Due to a late start yesterday we decided it would be most practical to stay the night in Fargo, Georgia and start paddling early this morning so that we could make it a little further down the river before camping. The late start should have been predicted because I have never had a plan go perfectly. Any plan that doesn't have a few hiccups makes me suspicious. It is good to get the hiccups started early though so that we can have smooth sailing (er... paddling) from here.
This morning we woke up, packed our boats down, and were in the water by 8 AM. As a life long lover of sleep and professional snoozer this early start to the day lent a surreal feel to the whole endeavor. Are there always so many birds yelling so early in the day? The kind man who shuttled us from the lodge to the boat ramp laughed when we told him we were headed all the way to the gulf and made us take his number in case we needed to be picked up this evening.
We made slow, but steady, progress averaging about four miles an hour and crossed the Florida-Georgia border around noon. We had a celebratory beer.
Our progress got slower and our justifications for celebratory beer became less and less impressive. Our reasoning took a steady downward spiral from "major milestone" to "that cloud looks like a chicken".
Early in the day I accidentally hit a small gator with my paddle and since then it was strictly a feet IN the boat kind of day.
The Suwannee I am most used to seeing is the portion that passes under US 19 near Branford. There, the river is incredibly wide and deep with steep banks. Here, in north Florida and south Georgia the river is narrow, shallow, and winds around broad flat sandy banks and sandbars. It has been interesting to see a new side to something I thought I knew well.
We set up camp around 6 PM after 27-ish miles of paddling. We are tired and sunburned and giggling. Tonight we are sleeping on a sandbar around mile 195.
No comments:
Post a Comment