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"You are not afraid of the dark. You are not afraid of
the dark. You are not . . . . . . .". It seemed silly that
I should have to remind myself of that but I don't think I had
ever before experienced such total darkness nor in such daunting
surroundings. It was a new moon and this part of the Apalachicola
National Forest is very remote. The forest canopy is so dense
that even if there had been any ambient light, little of it of
could have penetrated. At first, I had assumed that my eyes would
adjust but an hour later I could still see absolutely nothing.
George had left me a tiny penlight but I had set it down for
a moment and now couldn't find it. It was also growing much too
cold for my light paddling pants and t-shirt. I wished I could
at least get to my jacket.
I stumbled blindly about until I found a place on the cold damp
ground next to a tree that would give some support to my tired,
aching back. My total blindness must have intensified my hearing
because what might normally be only background grew to into a
deafening if not terrorizing cacophony. The croaking of frogs,
hooting of owls, numerous insects noises and worst of all, the
rustling of unidentifiable animals in the brush were overwhelming.
Despite it's spookiness, I found it fascinating and intensely
enjoyable. George had been gone for about an hour and even though
I had no watch, I reckoned that I would be sitting there for
at least another hour. I began to mentally re-play the series
of blundering exploits that had brought me here.
The plan had seemed solid. I had already paddled both Owl and
Kennedy creeks and had studied the topos and Forest Service maps.
On an earlier trip, I had found a place near the upper end of
Owl creek where a dirt trail ended at a crude and muddy but serviceable
landing. We would hide our bikes there and drive to Cotton Landing
on Kennedy Creek. Our intention was to paddle the seven miles
down Kennedy creek to the Apalachicola River, proceed downstream
on the river for about six miles to the confluence of Owl Creek
and then seven miles up Owl creek where our bikes were stashed.
We would leave the boats there and peddle the ten miles back
to Cotton Landing to get the van.
The drive from Tallahassee takes nearly two hours but time goes
quickly, as highway 65 through the National Forest is perfectly
straight and there is almost no traffic except for logging trucks
hauling the forest away. I had a GPS waypoint for the take out
but we had no idea how to get there from the main Forest road.
The GPS showed it to be two miles as the crow flies but the area
is cris-crossed by numerous sandy old logging roads going off
in every direction and few were shown on the map. After forty-five
minutes of monitoring the compass and GPS, following a half-dozen
dead ends and much backtracking we finally found it. It was now
almost 11:00 am, much later than planned but still in time to
complete our twenty-mile paddle trip and ten mile bike ride before
dark, or so we thought.
After we finally launched we took a two-mile detour upstream
into the swampy origins of Kennedy Creek to admire the stand
of colossal, ancient cypress trees that make Kennedy one of the
most unique and beautiful streams in North Florida. The sun filtered
through the treetops in narrow shafts as if through small windows
in the highest vaults of a cathedral intensifying the ethereal
quality of this primordial scene. By the time we got back to
our starting point at Cotton landing it was well past noon; only
an hour or two later than our plan called for.
We paddled a mile or two along the low banks of the stream lined
with cypress, tupelo and black gum. We came upon a Yellow Crowned
Night Heron perched stoically on a completely exposed branch
overhanging the creek. Despite its name, this bird only has a
yellow crown for a brief period during the mating season. This
one was in full regalia. It is normally a nocturnal bird and
the sighting was made the more unusual by the fact that he seemed
entirely indifferent to our presence allowing us to approach
within just a few feet.
We had been paddling downstream for about half an hour when George
announced, "My God! That's the biggest gator I have ever
seen!" There on the bank was a Jurassic leviathan. His head
alone exceeded the entire length of most gators I have seen in
my years of paddling Florida waters. All fourteen feet of him
slid silently into the water just ahead of us. His immense body
created a huge wake as he worked desperately to swim away from
us in water much too shallow to accommodate his bulk. One of
George's favorite amusements is to ride on the wake of any powerboat
that passes by. Boaters get such a kick out of this that they
often try to manage their speed to improve his ride. The wake
of this gator very much resembled that of a small outboard so
George dug in with his paddle to catch up. In moments, he was
surfing atop the wave. He rode on that monster's back for a distance
of at least twenty yards hot-doggin like a seasoned surfer dropping
into a floater. Lest the reader think this is a dangerous activity
as it is, I would add that George paddles a C-1 racing canoe,
one of the least stable paddleboats that can be imagined.
A bit further downstream I spotted the only snake I have ever
seen hanging from a branch directly over the water such that
it could conceivably drop into a passing boat. One of the most
infamous but least understood reptiles in Florida is what I dub
the Florida Canoe Snake. According to legend, this snake hangs
out on tree branches waiting for unsuspecting paddlers to pass
beneath so it can drop into their boat and scare the bejesus
out of them. We know that snakes of many kinds climb trees, usually
to get bird's eggs, bird babies or other prey. However, I suspect
they are agile and about as prone to falling as squirrels or
monkeys. I suppose that it might be possible to paddle into branches
shaking them and causing a concealed snake to fall but I generally
try to paddle on the water and not into the trees at the water's
edge where branches can cut my face and tear my clothes or where
yellow jacket nests often hang not to mention Canoe Snakes. Perhaps
the Canoe Snake is a factor in the increasing popularity of Kayaks
as opposed to Canoes. After all, a decked over boat is far less
vulnerable to attack.
A few miles above the confluence with the Apalachicola River,
Kennedy creek again spreads out into a broad swamp. In this area
it becomes less than obvious which of many rivulets lead to the
river but I had been there before and didn't expect to have any
trouble finding it. The swamp was an imposing and beautiful place
and we were so engrossed that it was quite some time before I
began to feel that we had been in there too long. According to
my recollection, we should have reached the confluence much earlier.
