Dec 2021 Suwannee Canoe Trip

[ris]

We left Frostproof at 0800 on Thursday morning and arrived at American Canoe Adventures in White Springs Fla. at 1010. Be Free met us there as we were leaving some stuff with him. Sorry Bill we didn't have longer to chat but the women said I got them up early so they didn't want me talking for an hour about boats with some internet friend! This trip was made with my wife and my sister. My sister bought a We-no-nah one person canoe recently. It is 14.5 feet long and weighs 35 lbs. It is made out of kevlar.



The outfitter took us north to Stephen C. Foster State Park near Fargo Ga. which was a 45 minute drive. This state park is on the south western edge of the Okefenokee Swamp which is the head waters of the Suwannee River. The St. Marys Rivers flows out of the south east side of the swamp. The Okefenokee Swamp is the largest swamp in the US. It is about 700 sq. miles of swamp. Thy estimate that there are about 13,000 alligators in the swamp. We piled all our stuff on the boat ramp and the outfitter left. He would pick us up when we called in about 5 days.



This part of the trip is on the edge of the Okefenokee as the river slowly moves away from the swamp. There are a lot of Tupelo and Cypress trees in this part of the swamp. If you like honey and get some real Tupelo honey it is really nice honey. There is not much dry ground. The first night we spent in Griffis Fish camp a few miles from where we started. We were there by 1530 and ready to stop it had been a long day. About 50 years ago this fish camp put in a small canal so you could get to dry ground which is about 100 yards from the river. The canal is only about 3 feet deep and 12 foot wide but that is deep enough to paddle up to the dry part of their property. The pic below is of the way the swamp looks in this area. Those are mostly small tupelo trees with the taller trees in the background being cypress. The water is about 6 feet below flood stage. low water would be about 4 feet lower than it is now. A perfect water height except there are more sand bar camping spots on this section of river when it is 4 feet lower.



Richard

[Russ]

Thanks for posting. Love the adventure stories while we are stuck in snow.

Tupelo honey must be yummy because Van Morrison wrote an entire song about it.

[NiceAft]

Richard,

From the photos, it looks like you piled a lot more stuff into your sister’s canoe than yours. How did you get away with that?

[Jimmyt]

Thanks for posting! Looks like a blast!

[Russ]

My sister bought a We-no-nah one person canoe recently. It is 14.5 feet long and weighs 35 lbs. It is made out of kevlar.

I was curious about these and WOW! They cost 3 boat bucks!

I assume it must be a very nice canoe.

[ris]

DAY 2
We woke to a light rain that stopped by 0630. So we made oatmeal with golden raisins and dried cranberries for added for sweetness. Broke camp with packing away of wet tents. We keep all our bags in the tent as there is a lot of dew that can fall overnight in Florida. We eased out the little canal to the river at 0830. Our plan for the day was to travel for about 5 hrs then find a campsite for the night just above the Hwy 441 bridge in Fargo Ga. This would be a 15 mile day. Small canal pic below.



Did I happen to mention there are alligators in this river. We saw around 20 or so gators on this day. The largest was a 10 footer that hit the water as soon as we rounded a bend in the river. The weird thing about gators is that a 8 footer seen from a Mac on a river is a nice sized gator. But if you are wade fishing in waist deep water in a river or lake a 8 footer is huge!



About 30 minutes into the day we ran into our first of 3 trees all the way across the river. The best you can hope for is finding a way through or over the trees blocking the river. The worst case is having to empty the canoe and portaging around the tree blockage. As the river water level has been falling for over a week and it had rained twice the land is very mucky and the trees + vines are close together. This was a pine tree that crossed the whole river but we could get over it by the ladies getting out of the canoes and me wading out and pushing the canoes over the log. It was only waist deep but it was cool that early in the morning. But wading through tree branches under water that you cannot see and shoving the canoes over the log was a bit difficult. Thankfully it was cool as there are quiet a few cotton mouth water moccasins in swamps. After shoving the canoes over the log, I would push them down stream toward shore and my wife, Jill, would catch them. No pics of me doing this as we hadn't even finished our coffee yet which I finished as we headed on down stream. The second log jamb was about an hour later and we were able to push the canoes under the log near shore.



