Things I Want to Do

This is the Florida-list of paddles I want to do and doesn’t include U.S. or world trips.

7-Mile Bridge

I’ve always found it a bit strange that for all the time I’ve spent in the Keys I’ve never paddled 7-Mile Bridge.

(view in Google Earth)

I’ve paddled a lot of the areas around it, but for some reason never just did the paddle from one bridgehead to another.  There’s nothing particularly special about the route, it’s something you do just to say you’ve done – and I haven’t yet.

Suwannee River

I’ve paddled portions of the Suwannee, including Florida’s rapids, but paddleflorida.org has an annual trip that sounds like an absolute blast.

View Suwannee Music Camp to Manatee Spr in a larger map

Eight days and 123-miles of paddling and camping.  Breakfast and dinner catered with sandwiches at the lunch stops.  And a shuttle for the beginning or ending of the trip.

In my younger, more foolish and less achy days, I might have scorned this sort of trip, scoffing that rehydrated eggs were the only breakfast a real camper needs, but as I’m now older, and ostensibly wiser, catering and the occasional shower doesn’t sound so bad.

This is a trip I may take this year, as it’s upcoming in October … of course, I’ve said that the last three years and not made it. :(

And the popularity of their trips seems to be growing, with five other paddles on various waterways planned for the next year. 

The Florida Circumnavigational Trail

I’ve written about this before.  Obviously completing this journey is more than one trip, but if I want to do it, I need to start soon, I think.

Because of the distances involved, though, I need to find a crazy person partner willing to undertake it with me – arranging this number of shuttles over these distances would be problematic.  Two cars and a paddling partner would be preferable. 

Hopefully a partner able to take a long weekend every couple of months and paddle a segment – four years, maybe, to finish the whole thing at that pace?

Happy Birthday at Haulover

For my birthday morning, I took my daughter and a friend of hers to Haulover Canal.

View Haulover Canal in a larger map

After a long drive to pick up her Little Boy Friend*, we hit Subway for breakfast and to pick up lunch.  At Subway, they gave me a Sharpie to put our initials on the lunch sandwiches, which, of course gave me the opportunity to write LBF on her friend’s – he seemed to have a sense of humor about it, she erupted in a chorus of “I can’t believe you did that!”

Kayaking and annoying the girl-child … life is good.

We were on the water by 10:00 and headed up the canal.

(view in Google Earth)

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I put the kids in a tandem Pamlico while I paddled my Tarpon.

Shortly into the paddle, we spotted the first dolphin of the day.

And shortly after that, the manatees.

We left the manatees and the kids did a little exploring of Haulover’s unique shoreline.

Shortly after this picture, they drifted closer to the branches and I heard the girl-child express her concern that a snake might drop on her. (You may express your ridicule in the blog comments and I’ll make sure she gets them.)

Under the bridge and past the manatee observation deck, there was a pair … sporting.

Some conversation in the other boat about what they were doing prompted the girl-child to ask me what I thought:

“Well, sweetheart, when a mommy manatee and a daddy manatee love each other very much …”

“So you think they’re having sex too.”

A short way further along I spotted an alligator near the bank, but he sank out of sight before I could get a picture.

We exited the canal to the North – here are the mangroves where I stopped us to tell the kids the Mangrove Story.

What’s the Mangrove Story?  Well, I believe that we should take advantage of opportunities to educate children:

“Mangroves are very important to the coastal eco-system, because their roots provide a protected environment that acts as a nursery for many different species of fish, crabs and shrimp.

“Interestingly, if you take a 10’x10’ piece of nylon netting and some lead weights and use them to submerge a body amongst the roots … in two weeks it’ll be nothing but bones from all those little baby fishes and crabs.

“You should remember that as you spend time hanging out with my little girl.”**

The kid seemed to be a good sport about this story, too, because, of course and on advice of counsel, the Mangrove Story is just friendly kidding.

Just before heading out into the lagoon, we came across a barnacle-covered piece of driftwood.

The wind was out of the NE today, so we headed in that direction, crossing the lagoon before stopping to drift back as we ate lunch.

After lunch, on the way back, the girl-child will claim I fell in the water.  I deny this charge.  Here’s what happened:

Because I had forgotten to bring towels, I was unable to improvise a ass-pad seat cushion as I have recently.  After the paddle across the lagoon, the lack was being felt, so I stood up to stretch my legs.

The Tarpon is a very stable boat, so standing up is not foolish.  I’ve stood in it to fish before with no problems on calm water, and it was quite calm today.

From my standing position I was enjoying the view of the clear, shallow water when I spotted what I thought was a small turtle.  A second look showed that it was a large crab and since the water was so shallow and clear, I wanted to get a good picture of it, so I quickly sat down.

Standing in the Tarpon is perfectly okay … sitting quickly, not so much.

So, yes, part of me left the boat, but since it was only one leg and became wet only to the knee, while the other leg and the rest of me stayed in the boat, I do not believe this qualifies as falling out.

I subscribe to the philosophy that any exit in which my hair remains dry qualifies as a controlled-exit from the watercraft.

I did not get a picture of the crab.

After that incident, though, I did get a picture of a pelican in flight.

We also saw the second dolphin of the day off in the distance.

On the way back, the kids took a disturbingly close look at the mangroves.

Of course I actually use a far more remote patch of mangroves there was nothing out of the ordinary for them to see.

Back through the canal, now much more crowded with fishermen, and saw the third dolphin of the day off-shore as we loaded the car – or, more probably, saw the first one of the day again, but still good to see.

