Kayak - Holmes Creek

 9.7 miles, 3:21 hours.  Put in at High Tower Springs, Take out at Live Oak Landing

When we got to the put in, we said hey, I think we’ve been here, but after checking our blog, we realized we hadn’t. We got to the take out and realized that all the launches looked alike. There is a small dock that overlooks the springs and it’s a Beautiful spot as you have Clearwater and you could see the reflection of the blue sky above with the white clouds, and all of the trees. This river is tea color from the resin from the trees. The trees don’t have leaves yet, so they all looked silver and reflected beautifully along the river. It was a very quiet paddle, and we remarked that we hadn’t seen any wildlife. We saw two deer in the woods and they ran like crazy when they hurt us. I think the wildlife on this river are not used to people. Soon we saw a huge alligator, and it slid into the water. It was so big we wondered if it had just eaten a deer. Better a deer than us, sorry, deer. We later saw one more alligator that slid into the water Two more deer, and only a few Heron. About halfway down, we stopped for lunch at cummins Landing, which is a gravel road that leads down to the water. When we’re kayaking, we always have the best lunch spots. this river does seem to be a little bit challenging as there are a lot of trees down, but it’s better than Juniper, because it’s very wide, and there is room to maneuver around the trees. It was a beautiful, paddle with lots of reflections, and time to reflect as we paddle down the quiet waterway.