Kayaking - Econfina Creek - Tadpoles!

Econfina Creek, Florida - March 10                                          4.2                    516 total miles
75 degrees, beautiful blue skies
Me, Scotty, Jerry, Patsy
10:45 - 2:00 (half hour lunch)

We put in at SR 20 bridge and kayaked upstream. (towrds Walsingham Park until the trees wouldn't let us go any further!)  It was tough going, but lots of beautiful foliage along the banks - magnolias, ferns, some kind of pink blossoming tree, palm trees, pines and more.  The water was very clear - a brownish tea color.  Apparently, some rivers in Florida have a resin like appearance from the plant life along the banks.
At the very top of our trek, we encountered many trees down across the river.  This made for interesting passages through.  I believe we each got stuck at different times.
The guides said there were many springs, but we didn't see 'many'.  At one point, we came into a small lagoon with the biggest dang tadpoles any of us had ever seen!  They were about 5 inches long!   The bodies were bigger than a silver dollar.  I wonder what the frogs in that area sound like at night?
We had lunch along a bank covered with deer tracks - better than alligator tracks!  The banks were mucky and my shoes got stuck in the mud twice!
Going back was WONDERFUL!  We could have made it without paddling at all if we had wanted to just float.  But, we paddled some.  It took us 2 hours to get upstream and 1 hour and 15 minutes to go downstream - with a long stop at tadpole lagoon.
Two days of paddling and my arms are tired, but happy :)

My phone died, but we went from bottom to top, then paddled back downstream on this route.

Getting in at SR20.

This is actually at the end - getting out.

One of the docks we passed.

How cool is the scenery here?!

Another launch.

I'm going to call this 'Tadpole Lagoon'.  The tadpoles here were about 5 inches long - huge!

Jerry and Patsy Halvorson - friends we met on meetups in Tennesee.

Beautiful, clear water!

A palm tree!

Not sure what this pink blossoming tree is, but it sure is pretty against the blue sky!

An interesting paddle along the route.

We had some tricky passes to get through!

I tried to put my hand in to show the size of the tadpoles.  Can you see the one under my hand?

More tadpoles under my paddle.