Kayaking - Santa Fe River

Santa Fe River                                                                                        9.7 miles

2:31 moving time, 3.9mph avg speed, 13.2 mph fastest speed

Our original intent was to pack up the trailer and park it at our take-out spot. But, we were up early and changed plans. We straightened up the trailer and headed to the river. Scotty took the truck to the take-out and rode his bike back to me where I was waiting at the launch. When Scotty got back, we were in the water at 8:51. The river was high and there were reports of flooded areas. This is a wide river so it wouldn’t impact today’s paddle. If anything, it made the flow that much faster. We decided we wouldn’t paddle into every spring and I would not take as many photos. THAT is hard for me! So we paddled at a fairly constant rate. The river was very quiet, few other paddlers out and lots of great reflections. We realized we were making really good time and were pleased about that as we still had to break camp. We did notice that many of the springs had blocked access from kayaks entering, in an effort to restore the vegetation at the bottom of the springs. We did paddle up into Gilchrist Blue Hole. We noticed that today was probably the easiest time we’d had paddling up into this spring. There were only 4 people around - 1 little girl had the whole spring to herself for swimming as the other 3 were workers. They were tying up buoy ropes and appeared to be checking water quality or levels. Soon after this spring is the large camping park, Ginnie Springs Campground that goes along the river for 2 miles. This was probably the emptiest and quietest we’ve seen it here, few campers and no tubers. Probably the first time, we enjoyed this part of the river. After the campground, the river seemed to slow down some. After near constant paddling, this is when my arms started to ache some. But, soon enough we heard the sound of cars going over the bridge and we were at the end! We finished in 2 hours and 37 minutes. I wouldn’t recommend this speed for this river as it really is a beautiful river. But, we’ve paddled it several times before and our goal was to get one more paddle in on our ‘2021 Pandemic Paddle Tour’. Mission accomplished!

Our Kayak Trip

Scotty's Bike Ride

Back ‘home’, we had lunch and hitched up the trailer.,Scotty always seems so confident when doing tasks and it is really going smoothly. We look like we’ve been doing this for awhile! Today’s drive was 7 hours with a stop at Subway for dinner. We got to Cheawha State Park, Alabama a little before 8 and backed the trailer up in the dark. It was only after we were all settled that we realized we didn’t get Site21, a pull-through, but Site 12, a back-in site. Lesson learned- check the site on the confirmation when checking in.