 

* I call all of the girl-child’s female friends her Little Friend and the males are referred to as her Little Boy Friend.  I do this for two reasons: first, it saves me the trouble of trying to remember names; and, B, it annoys her to no-end.  Yes, I’m lazy and cruel.

** The Mangrove Story is intended solely as an amusing anecdote and does not constitute an admission of guilt or any knowledge whatsoever about missing teenage boys who’ve hung out with my daughter.

Two Mondays on the Wekiva – Part II

For today’s trip on the Wekiva, I headed for Wilson’s Landing at State Road 46 to put in. 

View Wekiva - Wilson's Landing in a larger map

The forecast all week calls for scattered thundershowers and halfway to drop my daughter off for her class and my couple hours on the water I ran into this.

Traffic on the 70 MPH highway slowed to 40 as the storm cut visibility, but it soon cleared a little.

The SR46 bridge is off-limits for boat launching, but Wilson’s Landing is close by.  There’s no official boat launch at the park at this time, but Seminole County recently approved a quarter million dollars to build a pavilion and launch there.

Frankly, I think I could build a pavilion and canoe launch for a lot less than $250,000, but that’s a different issue.

Until it’s built, though, launching is a little … unofficial.

Parking is a good distance from the water, but there’s a paved sidewalk most of the way (if you have wheels) and terrain’s mostly level (unlike Wekiwa Springs State Park).  There’s also a dirt road that continues past the parking to a roundabout that gets you about halfway closer to the water.

The sidewalk leads to a boardwalk over the water, but there’s a dirt path branching off it to the only clear area of shoreline in the park.

The path is surrounded by landscaping, but hasn’t been landscaped itself and there are no signs prohibiting boat launching, so I’ve assumed it’s okay to use this spot until the official launch site is built.

The site itself, though, is pretty cramped right now and it’s a bit tricky to maneuver a large boat onto the water and back to shore for boarding.

Once on the water, you can see that you’re only a short distance from the SR 46 bridge.

I had limited time for this trip, starting at 5:00 and needing to be off the water by 7:00 in order to pick up my daughter at 7:30, so I started upstream – planning to paddle until six and then head back to my launch point.

(view in Google Earth)

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Shortly into the trip, though, I found that staying by the right-bank had been a mistake and the channel I’d followed became clogged and impassable.

After heading back downriver, I decided to keep going that way, rather than retracing my path nearer the left-bank, so I headed for the bridge, taking a couple photos along the way.

The Wekiva’s an interesting river, because it can change from the very open river I started paddling in to a much closer, tree-lined river in a very short distance – as it does, just after the bridge, splitting into two channels with a tree-covered island between them.

And then opening up again just as rapidly.

Ducks were out in force this trip and I saw quite a few of them.

And farther down river, two deer were getting an early dinner.

You’d think after almost forty years in Florida, I’d know what some of these damn birds are, but I really have no idea.  I got a decent picture of this thing, though.

And to think the mess I’d driven through earlier turned into this:

Ducks I can recognize, though, and this one seemed to not care at all about me.

By this time it was six and time to turn around, but looking ahead I could see that I wasn’t nearly out of river yet …

Surely I could paddle a little farther and still make it back in time? Right?  I decided to paddle until 6:15 and then head back.

And I’m glad I did, because just a little ways downstream an alligator left the reeds ahead for the far side at my approach.

He was followed by a second, larger one, who reached the far shore and then paralleled my course for a while.

Shortly thereafter, I ran across this plant – not sure what it is, but it looks nice.

At this point, it’s 6:08, so I decide to turn around and head back … mostly because my watch is slow and it’s really 6:12.

Remember all those big open spaces on the river … well, now the current’s against me and the wind seems to have picked up and is funneled between the trees and I have to hurry back to the put in.

Why does this little stretch of river seem so much harder to paddle than the open-ocean side of Honeymoon was Friday? 

Finally, ahead of me, the river splits and I paddle into the narrower channel on the right-bank.  Once I’m through this tree-covered area, I’ll be going under the bridge and then it’s just a few hundred yards to the park.

Doh!

Not quite at the right split yet, and the homeowners have built a wall across the river – probably too many boats cruising through ignoring the No Wake signs.  So I have to backtrack and get out of this dead end, but if I hadn’t taken it, we wouldn’t have this picture of a pony in someone’s back yard.

Yes, the best picture I could get was of the horse’s ass.  I’m in a hurry and have to get off the water by 7:00 or I’ll be late picking up my daughter – give me a break.

As an aside, is that really a pony, or is it a demondonkey?

I’m just asking.

Saw another large alligator cruising ahead of me, but he submerged before I got close enough for a photo.  And now that I’m hurrying, fighting against the current and the wind to get back and off the water by 7:00 so I won’t be late for that 7:30 pick up, there’re smaller gators on every freakin’ dock I pass, it seems.  No time for pictures of them, though.

Finally, I’m in the right channel and reach the bridge.

And back to Wilson’s Landing where I can get off the water.

Yes, that’s the target I have to line my 16’ boat up against, get close enough sideways to step out onto land, then maneuver the boat around to pull it out.  I didn’t say it was an easy site.

Off the water, drag all the gear back to the roundabout, load the car and ready to drive only a few minutes late.

My schedule had some buffer time in it, so I’m able to make it with a couple of minutes to spare, arriving to pick my daughter up at 7:28.

At which time, I sit around and wait until 7:45 because her class ran long.