The final blockage was after lunch and it was a try going through the branches as we do not want to portage around this mess We did portage a few of the bags from each canoe downstream to a clear area just in case of capsizing. It was very muddy and slippery so we did not unload everything. All of this checking out the best way through these blockages takes time. If you run up on a underwater log a canoe will tip very easily. The second worse thing you can do is grab a limb or push off a limb while in a canoe, they will dump you in the water quick. I would guess that we spent over an hour deciding how to deal with the 3 blockages.



By 1500 we had not found a place to camp so we called a guy in Fargo that has a 6 room motel for a pickup at the 441 bridge and a room for the night. I did not want to do this but the ladies were all for it. (a/c and hot showers) We got to the ramp at 1600. A 7.5 hour day and we were pretty tired.
Richard

[Russ]

It was only waist deep but it was cool that early in the morning. But wading through tree branches under water that you cannot see and shoving the canoes over the log was a bit difficult. Thankfully it was cool as there are quite a few cotton mouth water moccasins in swamps. After shoving the canoes over the log, I would push them down stream toward shore and my wife, Jill, would catch them.

This with 8' aligators.

After a day like that.... a real bed and shower would sound great to me as well.

[OverEasy]

Hi Ris!

700 square miles of uncharted primordial swamp populated by over 14000 eight plus foot long alligators and untold numbers of mean spirited water moccasins in tippy canoes navigating water courses randomly blocked by fallen trees with submerged obstacles anchored in generations of settled muck and intentionally camping on sandbars with a variable water levels….

I’d vote for the motel with showers too!

Quite the adventure!

Keep us posted so we can sleep again!

Best Regards
Over Easy

[ris]

Third day
We were back at the boat ramp by 0830. The little motel was only 3/10s of a mile from the ramp. The land had been slowly changing the last mile we paddled on day 2. As we went under the 441 bridge you could tell we had left the swamp. There were now defined river banks on each side of the river instead of a slightly deeper channel through a spread out swamp. This change is pretty abrupt. The river being narrow with banks was deeper and the banks were lined with palmettos, oaks and pine trees the current also seems to get faster. After passing under the bridge there were no more total blockages of the river by trees.






Our plan for the day was to get 15 miles to the Florida /Georgia line. With the river current of 1.5 mph we hoped to get there by about 1500. In Ga. each land owner owns the land to the middle of the river. In Florida the state owns the rivers up to the high water mark. So in Florida you can camp on sand bars because they are owned by the state. On the Suwannee starting at the Florida line, one state agency or another owns at least one side of the river almost all the way to the gulf. So you just download a map on your phone with the gps coordinates and you can easily tell where you can camp. We did see turkeys, hogs and deer every day for the rest of the trip. It is also very quiet except for animal noises. We love the feeling of remoteness and the quiet. We knew we had arrived at the Florida line when our gps beeped. Also we saw a SRWMD sign, one on each bank.(Suwannee river water management district). About 2 miles past the line we found a great campsite up on a sand bank with lots of wood for a fire as we were cooking steak shish kebobs for supper. Just a fun fact if you tell an old Floridian to come for dinner he will show up at 12 noon. The evening meal is supper.



We found deer, hog and bear tracks on this sand bank. As this was our first campfire of the trip we stayed up till 2200 just sitting by the fire. About 2 in the morning we were awakened by a small herd of pigs foraging for acorns in the palmettos. I got up found them about 15 yards away in the palmettos and shined the flashlight on them yelled GIT and they took off. There were about 10 of them all about 60 to 80 lbs. After that slept the rest of the night.

