“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 the canopy. 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, 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. Just about every paddler
from outside the area I ever talk with, novice or otherwise, asks the
question, “Don’t you worry about snakes falling into your boat on those
Florida rivers?” I have never found any evidence to confirm that anyone
has actually had a demon snake jump into his or her boat.
There is an
apocryphal story about a duck hunter who had one fall into his boat. It
is said that he handled the problem by blowing it away with a shotgun,
thus qualifying him for the Darwin award. 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 wasp 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 my companion on my most arduous
adventures,
paddling, backpacking, biking and exploring. 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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