- November 18, 2024
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It looked simple enough on paper (doesn’t everything?): Two days, 40 miles by canoe.
I’d take the dog and leave Saturday, May 31 from a put-in just north of Lake George on the St. Johns River, paddle the 17-foot tandem canoe nine miles north with the slow current on the St. Johns, then paddle 11 miles west against the quicker current on the Ocklawaha River — one of northern Florida’s premier paddling trails — then float down the Ocklawaha and paddle back on the St. Johns.
It wasn’t simple.
This fact sunk in on Sunday, about five miles up the Ocklawaha, a narrow, twisting river that runs through dense swamp country.
I’d left late Saturday and spent the night camped on the canoe on the Ocklawaha, falling asleep listening to the rumbling mating calls of alligators hidden out in the swamp.
I woke up early to knock out the 25 miles or so that remained on the trip.
But on day two, the paddling was tougher. The river ran faster the further west I went. Lifting the paddle from the water gave me about two seconds of drift before the current pressed me back the other way, and the five or so miles west toward the Kirkpatrick Dam — the trip’s halfway point — took about four hours. I began wishing for a motor.
Finally, I turned a corner and saw the dam. The tough part, I thought was over.
I turned around and let the current do the work. And for a couple of hours, it was an easy ride. I drifted past cooter turtles sunning themselves on logs — their noses turned imperiously up in the air — and gators that crashed into the water at the approach of the canoe.
Then the rain started. No big deal; the forecast had warned of scattered showers.
I put on a jacket and paddled through it.
Then I heard the rustle of wind in the cypresses. Still no big deal; the river was fairly narrow and sheltered.
Then I turned a corner, and it wasn’t. And a gust of wind grabbed the nose of the canoe and shoved it hard, whipping it one way and then the other as leaned on a paddle to keep my course.
The rain kicked up, rattling against the leaves and bouncing off the water.
I pulled over, tied up to a tree, and put up the umbrella.
I held it for about 30 minutes, then tied it to a canoe paddle and roped that to the transom as I bailed water from the bottom of the boat with a milk-jug bailer.
The dog glowered at me like I’d subjected him to the world’s longest bath.
The rain and wind held for another hour and a half before petering out to a misty drizzle, and I got going again.
I paddled through a lighter rain and emerged on the St. Johns — nine miles to go. Again, I wished for a motor.
Night fell. I paddled by starlight and the black silhouettes of the banks, the little all-around light behind me on the stern illuminating lily pads as I drifted by, but little else.
A gentle breeze pushed from behind. The gators rumbled.
My hands hurt; it was worth it.
I pulled into the put-in at about 2 a.m.
A few days later, I bought a motor — an old 2 hp Evinrude — and Sunday, I headed out on the water with it, buzzing upriver at about twice the speed I could paddle. The banks seemed to fly by on either side. The dog leaned into the wind.
And then the wind died down and the river became still, and the whine of the outboard became intrusive.
And I cut the motor, turned around, and paddled back.