[OverEasy]

Wow!
What a neat adventure!
It sounds like a much easier travel after the motel stop.
(My Admiral tells me that if I ever get it in my head to sit something similar that our start point is the entry by the motel. )

The sand bar camping makes sense now given the land rights in GA.

What a nice unique way to spend a holiday!

Best Regards
Over Easy

[ris]

Fourth day. Got up around 0500 started the fire back up, made coffee and just enjoyed the start of the day. From this point on the state of Florida owns at least one side of the river or both sides for the next 30 miles. So no need to travel far each day. Just enjoy. About 0630 the women awoke and we made breakfast, sat by the fire to eat. About 0730 we were starting to pack up and it poured for about 35 minutes, then stopped as fast as it started. Loaded the canoes and started down the river. About 3 miles down the river we came to Roline boat ramp. This is a small ramp at the end of 10 miles of clay roads which is the northrn most boat ramp on the Suwannee River in Florida. At this point my wife, Jill has finished canoeing the entire 242 miles of the River. I on the other hand only have about 65 miles of the river completed. We stopped to get a photo of the event.



Today we also started encountering lime rock ledges on the sides of the river. The only "rock" in Florida. As you can see it is bright white in this area. Also you can see the tannic water which is kind of tea colored as many lakes and rivers in Florida are similar looking.


We only traveled about 8 miles today. We knew there was more rain approaching so we stopped early on another sand bar. This one was about 1/4 mile long. We had just set up our tents and our gear was still in the canoes when we got another down pour of about 20 minutes. After the rain we finished setting up camp. Fortunately I found a 4 foot by 8 inch wide piece of lighter wood. Or else there would have been no fire. Lighter wood also known as heart of pine or fat wood is the center part of a pine tree that is left after the tree dies and still stands. All the pine sap is concentrated in this center portion. This piece of lighter could be 150 years old. It just doesn't rot, unless sitting in water. After just raining for 20 minutes we chopped some slivers off and lit them with one match. That 4 foot piece burned for about 3 hours as we fed it slowly into the fire to dry out the other oak and stuff we collected that we put on top. You cannot cook on it but it sure burns nice.

[Russ]

I really enjoy reading your trip reports.

I used fatwood to start my fireplace. Yea, stuff lights with a match. Never saw it in the wild. Comes in a box from Amazon

[Be Free]

Thirty years or so ago I headed out into the woods to find a tree the right size to make a new lever for the cane mill. We found a dead pine that was still standing. It was perfectly straight and just the right size. It was not until I started to cut it down that I realized it was solid lighter. It was just the heart of a much larger tree that had died years ago. It was about 8" at the base and 6" at the end and around 20' long after I trimmed it. It was unbelievably heavy but that lever lasted for years.

[OverEasy]

Hi Ris!

What a Nice trip!
Kudos for your wife!
That’s a lotta paddle miles!

Don’t forget the next installment!!!
I still keep up at night wondering about the alligators crocodiles n’ snakes never mind those cute bears with the big teeth……

Best Regards
Over Easy

[ris]

Day 5 We woke up and checked the weather. It is supposed to start raining by 3pm and rain for the next 30 hrs. We decided to have the outfitter pick us up today. We will just cut the trip to 5 days instead of 7. We only had a few miles to get to the pick up point so we had a leisurely breakfast and packed up. It is a cooler and dark day. In this area the river bank is high and the shore is lined with tupelo trees.



We came around a curve and saw ripples in the water. This is a area where the limestone is close to the surface and the sand has all been washed away. About 20 miles south of here is a place called Big Shoals. The only class 3 rapids in the state of Florida are found at Big Shoals. They are only class 3 at the right water depth. At high water they are just ripples in the water. At low water it is just exposed lime stone ledges. As we go through this area our paddles strike the lime rock under the water in a few places.



As we arrive at the 2nd bridge in 5 days it is a bitter/sweet moment. Hate to stop early but do not want to sit in a tent while it rains all day. The outfitter showed up just as we got all our stuff and canoes up the bank.