaded up and drove down to the Shack By the Tracks to pick up my rack of ribs and headed home to watch the big game.
See the pictures from this
trip
2/8/10
One of the problems that I have been having lately is trying to decide where to go now that I have greatly increased my range of places. From the Satilla River in the north, the Okefenokee Swamp to the west down to Guana in the south, there are an endless number of places within an hours drive that will take me a lifetime to explore and when I wake up on a paddling day it drives me crazy deciding where to go. I check the weather first because that will determine whether or not I stay on the coast or head inland. After that I have to check tides and river gages to see if those will factor in. Then I have to consider whether or not the above factors will make this a good do put in here or there and which way to head. Sometimes, I will spend hours thinking about going one place and then as soon as I head down Heckscher Drive, I change my mind. This morning, the weather was not supposed to be a factor but tides and river levels weren't quite right for exploring some of the places along the St. Marys or Nassau Rivers. As I was cruising Google Earth, I wound up at the FWC website where I saw that the final hunt of the year at Guana had taken place the day before and therefore - Six Mile Landing should be re-opened for us non-gun toting boaters. RIGHT? Of course RIGHT!
WRONG! Once again, my friends at the FWC foiled my best laid plans and I was doing a u-turn on A1A. Having been here before (seemingly every year) I headed down Mickler road and loaded up for a trip down the Tolomato River section of the ICW. I realized that it was almost exactly a year ago that I had taken my first trip after the Super Bowl at this very same location and was the first time that I had ever seen ice while paddling. For someone who believes in serendipity I sure am a creature of habit sometimes. I paddled past the mansions and docks that line the first half mile and was hugging the western shoreline when I saw a mature Bald Eagle fly low over the tall pine trees. I thought I saw him dip down about a quarter of a mile south and floated along with the outgoing current in that direction. Soon, I spotted him and managed to get a few shots before he flew off. As I was pulling away from the shore, I realized that just a few yards down from where he had perched was an immature Eagle sitting about halfway up a tree. He worked my way close to him and took several shots before he spotted me and began fidgeting and then flushed.
I let the current carry me south and I pulled into to a couple of the streams I had explored a year ago including the one where I had seen the ice and Otters but the water was too low to let me go far. I decided to continue south until I was beyond the entrance to Jones Creek and then make a decision about turning back. I wasn't sure about the tides but I knew that low tide should happen sometime around noon and with a NE wind I could find shelter if I hugged the eastern shore on my return trip. I passed the entrance to Jones Creek and was passing an area where the forests of Guana come out to the waterway. I looked up to see an enormous Eagles nest with one of the birds sitting in it just a few yards from the shore on the Guana side. This is the third Eagle's nest that I know about in Guana which considering how many Eagles I see in this area makes a lot of sense. I decided to keep going and continued until I reached a place where the waterway started bending to the west slightly and decided to end my trip here where the USGS calls Cook Landing.
As I turned around I realized that the current was still flowing pretty strongly to the south and the Guana land mass was offering me little protection from the breeze that seemed to have shifted and was now blowing straight down the channel from the north. I was able to make slow but steady progress and as I pulled up to the area where the Eagle's nest was, the trees their blocked a lot of the wind. I saw a second Eagle perched in a tree just south of the nest but he flew off as I approached. I paddled past the nest shooting the Eagle who perched there and then continued along the shore hoping to find a place to get out.
The shore line there was too soft so I drifted back toward the nest and shot as the first Eagle returned to the area. The one in the nest began chirping at its mate and then briefly flew off and returned to a tree just outside the nest chirping at either it's mate or me. I sat there for a while as the two birds would occasionally fly around the area before returning and finally I left the area and paddled up to the southernmost entrance to Jones Creek where there is beautiful little island situated high above the water and I got out to take a break. Of course, beautiful means that others have found it suitable for camping and large areas of it were thoroughly trashed but aside from that it was a great place if we ever wanted to spend some time camping in this area. Most of the islands that I have visited on the Tolomato seem to be very suitable for camping and generally cleaner than those that I see along Sisters Creek. After my break, I returned to my boat and found that the current had slackened and the rest of my trip was a little easier as I made my way north back to the ramp.
See the pictures from this
trip
2/11/10
Cold weather returned to the area once again but the high winds and heavy rains that were here early in the week were gone leaving a chilly but calm winter day. With rains set to return tomorrow, I decided to head up to Pumpkin Hill to catch the outgoing tide down to Tiger Point.
