02/01/00 Paddling Jonathon Dickinson, North:
The Loxahatchee River (the upper part anyway), located near Hobe Sound, Florida, is a narrow, shallow, twisty, turny river surrounded by mangroves. It flows through the Jonathon Dickinson State Park, the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge and is, itself, a National Aquatic Preserve (whatever that is) and designated as a National Wild & Scenic River.
I'm spending a few days (the weekends are booked solid) at the Jonathon Dickinson S.P. and after setting up camp launched from their boat ramp directly onto the Loxahatchee River. With nothing better to do I turned north out of habit, into whatever wind was blowing, not much. Also out of habit, I set the launch site waypoint in the GPS. With all the twists and turns in the river, the GPS would be useless for navigation (I don't use 'track back') but would let me know whether mileage from the boat ramp was increasing or decreasing, letting me know whether I'm coming or going I know, that's something I don't often know.
At the boat ramp I was talking to a couple who were telling me where they had just seen a couple of alligators on the way in, in case I wanted to check them out later. I told them I was going to get nose to nose with a big bull alligator on the river, tickle him on his belly and make him roll over like a little puppy. Without missing a beat, the guy, in a deep southern drawl says, "If you make make him roll over, look and see what he's got on his feet. I've always wanted a pair of alligator boots."
Before launching I noticed a sign saying "Please Do Not Feed The Wildlife". Gawd, I certainly hope not.
Paddling up the river it seemed there was a 2+ foot tide. The (sipping) straw like branches from the mangroves were several inches from the water and permanent watermarks could be seen another 18 inches up the branches.
I spotted several Ibises food shopping in amongst the mangrove roots and branches but then didn't see any more the rest of the day. The Ibises appear (at least from a little distance), to have orange legs and bills. Many Ibises strolled around the campground I just left and seeing them up a little closer, they had pink legs and bills. Gawd, I hope it wasn't from the water they were drinking.
Poking along in a little cove I could see a mid-size bluish, gray wading bird that had just caught a frog. The frog's head was in the birds mouth and it was trying to get the rest of it down. It would dip the frog in the water and then shake it, I guess trying to maneuver it into line with its gullet. It did this over and over and eventually succeeded and the frog went down its throat. I could clearly see the outline of the frog for a minute or so in the bird's throat and then it was gone.
I used to have a cartoon of a crane swallowing a frog. Here too, the frog's head was in the crane's mouth and the body and legs dangling out. But this frog had its hands wrapped around the crane's throat, preventing it from swallowing it any farther. The caption read "Don't ever give up!".
I took a picture of the frog dangling out of the bird's mouth. If it turns out I'd love to put it and the cartoon on the web site, side by side. If anyone has that cartoon scanned in, I'd appreciate it if you'd send a copy to clydesisler@hotmail.com.
Mangroves lined the shoreline with Australian Pines behind them in some places, cabbage palms in others and some kind of short bushy tree in still others. Many tall trees had died off in other places. While taking a self-guided nature hike later on I discovered that with man changing the nature of things in the area, salt water now comes farther up river where it used to be mostly fresh water and those are probably cypress trees that died because of the salt water. Actually I thought cypress grew in brackish and saltwater. I'll have to investigate further.
On many parts of the shore, a 2 foot plant would grow in bunches. I originally thought they were baby palm trees and then thought maybe they were sugar cane, which I've never seen growing. These plants looked kinda like big green onions. If they weren't palms or sugar cane I dunno what they were.
I just followed the river as it turned from north to west or east and sometimes even south. I would follow a channel off wherever it led until I ran out of river and then poled my way backwards until I had enough room to turn around. I became a little disoriented a couple of times and turned the GPS on for a little while to ensure the mileage was still moving in the right direction.
Spanish moss covered a lot of the hardwoods farther up the river which, I assume were cypress. Spanish moss isn't a parasite and doesn't live off the tree its attached to. It just uses it for support and gets its nutrients and stuff from the air. Some of these trees also had little pineapple type things growing on them. These I assume are some kind of parasite.
As I paddled along I'd scare up an occasional blue heron or several light green turtles would plop off a log where they'd been sunning themselves, into the water. I saw a couple of large osprey nests near the tops of dead cypress trees while several birds chewed away on freshly caught fish. I scared up one 18 inch fish. It, in turn, scared the crap out of me because I naturally thought it was a 19 foot alligator coming after me for lunch.
Speaking of which, the Acadia reacts somewhat strangely to quickly shoaling waters. I was paddling along, not paying much attention to the bottom when I passed over a sandbar. The rapid change in depth did something to the Acadia and it swung to starboard. Once it started that turn, it was a little difficult to correct. I naturally thought a grand daddy sized alligator had me by the rudder.
I didn't know what they were at the time but many dead cypress tress lined certain areas of the river. The base of their trunks are very wide but taper off quickly to the normal trunk size.
On the way back, against I mild wind and a mild current, I decided to see how fast I could make the Acadia go. The GPS said I was cranking along at up to 6.3 knots. I'm kinda skeptical. I doubt if a 14 foot boat is that fast and I really doubt if these tired old muscles can move a 14 foot boat that fast, but that's what the GPS said.
