Kayaking 10/1- Santa Fe River, FL

Avg Speed 2.8 mph, Max Speed 6.1 mph                            9.7 Miles          977 total miles

Today we paddled 9.7 miles on the Santa Fe River, we put in at Highway 27 and took out at Highway 47. This stretch of river has lots and lots of Springs.The first spring we stopped at was Poe Springs. To get there we had to paddle across rocks and it was a big open area enclosed by cement steps. Scotty swam around while I walked up and took some pictures overlooking the springs. We stopped in at Lily Springs where a man named Ed lives and apparently he sometimes walks around without clothes. Unfortunately or fortunately he was not there today. We paddled past Rum Island where there was a small spring. To get to Blue Springs we had to paddle down a long inlet with crystal clear water and it looked blue the whole way down. There is a boardwalk that leads into Blue Springs. If you don't tie your boat or go on land, you do not have to pay the admission price so that is what we did. Once again the water was 72° and really cold. It was beautiful here and we could see down into a large crevice where there were two snorkelers diving down.  We also watched several children jump off the dock over the big blue hole.  We got to Ginny Springs which is a private park in the crowds here were unbelievable. We had seen pictures of Ginny Springs and it definitely looked beautiful, but the crowds kept us away. We passed hundreds of tubes.  We saw campsits on shore for probably about 2 miles and it was packed with tents and people. This river is the tannic brown color made by the roots of the cypress trees, but when there was a spring the water ran clear. We passed many turtles sunning on logs and they didn't seem too afraid of people.   We saw lots of birds and saw two alligators sunning themselves. After paddling we drove an hour north to Valdosta Georgia and ate at Bubba Jax Crab Shack where we had the best onion rings ever. Scotty had a fried fish sandwich and I had grilled fish, the perfect end to a great week.

This is the first time we have ever paddled past a wedding!  Congratulations!

Ed lives here.

It's crazy how many people are on these tubes.

Kayaking 9/30 - Silver Springs, FL - We Beat the Rain

Avg Speed 2.1 mph, Max Speed 5.3 mph     Silver Springs                              5 miles        960.3



Silver Springs - So just when we were about to take down camp the skies opened and rain came pouring down. We waited for a while maybe 45 minutes and then took down the tent and headed over to Ray Wayside Park as the skies turned bright blue during our drive.we paddled about 2 1/2 miles upstream and then we turned around and came back to started.  The water was clear you could see to the bottom. We passed lots of fish and lots and lots of birds.

Kayaking 9/30 - Juniper Springs, FL - A Fun Challenge

Juniper Springs in the Afternoon                                                   7 miles                  967.3

2.4 mph avg speed, 5.7 mph max speed  

We drove over to Juniper Springs. We took the kayaks to the recreation area to put it where there's a long boardwalk where you can wheel  your kayaks down to Juniper Springs.  At the rec area is a fenced off pool area and a mill.   There is a ranger at the station at the springs to make sure no one brings food wrappers. She and I talked for a while while Scotty went to drop off the truck. For the 1st mile of this paddle the water was only 1 to 2 foot deep and never more than 4 foot wide.  There was a sandy bottom and it took a lot of maneuvering to get down that 1st mile. We dragged along the bottom a few times. For the rest of the 6 miles it was all twists and turns with lots of logs across the water.  There were also low hanging trees where we had to duck and in fact at one point Scotty lost his hat on a branch, but I saved it.   We think we saw one alligator back in a small inlet and if it wasn't an alligator it was a huge huge log. We also passed a small red deer who stopped at us as we passed her on the bank. There were not as many birds and fish in this river. But we saw tons of turtles and they just sat on their long as we paddled by. This was definitely the most challenging of the rivers we've done this week and I think that if we had a longer boat it would've been impossible to do this river. At the end we talked to two of the workers here and they said that on some days they put in two hundred boats and it's wall-to-wall people with lots of yelling and they call it divorce alley.