I set out, spending some time shooting a few Herons as I floated around the first couple of bends. I was shooting a Great Blue near the trails end when I heard a "huff" coming from the water next to my boat. I looked to see the Otter just as he was submerging and so pulled over to see where he would pop up next. He popped his head out of the water a few yards in front of me with his neck extended fully so that he could get a good look at me and proceeded for the next five minutes or so to play hide and seek with me. Since I have been seeing so many of these fun creatures this winter in the fresh water areas that I am frequenting I started to notice a difference in the way they act as opposed to the way they act here in the salt marsh. The ones I see here have so much more wide open water to maneuver in and utilize it fully. As I watched, the Otter would appear on one side of my boat and a few seconds later would be 50 yards away on the opposite side and then repeat this action several times. Each time he would appear he would always be facing me with his neck fully extended and once he fixed my position he would either swim laterally as he watched me or turn his back on me. I had to stop and change batteries and he continued on downstream thinking that I had gotten bored with the game. I kept my eye on his location and paddled to catch up with him as he swam down the channel checking out the shoreline. Once he realized that I was pursuing him again he started to pop his head up and huff at me. Finally he popped up next to my boat and the next time I saw him he was several yards back upstream as he had done the usual "ditch the dumb hoomin" trick that I am used to out here in the marsh. I continued on down to Tiger Point seeing a lone White Pelican in the channel who flew off when the crabber from the US-17 at Nassau River fish camp flew by. He circled the area for a few minutes but I never saw where he landed. Once at the point, I got out to stretch my legs and then returned to my boat to make the trip back. It was still an hour and a half before low tide but the current wasn't too strong and the wind had little effect on me as I headed toward the put-in.
I was passing the bend near my shrimping spot when I suddenly heard a loud splash coming from the shoreline and I could see that something had just jumped into the water. A second later the whiskered face of my Otter pal popped up and I said hello as we began our game once again. I had work on my brain and left him after a few sightings and was soon around the bend at the trails. I shot a mature Great Blue who was stalking something in the mud and an immature one who looked like the same one I had passed near the put-in a couple of hours earlier.
See the pictures from this
trip
2/14/10
After my aborted trip to Guana on Monday, I decided to give the FWC another chance to remove the chain from Six Mile Landing and was pulling up to an empty launch area at 7:30 - a few minutes before the sun rose over the dunes across A1A. The water level was as high as it was last fall when the north end of Guana was closed for duck season so I had an easy paddle to the south along the path that runs along the eastern shoreline. The roar of the surf pounding the beach a few hundred yards away was almost deafening punctuated occasionally by a loud "Whump" as an even larger wave would come pounding down on the sand.
I paddled toward the Eagle's nest through large flocks of Coots that were floating on the glassy waters. When I got just north of the nest I began angling my way across the lake, pausing to shoot a Tri-Colored Heron who was sporting his new copper colored pin feathers as he basked in the bright morning sun. I could see one of the Eagles sitting out on the branch of one of the pine trees just north of the nest. As I pulled up to the shoreline I could see the second Eagle perching just outside the nest. I sat and shot for several minutes while the Eagles watched me. The first Eagle flew over to the tree adjacent to the nest and after a few minutes I decided to leave the pair in peace.
With all of the extra water still in the lake, I had an easy paddle up the path along the western shoreline. I paused to shoot a few of the Herons, Egrets and Wood Storks that were lining the cat tail stubble. As I got close to the prominent pine tree that juts above the shoreline just south of the ramp I saw two dark birds swoop around the trunk of tree as they chased each other. One bird appeared to be an immature Eagle who flew off to the north while the mature one landed on the branch of the tree where I have often seen Eagles perch. I approached him slowly and got a few shots before he flew off.
I continued north as the path narrowed and got shallower. I wasn't expecting to see any Gators on such a cold day with few places for them to sun themselves but suddenly I spotted a six footer who was laying in the sun with his head resting on some grass. He slid quietly backward into the water as I fumbled with my camera but managed to get one shot of him before he disappeared. The path started to get shallow so that I was actually paddling through liquefied mud that created suction on my hull. I decided to try to find a path through the cat tail stubble to the main channel and soon find my entering the open water.
