Day five was a lazy day. We had plans to do a million miles but I have been having headaches and coughing yesterday and this morning so we decided that sometimes you just need to float down the river curled up in the bottom of your kayak taking a nap.
We woke up and said goodbye to all the kind folks we had met at Holton Creek and they resupplied us with fresh water, coffee, and good luck. A fleet of small children pushed us off into the river and we gave them most of our sailboat collection. I'm sure many of those kids thought we were a little nuts wandering around smelling like river water with a small fleet of homemade sail boats. It was very encouraging though to have a dozen ten year olds push us out in the water and cheer for us. If anyone ever needs a confidence boost just recruit a bunch of kids to shout and clap for you.
Unfortunatly their enthusiasm didn’t spread to me because I was not feeling so great and sitting in about an inch of water. In our rush to get off the water last night I hadn’t pulled my kayak far enough to shore and it had been swamped. Luckily I tied it up but that did little to no good and most of the gear I left in the kayak was now waterlogged. It’s lucky we packed a bilge pump.
We took our time going down the river and stopped to explore a few river runs and creeks. We got out at Gibson Park to stretch our legs and revel in the luxury of a bathroom with walls and running water. I made use of our extra paddle by getting mine stuck in some drift wood and getting pulled away from it. Thank goodness for paddle tethers. And thank goodness for Abby who came to my rescue. If you lose your paddle you're just more litter drifting around.
We passed a steep and sandy bank with what looked like the world's greatest slip and slide and I have never seen anything so beautiful or tempting in my life. But, they had tons of "private property" and "no trespassing" signs posted so I followed the advice of signs for the first time in my life and we did not use the slip and slide.
Today was also the first day we really started seeing the giant leaping sturgeons people had been telling us about. It's insane! The fish are huge and terrifying and leap with no regard for the laws of physics. Unfortunately, or fortunately considering how much swimming we do, we are out of gator territory. For a while at least. The river banks are getting steeper still but now we're starting to see small marshy patches. It's a whole different river everyday and it's incredible every day. Despite growing up near a river it never had occurred to me how much a river could change in such a short distance.
By 2:00 we were hot, sweaty, hungry, and only halfway to our destination. We started looking at the banks hoping to see one of the ropeswings that appear every hundred yards or so and saw some people pulled over on a sandy bank with a rope swing so we stopped to swing, swim, and talk. They offered to pull us down the river a mile or so and we gladly accepted.
I'm sure it was entertaining to see a boat full of beer bellied men, their girlfriends, and babies pulling our two kayaks behind them with our bubble wands and squirt guns. They were lovely people and we really appreciated not having to do the paddle ourselves.
We were especially grateful when we got to Suwannee River State Park and it started pouring. The park is our home for the night and we are eating burgers, BLTs, and fries and soaking in the AC.
The moral of today is that the river is a great adventure and you can love every mile of it but sometimes you just need to float, to nap, to swim, or get towed along and blow bubbles.
Tomorrow we're pushing on and hopefully making a stop at blue springs when we are recharged after our night indoors.
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