Lake George? What happened to Lake Okeechobee? Well, I was on the road, heading for Lake Okeechobee and suddenly made a Ubee (U-turn) in West Palm Beach and ended up in Brunswick, Georgia, 350 miles away.
I'm heading south again now and stopped off in northern Florida at Lake George for a week, at the invitation of Bruce, an outfitter based in St. Augustine. Yesterday was cold, windy and foggy but Bruce and friend Morris showed up and gave me a run down on the area.
Lake George lies east of St. Augustine right on the Ocala National Forest boundary. With a length of 10-12 miles and a width of 4-5 miles it's a fair piece of inland water. The St. John's River dumps into Lake George right near where I'm staying, Harley Paiute's Peaceful Indian Fishing Village.
There are a lot of fishing camps in the area. The bass fishing is supposed to be stupendous, and me with just a salt water license.
This morning was cold and windy again, but the sun was out and it promised to warm up considerably. I broke out the cold weather gear again and launched (almost) from my camp site around 9:30am with no particular destination in mind. The eastern shore of the lake contains all of the fishing camps and some houses. The western shore is the Ocala National Forest so that's where I headed.
The first thing that's really noticeable is the water. It's very, very dark, almost the color of French onion soup against my white paddle blade. I presume it's because of an extraordinary amount of decaying vegetation but dunno for sure. Some one else was saying its from the fertilizer used by local farmers.
Approaching the far shore I could see it was lined with small cypress, large oaks and palm trees. The cypress and oaks were pretty much totally covered with Spanish moss while the palm trees had none. The only thing that occurs to me is the palms don't have supporting branch structures like the oaks and cypress do.
With the little coves and points, this presented such a new and pretty landscape for me I just sat there and drifted along for 30-40 minutes, taking in everything. If you've ever seen pictures of swamps with Spanish moss draped cypress trees reflected in the water, you have a perfect picture of what I was enjoying. I had been told an estimated 3,000 alligators inhabited the immediate area so I tried to keep an eye peeled for them too.
I drifted down to the point before Muddy Cove before I realized it. The point consists of some tall marsh grass and cat tails. A number of dark gray ducks with black heads and white bills (02/11: American Coot) were feeding back in there while a large flock of 50 or so fed among some submerged grasses farther on. Mixed in among the white billed ducks were a few others with red heads and bills. Some of these were paired off with a white billed duck. I don't think the red heads were males and the white bills females because they were way out of proportion. If they were, it's no wonder the poor males were red faced having to service all those females. The ratio was better than 20 to 1. (02/11: Red heads were probably immature Coots).
A couple of osprey circled overhead and then I saw a couple of larger birds of similar shape building a nest. These are the guys that confuse me. They look like osprey but are so much larger. They also have a brown band or mask around their head. (02/11: The bird book says the ospreys have a black band around eyes. Ok, the big guys are ospreys, who are the little guys, immature osprey?).
A little farther up Muddy Cove was a large nest with a big white head sticking out of it. I tried to get a better view with small opera size binoculars but threw them down in frustration. I don't have a lot of patience with binoculars in a kayak. The bobbing up and down doesn't make me sick but really annoys me when I'm trying to see something.
I was in the process of taking a short cut, rather than go all the way around Muddy Cove and was halfway to Hog Island when I noticed more water in the area I was bypassing. So I un-bypassed that corner and went to investigate.
It looked like a small river so I turned into it. Within a few feet I heard a loud commotion from the shore up ahead with lots of splashing. I could see water flying every which way. As it subsided, I could see a fair size wake pushing out into deeper water. Unless it was a sturgeon, it wasn't a fish. My guess is a 3-4 foot alligator was sunning itself on a downed palm tree and ran for deep water when it heard me. As I passed by the area I could see large clouds of disturbed mud and silt where it had passed.
I didn't hear any more noise but saw several other clouds of mud in the next 100 yards or so. Then I felt a slight vibration from the stern area. Oh sh**! I hope I just passed over a submerged branch or something and that wasn't the unthinkable, a 'gator, I had just gone over.
The river narrowed considerably as I moved into a corridor of palm trees and oaks. A blue heron took flight, honking loudly and the sound echoed down the tunnel of trees. Some small blue gray cranes and a bunch of those white billed ducks (Coots) took to the air several times, making a terrible racket in the narrow area and scaring the crap out of me.
Soon, I came to a small tree across the river(?). I couldn't go under or around it and I couldn't power over it either. I had lunch while trying to decide if I really wanted to become a bushwhacker, hacking and clawing my way up and down small rivers.