Ahead of me was a flock of about two dozen White Pelicans who were swimming back and forth across the channel. They disappeared around a bend and when I followed they began flying off to the north. I continued north until I was just shy of the docks on the eastern shore and then headed in to the path that runs south from there along that side of the lake. As I began heading back toward the ramp, a small Hawk flew into the woods and disappeared. He looked similar to a Red Shouldered Hawk but seemed to smaller and might have been a Coopers or Sharp Shinned.
I reached the island and began paddling behind it. I could hear some commotion coming from ahead of me and as I got closer I could see that several dozen Ibis along with other Herons and Egrets were in a feeding frenzy in a shallow area while a pair of Ospreys sat in palm tree stumps eating fish above them. The Ibis would flush in a mass of white feathers and then settle back down to continue feeding. The Ospreys finally got tired of all of the commotion caused by the silly Ibis and flew off to eat elsewhere. I paddled around the island and was heading south when a large Hawk flew into a grove of trees and watched me as I approached. I could see that it had a dark head and speckled chest and when it flew off I could see it's fan tail and I'm pretty sure that it was a Red Tailed Hawk. I finished my trip to the ramp, loaded up and decided to head south along A1A to check out the Usina Ramp in Vilano Beach which looks to be a pretty good place to launch from if I want to explore that end of the Tolomato River.
See the pictures from this
trip
2/16/10
I decided to stay close to home today and headed to Horseshoe Creek on a cold, breezy morning that should have had me headed toward the inland creeks and rivers. All of the rain we have been having lately have made those places a little less than ideal and I hoped that the high winds forecast for today would hold off until the afternoon. As I passed SJRPP and saw the plumes from the stack and cooling towers bent over at a 90 degree angle I knew that I wasn't going to be that lucky but I pressed on down Cedar Point Road and arrived at an empty ramp to launch just seconds before the sun rose over Ft. George Island.
I made my way against the incoming tide out the northern branch of Horseshoe Creek and was soon out on the ICW floating south with the current. At the entrance to the southern branch of Horseshoe, I spotted a pair of Great Blue sitting on the shell bank about 50 yards apart. As I approached, the one closest to me flushed but instead of flying away it pulled up and settled down next to the other Heron just inches away. That is highly unusual but it is getting to be that time of the year so they may be a breeding pair. At any rate, I was able to approach them and got some good shots of them sitting shoulder to shoulder in the morning sun until they flew away together. Not far past where they were sitting I spotted a small hawk sitting on a dead tree in the middle of the marsh about 30 yards west of the waterway. At first, I was sure that it was a Peregrine Falcon but after reviewing my photos I've decided that it was a Northern Harrier - a bird that I often see swooping low over the grass but have rarely seen perching out in the open.
I continued south until I reached the mouth of Cedar Point Creek where I resisted the pull of the tide into the creek and made my way toward the south end of the island that sits at the entrance to the creek. The same photogenic King Fisher whose territory is the north end of that island posed for me as he has in the past and I was soon at the gap between the islands where I beached my boat. My feet got wet getting out and the breeze from the west seemed to intensify as I walked toward the Pelican Pool where I could see my giant friends dozing. I don't know if it was the wind or me that alarmed them but I hadn't taken many steps across the flats toward their pool when they all began to scoot into the water. The recent rains had also left a lot of water in the normally dry flats and with my feet already killing me I decided to not walk the rest of the way across to the pool and returned to my boat.
I let the current carry me into Cedar Point but stopped when I reached the camping island and decided to shorten my trip. I found that the current was flowing swiftly west on the outer bends but the wind was blowing the water east on the inner turns and I was able to easily reach the waterway. A long furry creature suddenly entered the water ahead of me and I briefly thought it might be an Otter but it's bushy tail and masked face gave away it's true identity as it made a U-turn and returned to the grass. The Raccoon and I sat eyeing each other a couple of feet away until he decided to cross the creek somewhere else and I continued on up to the southern branch of Horseshoe.