My confidence crumbled further as we seemed to have lost any
clear evidence of a channel. By now we were frequently being
forced to haul ourselves over fallen trees and duck under branches
to make any forward progress. In fact it had become very unclear
which way "forward" might be. I told myself not to
worry. The compass showed that our average direction was still
west and there was evidence of current in that direction. All
we had to do was follow the flow and we were certain to end up
at the river eventually. It was only after another hour of this
that I was willing to admit to myself that we were lost, hopelessly
lost in a vast swamp and unable even to identify which way we
had come so that we might backtrack. There was nothing to do
but to follow what little current we could find evidence of,
climb over logs, walk, dragging our boats through shallows, push
aside branches and hope for the best.
Kennedy creek is seven miles long from Cotton landing to the
river and has a current of at least one mile per hour. George
and I consistently cruise at more than four miles per hour yet
we had now been paddling for over three and a half hours. We
had to be within shouting distance of the river. We heard an
outboard motor that couldn't have been more than fifty yards
away though we still had no clue how to traverse those fifty
yards. It was fortunate that I was paddling with George because
anybody else would have been damning me to hell by now. Not George;
to him it was an opportunity for adventure. We were still having
fun and there is something very special about being in a place
so wild and remote that it seems possible that no man has ever
been there before even if only because no other man would be
so foolish. Finally, we saw the glint of bright sunlight reflected
off sand and water. We were within sight of the river! Fifteen
minutes later, we were racing down the Apalachicola riding a
four-mile per hour current. We were starving and stopped on a
sandbar to rest and eat a very late lunch.
There was a stunning contrast between the dense, shady jungle
we had just left behind and broad, open, sunny expanses and huge,
multi-acre sandbars of the Apalachicola. Occasional mountains
of sand and silt spoils from years of dredging by the Corps of
Engineers provided long steep slides for swimmers. Pieces of
tin and cardboard used as sleds clutter these places. Equally
contrasting was the easy unobstructed paddling in the powerful
current of this river which combines the waters of two of Georgia's
largest and longest, the Flint and the Chattahoochee both originating
in the North Georgia highlands. The banks vary with high piney
areas, low hardwood places and swamps, predominantly the latter
on this section. The only paddling needed is occasional ruddering
to steer clear of channel buoys, stumps and flotsam but we paddled
anyway coupling our force with that of the river so that we were
flying along at six or seven miles per hour. It was such fun
that it seemed like only minutes had passed when George pointed
off to the left and said, "Doesn't that look like Fort Gadsden?"
"Nah", I replied, "Can't be. Fort Gadsden is at
least eight miles from the mouth of Kennedy Creek and two miles
south of Owl Creek. We couldn't have come that far." In
fact we hadn't. I later determined that we unknowingly exited
the swamp about two miles South of the main junction of Kennedy
Creek and the river. As a consequence, since I was figuring our
distance based on time, we hadn't been looking for Owl Creek
when we passed it. There was a big open grassy area surrounded
by trenches and earthen mounds outlining an old fort. No matter
how much I wanted to deny it, he was right. It was Fort Gadsden,
the remains of an historic citadel built by the British during
the war of 1812. This of course meant that we had missed the
entrance to Owl creek and would have to paddle two miles back
upstream against the four mile per hour current that we had so
much enjoyed riding down.
For years, George had been one of my companions on my many arduous
adventures. He never complains no matter how adverse the conditions.
However, as we dug in for a long and difficult struggle upstream
he came as close to grumbling as I had ever known him to. "Its
a good thing I didn't bring my girlfriend along. Some people
don't have my tolerance for navigation errors." It took
nearly as long to cover the two miles upstream as it had taken
to come eight miles down.
The paddle up Owl creek was thankfully uneventful and pretty.
It is wide and slow moving. A substantial part of it is less
a creek than a long series small lakes densely surrounded by
uniformly small cypress trees which seem always to be perfectly
doubled by their reflection on the water. It is visually impressive
and unusual.
When we arrived at the take-out, there was still roughly an hour
of daylight remaining and we had estimated that the bike shuttle
would take about that long. We retrieved the bikes, concealed
the boats as best we could and took off. The dirt trails and
forest roads were very sandy, sometimes muddy, and consequently
difficult but we made it to my van at Cotton Landing with the
last vestiges of twilight. I was completely spent.
The moment I saw the van I was seized with paroxysms of horror,
regret and guilt. I had suddenly realized that the keys to the
van were still in my boat! How could I have been so stupid? But
wait! No problem! Several years ago I had put one of those magnetic
key boxes under the frame. Surely it would still be there. Sheepishly,
I admitted to George what I had done as I crawled under the van
to get the hidden key. There it was! I was elated! I pulled the
box out and stood up to open it. I have never felt so wretched,
so pathetic, or so beaten. There was no key in the box. How could
that be? To this day I still have no idea. " Shit!"
I said, "shit! shit! shit! What do we do now?" "We'll
just have to bike back to the boats and get the keys", George
said coolly.
That would not be possible. After nearly twelve hours, twenty-four
miles of mostly upstream paddling, and ten miles of biking in
sand and mud there was no way I had another twenty mile round
trip of peddling in me. I knew it and I said so. This was one
time when the old macho pride thing would just have to surrender
to sanity. "I can do it", George said with complete
composure and confidence, "I am very bike fit". He
must be because he completed this difficult ride in near total
darkness in less than two hours while I waited alone in the forest,
huddled on the ground against my tree hoping that it was too
dark for bears to be out foraging for human flesh.
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Information about trips in the near future.