I had to pee so getting out of the boat wasn't the issue this time. The water was only a foot or so deep and I was surrounded by overhanging branches anyway so I just got out where I was and sank ankle deep into the mud and debris on the bottom. Once I got my balance I took a step forward and sank in up to my knee. I got myself stabilized again and pushed the kayak over the tree and climbed over after it.
Immediately I sank in up to my waist. This wasn't mud, it was a hole filled with debris and rotting vegetation, all loosely packed so there was no problem in pulling myself out. However, that helped me decide, I'm not interested in bushwhacking. If a river becomes so clogged with downed trees I have to start getting out to make progress, I'll make progress back from whence I came instead.
I dragged the kayak back over the tree and made my way to shore, stepping into another deep hole. On shore, I dropped my spray skirt, dropped my farmer john and dropped my bathing suit to take care of business. Then I raised the bathing suit, raised the farmer john and took a step forward, almost falling on my face. Then I raised the spray skirt and headed back down river.
The water was surprisingly cold so I took the temperature. It said 60 but no way. More like low 50's or high 40's. My feet were numb. I probably didn't leave the thermometer in the water long enough since the lake and river are much warmer and probably 60 degrees.
I paddle back out to Muddy Cove and continue along the southwest shore. Soon I hear another major commotion on shore. Looking in that direction I can see the outline of an alligator through the water being splashed around. When the splashing subsides I can see the sun reflecting off of the gator's hide in several places because I know its there.
20 feet away another burst of thrashing erupts. Turning my head I see a much larger (fatter, therefore I presume longer) alligator try to leap over a downed palm tree lying at a 45 degree angle to the shore. It doesn't make it and ricochets off the tree into the water where it makes its way along the length of the tree to deeper water. It surfaced about 25 feet from me, took a look to see what it was running from and submerged again.
Two more gators thrashed their way into the water from the same two locations. I'm just drifting along and I finally see one before it heads for the water. It's just lying there, head on, looking at me. I turned the camera on and extended the zoom and got the best shot I could have gotten shooting from sunlight into shade. When I turned the camera off, the zoom retracted but decided at that point to come up with a whole new set of noises. They spooked the gator and he took off for the water and appeared to be the largest of the bunch. And I was in direct line between it and deeper water. I watched as its wake came right at me and passed under the boat. Whew!
I drifted along watching the shoreline and the downed trees for any more signs of the alligators in the water but didn't see anything. I turned away from the shoreline towards deeper water and saw why. They were all out there behind me.
Looking farther out I saw a large one (6-8 feet?) just drifting along very slowly. Much of its snout, head, back and tail were above the water. I began working my way towards it very slowly and very (for me) quietly. Glancing around, I could see several other 'logs' floating on the calm waters, one almost a quarter mile away. Closer, several times I saw what would have to be a single gator eye staring at me for a moment before disappearing below the water again. (02/13: Those single gator eyes may well have been turtle or maybe even snake heads popping to the surface for air.)
I spent 5 minutes or so working my way towards my original target and got within 30-35 feet. It was swimming away from me slowly and I just kept pace waiting for it to turn broadside so I could get a picture but it finally submerged. I watched as its wake turned towards me for a couple of seconds. I think I had done pretty well with all these alligators swimming under and around me during my very first encounter with them in a boat. I didn't feel the least bit like a sissy when I turned and ran as that wake drew closer.
In the movies you always see crocodiles sliding silently into the water. Not these alligators. They go into panic mode and would probably trample anything that got between it and deeper water.
Nearing the campground boat ramp I watched a bald eagle circle around the area. Yesterday we watched a couple of others maneuvering in the fairly high winds we were having then.
Approaching my personal launch spot I saw a Ward's heron right near the bank. This is a variation of the great blue heron except it's a little lighter in color, has a whiter head and has tufts on the back of its head and chest.
There's a fish cleaning table on the deck right next to where I launch the kayak. They just throw the entrails into the water and let the birds and other critters feed on them. The heron was feeding off some of these scraps as I neared. It saw me coming and was keeping an eye on me but kept right on eating.
Finally it grabbed a fish head and tried to position it so it would slide down its throat, but no way, it was too large. It kept dipping the fish in the water to moisten it to make it slide down better but that didn't work. It would carefully set the head in the water, spear it with its long bill, flip it in the air and catch it but nothing would work.
After 5 minutes I became a little impatient and closed the gap between us. The heron wasn't about to let this choice tidbit get away so with the head firmly clutched in its beak, it climbed up on the bank away from me and turned to give me a really indignant look. I moved a couple of strokes closer and the heron finally took flight, and there was no way the fish head was getting left behind.