I made my way around the loop to the south and explored a couple of the small stream that run along the eastern edge of the point before returning to the main channel. I had seen a tree full of Herons and Egrets who had found shelter from the wind and was cruising beneath them shooting their wild pin feathers that were being blown every which way by the wind when I looked up to see an Osprey just a few feet above my head. I shot him as he glared at me but never chirped and it was obvious that he too had found a cozy place in the sun that sheltered him from the howling wind. I continued around the point and into the pool where the ramp is located and loaded my boat up. I saw a trail marker and decided to take a walk down to where the old fish camp structures I had just passed on the water were located and shot some of the Herons and the Osprey who were still perched in the same location as before. Walking around the point made me thankful that this location was preserved from development not long after we arrived in Jacksonville because had it not - it would surely be covered with McMansions.
See the pictures from this
trip
2/20/10
Although we have tried to make at least one trip a year to the Billys Lake portion of the Okefenokee Swamp, it had been over three years since had stayed at Stephen Foster State Park north of Fargo, Georgia. This year, as we debated where to spend the final free weekend before my spring outage prison sentence, I found the cabins free for the weekend in question and made the reservation.
I took off early from work the night before and we got going a little after noon, driving up to Kingsland to top off the tank with cheap gas before heading west and then south to St. George, Ga, to grab our dinner for the night at the Shack By the Tracks. We decided to get a couple of large sandwiches to have for lunch and drove east from the Shack to the shore of the St. Marys River to eat our lunch. I had only had a Shack BBQ sandwich one time before - on my first trip there - and had forgotten what a delicious, sloppy monster that they were. Hope was shocked when she tried to lift them out of the sack and we both had to use forks to eat the massive pork butt that was escaping it's bun before we could even think about attempting to lift the sandwich to our mouths. We sat by the flooded river slopping the feast up and downing it with ice cold beer before we waddled back into the truck to continued our journey west to Fargo on SR-2/94. About an hour later, we had arrived at the gates of Stephen Foster and drove through the forest as several deer grazed beneath the pine trees oblivious to our presence. After checking in and unpacking we decided to take a hike down the boardwalk in the swamp behind the office. The last time we had done this was during the drought conditions that were alleviated after the '07 fire and our memory of it was that it wasn't much of a hike - just an elevated boardwalk through a dry swamp.
That was no longer the case as the water levels returning to normal had brought the water back under the cypress trees and changed the scenery completely. As we approached an intersection with a spur that went off deep into the swamp we heard the sound of loud crashing and splashing ahead. We looked and could see a pair of young deer staring at us as the sound of splashing continued into the woods. We walked up slowly to the intersection as the deer calmly walked under the boardwalk and began feeding in the flooded swamp. We walked up quietly and I began shooting but it was soon apparent that these two youngsters didn't seem to view us as a threat and continued to munch on what appeared to be the seed pods that a Red Maple had dropped into the water. A second hiker walked up and they never bolted and after several minutes we left them and continued our hike up the spur and then around the loop back to the basin. When we got back to the basin, there was a six foot Alligator who had crawled up on the boat ramp in the middle and was obviously enjoying soaking up the heat that the concrete had absorbed on this warm, winter day. Several paddlers returning from their days trips out on the lake walked by, but it was apparent that he had no intention of moving until he had gotten every molecule of the sun's energy into his body. We returned to our Cabin and tried in vain to eat our Shack dinners, one of which could have easily fed the two of us, and retired to bed after watching a DVD. I slept well, but awoke at what I thought was 6 am but an hour later, after drinking a pot of coffee, realized was really 5 am. Too late to go back to bed so I made breakfast and packed our day's lunch and we were headed out the door by 8:30 and on the water a little before 9.
It was a chilly morning but absolutely no wind disturbed the surface of the lake and the temperatures promised to reach the upper 60's by the afternoon. We were both amazed by the absolute silence and incredible glassiness of the water as we drifted toward the narrows with the gentle current. Our plans were to attempt to pass through the narrows and make it all of the way to the Sill but we weren't sure how the extremely high water would effect the current there and if we would be able to paddle back against it but we decided to give it a try at least. We had seen one person ahead of us on the canal leading from the basin in a canoe but he apparently turned east toward Billys Island. We spotted a lone kayaker ahead of us and as we passed by him we realized that he was our cottage neighbor who had pulled in after us the evening before. A pair of fishermen in a jon boat cruised by us toward the narrows but soon returned coming the other way.
