Slave Canal

Yesterday I tagged along on a trip down the Slave Canal with The Wilderness Way. It is, without question or reservation, the prettiest piece of water I've seen in N FL. Rivers have a funny way of going underground in this area, such that they don't always make their way to the ocean above ground (read navigable for shipping). In the canal craze of the early 19th century some local big wigs got it in their heads to connect the Wacissa, which isn't open to the gulf, to the Aucilla, which is. Thus they cracked a scheme to dig a canal from the point where the Wacissa goes underground to the Aucilla some 3 miles away. They didn't actually get started until the 1850's. As the name might suggest, slaves were used to dig it. Records are slim on info, so no one really knows how many worked or what casualty figures might have looked like, but the work must have been grueling between the swamp, heat, biting insects, and heavy manual labor. They finished it a few years before the start of the Civil War, and then it fell into disuse because the war so disrupted trade in the region.

All that sounds kind of grim, but now it is an absolutely beautiful and pristine piece of wilderness. Put in is at the sound end of the Wacissa (Goose Pasture). The Wacissa narrows and snakes along in its crystal clear fashion for a while until a right fork into the canal (there's a sign, but it'd be easy to miss). From there it's only a few miles to the take out on the Aucilla, but it's a time consuming few miles, as there are lots of logs that necessitate getting out of the boat and dragging over. You could not do this trip and stay dry from the waist down. Luckily the water is pretty clear, sandy bottom, and ranges from 1' to 3' deep almost the whole time. It averages about 15' to 20' wide. The weather was perfect, cool morning, 80's afternoon, breezy, blue skies. The sunlight filtered through the pine and hardwood and palms most wonderfully and the birds were singing and it felt like some remote central American rainforest. We saw a few gators, mostly tiny, but one bigger one, 6' or so, which walked along the bottom right under us. There were lots of gar and mullet, and prothonotary warblers, woodpeckers, owls, snowy egret, cattle egret (out of place), Mississippi and swallow tail kites. It was spectacular and it considerably improved my opinion of N FL.

After such a great day on the water there's not much to do except make a good dinner and drink good wine, which we did. While we were grilling (Buffalo chicken sliders and grilled okra, mmmmm) a barred owl swooped overhead and into a tree not 20' from the back patio and caused a ruckus from all the birds that were nesting in the viburnum. He stayed a few minutes and we ogled him until all those little chickadees and mockingbirds and crows pestered him too much and he flew away. It was really neat. All told a great Sunday. Get out and enjoy the beautiful weather before summer gets here and it gets stupid hot.

Cheers.

Giant Turtle Shell

The unbearably hot weather has finally broken and it feels great outside. So this morning I paddled Wacissa headwaters. It was cool and overcast for the whole trip. Saw loads of birds like blue heron, little blue heron, great egret, snowy egret, tricolored heron, wood duck, white ibis, red shouldered hawk, common moorhen, kingfisher, and others. A family of river otter let me sneak up on them (to about 20'). When they finally noticed me they all stood up on their haunches and made a weird sort of coughing noise at me, then disappeared. I poked into several of the smaller springs on the E side of the river, so I saw about 5 in all, including Big Blue. Along one of the spring runs I noticed something huge and white just under the water, which turned out to be a big sunbleached and completely denuded turtle carapace (about 16" long x 13" wide). It's now drying out on the picnic table out back. A wildlife officer busted three guys hunting from a boat for something, and there were some nice folks on the river from Tampa who are on their annual N FL paddling trip. They spoke highly of the Blackwater River and Ti Ti and Whiskey George creeks. Perhaps I'll see them soon.

Wacissa Spring to Goose Pasture

This one is going to be short and sweet because I've had a full day on the water and I'm full of dinner and a cocktail or two and I'm about to crawl into bed for what's bound to be a very restful night of sleep.

My very good friend and former coworker from SMKC days, Mike aka The Geezer, is down visiting for a couple days. He got in last night and we made plans to do the whole Wacissa River today, which is about 10 miles. So this morning we loaded up two cars and he and Aimee and I drove out to the spring (about a thirty minute drive) and unloaded. Then we set up the shuttle, which is a pain in the ass. From the spring it's 15 miles on FL 59 to the coastal highway (98), and then a few miles to cross the Aucilla and turn down some poorly maintained and unmarked sandy roads to the take out at Goose Pasture Recreation Area. It's about 45 mins each way, when you know exactly where you're going, which is tough without the signs (it's not impossible, but I was glad there were a couple people along the way to tell me I was headed down the correct road; important note: when you get to the fork on Goose Pasture Rd you want to stay to the left). The morning started off very chilly (frost on the cars) but warmed up so it was comfortable for Aimee to watch the stuff and read a book and watch birds while we set up the shuttle. We finally got launched a little after 11.

The river was beautiful; pretty clear despite all the recent rain. Temperature was perfect at 65 F and there was just a little S wind every now and then in the open sections. We checked Big Blue Spring for a sec and then headed downriver. Found a lunch spot just above the old dam about halfway down for a nice break in the shady woods. Finally pulled into Goose Pasture at about 4. Along the way we saw a few gators, lots of big turtles (cooters? I'll have to check the books tomorrow), little blue heron, great egret, snowy egret, common moorhen, American coot, kingfisher, red shouldered hawk, greater yellowlegs, eastern phoebe, brown pelican, cormorant, turkey vulture, heard a few barred owls (who cooks for you!?). The great egrets are in their breeding plumage and have long delicate plumes and bright green lores. They were nearly driven to extinction at the turn of the 20th century for those plumes because ladies just had to have fashionable hats.

After we pulled out Aimee spent another hour or so patiently waiting on us to get Mike's car back down there to load up. It's a great trip but a very involved shuttle. Not one I'd want to do real regularly for that reason, but the river itself is lovely.

Big thanks to Georgia at The Wilderness Way who graciously answered all my questions and offered advice and unsolicited updates on the status of the dirt roads at Goose Pasture. Go rent a kayak or take a trip with them.

Now to bed to rest up for another one tomorrow. Cheers.

Wacissa River Headwaters

We FINALLY got to get out and paddle this wonderfully cool morning, after a little more than two weeks of the seemingly endless process of settling into a new house and town. For the first excursion I chose the Wacissa River (pronounced wah-SIS-uh), which is a pretty short spring fed river typical of this part of FL, roughly 30 mins from Tallahassee. The parking lot was nearly empty when we got there to unload the boats at the headwaters. We paddled S from the launch, pulled into a small creek or two looking for a place called Big Blue Spring, which we found, and then downriver about 3 miles to a small river island called Cedar Island, which we did a little loop around and paddled against the light current back to the launch. Big Blue is a huge azure hole in the earth that is about 45' deep, with precipitous walls that seem to go straight down. There are two swimming platforms, but we didn't use them this time. The water is about 70 degrees year round, so I'll be using it again to escape from the heat down here. The two most striking things about the trip were the water clarity (crystalline) and the wildlife, especially the birds. We saw great egret, tons of snowy egrets, great blue heron, little blue heron, tricolored heron, green heron, white ibis, swallow-tailed kite, common moorhen, American coot, kingfishers, cormorant, anhinga, osprey, ducks, a hawk, and probably, but not positively, a purple gallinule. We also saw plenty of Suwanee Cooters (turtle) and one little gator. Aside from Big Blue, opportunities to get out of the boat were non-existent, so we were both glad to get back to the lot at the end after over 3 hours in the cockpit. It got warm, but it's really not too bad today, even as I type this in mid-afternoon it's not that bad outside. Now we're going to work in the yard and do standard Sunday stuff like read and nap. Cheers.