We were passing through the area where the lake gradually narrows and the cypress trees above us were full of vultures sunning themselves. As I was looking at them, I noticed a large almost completely white bird perching on a tree a few yards behind the trees where the vultures roosted. The size and shape of his head and beak gave me the distinct impression that he was an Eagle but I had never seen one that was completely white from head to toe save for his wings. When I pointed him out to Hope just before he flushed she said she was sure that he was an Osprey but I told her I thought it was an Eagle - a very weird looking Eagle but an Eagle nonetheless and we later confirmed that after looking at the photos.
We soon found ourselves at the entrance to the narrows and as the name implies, it quickly became a small twisted path through the cypress and the current picked up dramatically. We were close to the landing for the Mixons Hammock campsite and we could hear a large group of people behind the trees who had obviously camped there the night before. We rounded a couple of bends and came to a place where a log had fallen across the path. The log was floating but the current had jammed it up against some vegetation so I stopped and told Hope to hold up while we looked the situation over. Although we could have easily bumped over it with the current, I wasn't as sure that we would be able to coming from the other direction and after considering using my saw to free it, we decided to turn back.
Not long after we passed the landing at Mixons Hammock we heard the group hit the water in their canoes and soon saw them behind us, paddles clanking against the side of their aluminum canoes, echoing up the lake. We turned up the day use canoe trail that heads north just before the narrows and paddled up until we saw a sign indicating that it led toward the Sill. We paddled down it but it quickly narrowed and was clogged with vegetation in some places so we turned around. When we reached the entrance to the path to the west we met our neighbor who was just entering the trail. He backed out to let us pass and while we were waiting for Hope to come out, we chatted and he told me he had been down it in December but got covered in spiders not far down and had turned back.
We left him and returned to the lake and decided to head to Billys Island on the opposite end to eat our lunch. Just before reaching the entrance to the park boat basin we spotted several large Alligators and paused to shoot the Gator pile that consisted of at least 6 or 8 of the creatures who were sunning themselves in the grass. Just before reaching the basin path we heard loud clanking and saw a line of Boy Scouts coming out and heading east toward Billys Island. We stopped briefly and talked it over but decided to press on anyway. We both decided that it would be a good idea to get ahead of them if at all possible so that we would have room to beach our boats.
It wasn't hard to get ahead of most of the group who were novice paddlers and spent a lot of time visiting both sides of the lake. The two adult leaders took a little longer to pass but they finally decided that they should hold up and wait for the stragglers and we were soon out of ear shot from them. We reached the landing at the island to find a single canoe beached there and a couple of guys eating their lunch. As we walked up, they told us that there was a small herd of deer just ahead and a few feet up the path we saw a large buck with at least six points on his rack along with several does and at least two fawns. They were just a few feet off the path in the woods but did not seem at all worried about us and kept grazing in the pines.
Their path soon crossed our trail in an open area and that prompted them to begin racing across until they reached some cover on the other side where they began grazing again. The big buck followed in the same manner once his family was across. The path turned into a raised railroad bed - one of the many that stretch through the swamp and were used to clear it of the huge cypress trees. Billys Island was a small town that existed for that sole purpose although you can see little evidence of it now. We returned to our boats to find that the scout troop had landed in force and were eating lunch near the dock so we grabbed our cooler and chairs and hiked back to the place where the rail bed had passed a raised mound where a building had once been. We ate our lunch and enjoyed the warm sun and after a nice break headed back to the landing. We were stunned when we arrived to find at least 20 canoes and jon boats lining the shore and dock at least two deep. We managed to load up and squeeze through the canoes back to the trail and we decided to head further east to check things out. The trail in that direction was not well marked and with all of the extra water the channel was hard to follow so we turned around and made our way back toward the park. As we did, a large number of those we had seen on the island decided to do the same so our trip back was in the almost constant company of boy scouts and others who kept up a noisy narration punctuated by the sound of paddles clanging on aluminum. Well - at least the morning was quiet!
See the pictures from this
trip
2/21/10
After our aborted trip through the narrows to the Sill the day before, we discussed what our destination for today's outing should be and came to the conclusion that we should put in at the Sill and at least try to paddle upstream in the Narrows. We had no idea what was in store, other than it was a day that was even more beautiful than the day before with temperatures to reach the low 70's and no wind in the forecast.
We were entertained after breakfast by the antics of a hound dog that we think must belong to the park ranger who lives a couple of houses up from our cottage. He has the run of the park and each morning wanders happily through the cottage area marking his territory and today he settled into a sunny spot at the back of our yard to soak up the rays. We were watching him when he lifted his head up to look down the way where a pair of deer had emerged from the swamp to graze. He watched intently as the deer grazed in his direction until the lead one suddenly spotted him from about 20 yards away. The dog began wagging his tail as though he wanted his new friends to come romp with him in his really great sunny spot, but the deer had other ideas and turned around and began leaping back into the swamp, tails flying erect in the air. The dog jumped up and happily began to pursue them but something in his face told us he had no malicious purpose in mind - he just wanted to play. He returned a few minutes later, tail wagging as he trotted back toward home to tell his master what he had just seen.
We took our time getting ready and were on the road out of the park to the Sill about 10. We pulled up to the ramp and started to unload when a truck with a couple of canoes pulled up. The driver got out and asked me about the fee for putting in at the Sill and proceeded to explain that he and his two teenage sons had never been here before but had been on the St. Marys so that one of his boys could do a paper on freshwater habitats. I told him that this was our first time at the Sill but that since he was so close to the park and Billys Lake that that might be a much better place to see the Okefenokee Swamp for the first time. They thanked us and headed out and we were soon on the glassy water of the Sill canal heading north toward the entrance to the Narrows. The Sill area is an interesting place since the dike runs for several miles along the western border of the swamp and is where the Suwannee River drains out of the swamp. That meant that the first mile of our paddle had the very unnatural feature of the dike to our left while the right hand side was the edge of the swamp. There was no detectable current and a gray film of scum that was emerging from the swamp covered the surface of the water. At one point, Hope saw a Red Shouldered Hawk fly up from the water with a small fish in its claws but I was only able to get one or two shots before he flew deeper into the woods.
We spotted a couple of Gators swimming across the canal ahead of us but aside from the occasional Pileated Woodpecker and Red Shouldered Hawk we saw or heard nothing. Once or twice I could hear the faint yodel of a Sand Hill Crane but we never saw any. After a mile of paddling, we could see some large metal objects sticking up above the top of the sill so we pulled over and got out. We could see that we had arrived at the dam which was more like a weir with a low wall that varied in height coming from either end and four large metal plates across the middle that could be raised and lowered electrically. We could look downstream to see where the Suwannee River officially begins its journey to the Gulf and where we would want to start if we ever decide to do the entire river. We got back in our boats and paddled across the the dam area to where we could see a distinct channel coming in from the east. There was a sign pointing to the north where the canal continues for several more miles indicating the location of Cravens Hammock where there is another campsite. We began paddling up the Narrows against a current that, although it was strong, was not at all hard to make progress against. That may be a different story when the water level is normal since a lot of the volume was spread out into the swamp instead of in the channel.
The first mile or so up from the Sill the channel was about 100 feet wide as it wound through a swamp that was made up mostly of tupelo trees and a few cypress. We noticed that almost all of the tupelos had several clumps of dark green mistletoe in their branches which looked odd in the bare branches of the trees. The channel then entered an area of mostly tall cypress trees and we began so see large cypress stumps that had been recently burned by the 2007 fire. We passed several pilings which I had read were the remnants of old bridges that used to cross the area back in the logging days. The Narrows started to open up into an area that was lined with marshy grass that reminded me a lot of the area where I had seen the bear on my trip here back in October. After a mile or so, the channel started to narrow down into a path that was just a few feet wide as it wound between the stands of cypress. Suddenly, we arrived at an area that I was almost sure was the same area where I had seen the bear and a few feet further upstream I recognized the worm eaten log where I had taken a break and was preparing to head back when I heard the sound of the bear splashing through the water.
We knew that we were very close to Mixons Hammock and the place where the log had blocked our way the day before. I saw a couple of logs that looked like they may have been broken recently and sure enough a couple of turns later and we found ourselves at the dock for Mixons Hammock. We tied off our boats and took a hike down the trail to the campsite which a family of German tourists assured us was just 300 yards into the hammock. We found the clearing after about 200 of my steps and decided that it was definitely going to be a place that we would try to camp at in the near future.
We returned to the dock and ate a leisurely lunch while we lounged on a absolutely glorious warm winter day. We were preparing to leave when we heard the roar of outboard engines and watched as two jon boats headed down into the narrows. We were pretty sure that we had seen a sign at the end of the lake saying that power boats were prohibited in the narrows but apparently these people didn't care. We were a bit apprehensive about following them since we were sure that they would soon be coming back the other way and we would run head long into them. Sure enough, not far down the swift narrows I heard the roar of an engine coming toward us and turned to warn Hope while I sought refuge in the widest spot available. Fortunately, the young man at the till saw me and idled past me with a few inches to spare and we continued on without incidence. The first boater meanwhile had gone well downstream out of earshot so we were sure we wouldn't see them in the narrow part of the narrows. The trip back to the sill took us an hour which was exactly half of what the trip up took and we crossed paths with the first boater just before we reached the end of the narrows where we had plenty of room to get by. We made the turn up the canal and paddled past the dam and back up to the ramp.
See the pictures from this
trip
2/22/10
When we were signing in at the park office on our first day here at Stephen Foster, I asked what was the earliest time that I was allowed on the water. At the east entrance the signs say that you can launch 30 minutes before sunrise but I saw no sign like that at this end and I knew the park office was closed until 8 am. When they told me "daylight" I didn't press them for details since that can be a pretty large span of time. When I asked how I could sign in they told me there was a clipboard in a box at the top of the boat ramp which explains why they have always looked at me funny when I ask to sign in at the office itself without buying anything or paying for a pass.
Armed with that information I woke up at my usual time well before sunrise and even well before "daylight'. By 6:30 I was sipping my first cup of coffee and working on my photos from the day before when I noticed the sky outside becoming lighter. I packed up, said goodbye to a sleeping Hope and a few minutes later was paddling down the canal as a pair of Red Shouldered Hawks serenaded me from the trees lining the canal. Once on the lake, I turned to the east and headed in that direction, hoping to make it up to a location that would place the rising sun at the far end of the lake. With the winter sun rising in the southern part of the sky, that proved impossible, but I paddled and shot as the eastern sky began turning pink. I rounded the bend where the lake turns to the east toward Billys Island and Minnies Run and began shooting as the sun broke over the trees on Billys Island. There was an Osprey perching over the water but he didn't stay around too long.
The sun rose and quickly disappeared into the clouds of the approaching cold front while I started to explore some of the fingers of Minnies run that flow through the swamp. I never found the one that connected with the main path and since I had promised Hope I would be back no later than 8:30 I headed back. I spotted a couple of Gators on the way back but for the most part the wildlife had remained in bed on this dreary morning. I was almost at the end of the canal when a Pileated Woodpecker flew up to a tree directly above me and I was able to spend some time shooting him. I loaded up and Hope and I were on the way home not long afterward, saying goodbye to the dozens of deer who line the park road of the way out. As we started for home, the rain began to fall and stayed with us until we left Kingsland and headed south. It's not often we have that kind of luck with the weather!
See the pictures from this
trip
2/23/10
Four days in a row for me is usually way too much but with the outage coming next weekend I took one look at the weather report and made my decision. Calm winds, a high of 70 degrees and an outgoing tide in the morning made it an ideal day to spend in the preserve and I was launching from the A1A bridge over Simpsons Creek a few minutes after the sun rose over Little Talbot Island.
The weather forecast called for patchy, dense fog which was exactly what I found on my drive down Heckscher Drive. As I floated out with the current the fog was light to heavy although I could see that it was quite dense to the north along the sound. I saw little wildlife on the way down but as I approached Half Moon Bluff a young Eagle suddenly flew out and headed in the direction of Long Island. I turned into Myrtle Creek to see if he might be perching on the trees at the end of Little Talbot but I saw only a lone Osprey and headed back out to the sound.
When I arrived at the sound, I could see a large black bird perching on a small rise in the beach on Little Talbot directly across from the mouth of Simpsons Creek. A check with my binoculars confirmed that it was the same young Eagle that I had seen at the bluff. I paddled across the sound, but hadn't gotten very close before he flushed and flew towards Big Talbot. I paddled toward Black Rock Point, beached my boat and took a hike around the area, looking at the Gopher Tortoise burrow that runs along the edge of Big Talbot island where it bends away from the sound. By the time I returned to my boat, I could tell that the tide had started to turn and decided to head back in. I let the gentle current carry me slowly back to the put-in hoping that I could time it so that the water level would be high enough to make my take out easier. I shot a Great Blue perching at the bluff and stopped at a sandbar to eat lunch but for the most part the trip was uneventful. |
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