This was a quiet, peaceful and very serene paddle. There's an outfitter along the way with 50 canoes for rent so I don't know how peaceful it would be on a weekend but on this Tuesday I could imagine myself alone on the Amazon somewhere.
02/03/00 Paddling Jonathon Dickinson, South:
I put in at the Jonathon Dickinson State Park again today, this time turning south. As I was unloading the kayak and gear, a dozen or more turkey buzzards landed in a number of dead trees across the Loxahatchee River, joining the half a dozen or so already there. And then they all just sat there watching me make my preparations as if they knew something good (for them) was going to happen to me.
What, me worry? Not me, not until I rounded a bend heading south. There, lined up on dead cypress trees and dead, topless palm trees were another 50 or so turkey buzzards, every last one of them with a little smirk on its face as I paddled by, down this Corridor of Doom. Some of them had their wings spread, letting the wind blow the stink of death off of them. Others were preening themselves, picking off vermin, bits of dangling flesh and other disgusting morsels.
I wonder what supports such a large number of scavengers? I don't think they fish or hunt. I think they just eat dead stuff. They probably just sit there and wait for old people to paddle by and tip over. Then they swarm in and... Actually some was telling me they feed off of local garbage. I can believe that because I saw a number of them hanging out around houses along the river.
As soon as I broke out of the State Park grounds, it was one house after another. For the most part they were only 50-100 feet apart and this went on for mile after mile. Most of them seemed to be in the 250K to 500K with a number of 1M to 1.5M scattered here and there. Like I know what I'm talking about, price wise. Me, trying to figure where to get the money for a new tent. The UV's have really weakened mine and it's being held together with duct tape and string.
Just about every house had a dock and a boat lift. The boats ranged from 20 foot outboards to 40 foot cruisers and not a sailboat, kayak, or canoe among them. Several jet skis though.
After a few miles the Loxahatchee widened from a couple hundred feet to a few hundred yards. The houses got a little larger but they certainly didn't decrease. I had lunch in the middle of the river, paddled a little farther with the same views and called it a day.
Blue herons were fairly numerous but other than that all I saw was a lone Ibis.
It was a nice enough paddle but I doubt if I'd do it again on my own.
02/05/00 Paddling Jonathon Dickinson, North:
The Halifax River is kinda my benchmark for wildlife on the Florida rivers. Maybe because it was my first paddling experience in Florida. More likely because of the abundance of palm trees, pelicans, herons, egrets, dolphins, sting rays, etc. In any case, I've been mildly disappointed in subsequent paddles when measuring them against the Halifax.
Today the Loxahatchee River became the benchmark for scenic rivers, not only in Florida, but anywhere. And like the minor disappointments after the Halifax, I suspect will have similar reactions to smaller rivers I paddle after the Loxahatchee.
After paddling on the Loxahatchee River the first time a few days ago, a woman told me about a place 4 miles upstream of Jonathon Dickinson State Park called Trapper Nelson's and how pretty the river was above that. The area I had paddled was below Trapper Nelson's and was exclusively mangrove shores as far as I went. Certainly nothing to get excited about and it did make me wonder about the river's National Scenic River status.
So I got an early (for me) start knowing I'd have to paddle 8 or more miles upriver against an outgoing tide and probably into a 10 knot wind and then have to paddle back down again, probably against the tide again. As it turns out, I had probably stopped just around a bend before Trapper Nelson's the other day. I saw a dilapidated covered wharf on the river but just kept on going, thinking I'd check things out on the way back.
Sure enough, as the lady said, as soon as I passed Trapper Nelson's, the shoreline began to change. Before I could begin to admire the scenery though, I was stopped by a huge old cypress lying across the river. That didn't cause me any concern because the top of the log was only a few inches above the water at that point.
What did cause me concern was the river made a sharp, dog leg left at that point and the branches of the cypress appeared to choke off any way through. I thought I might pick my way through it but thought of other deadfalls I'd seen along hiking trails. When you got through one, there was always another one thicker and more dense waiting for you up ahead. I decided this was more of an obstacle than I wanted to deal with without a chain saw so I turned around and headed back downstream.
Something, however, made me turn back upstream. When I got to the cypress again, another kayak popped out from among the branches. I asked the guy if he'd come down from Riverbend Park (just off the Florida Turnpike on SR 706 in Jupiter), at the other end of the trip and he said yes and the river was clear.
I watched him as he powered his way over the log and continued on downstream. Well, if he can power over it, I can too, so I took a running jump at the log. Well, I didn't hit it exactly head on but I didn't power over it either. I did get to perform an exit to a level higher than the level of the boat. The only other time I'd done that was at poolside when I kinda rolled out of the boat on to the deck of the pool.
How to describe this river? Well, it's been added to my list of gotta dos whenever I'm in this area and I don't really have too many of those. The Loxahatchee River, from Trapper Nelson's on is very narrow, rarely more than 40 feet wide, usually less than 30. It's a sandy bottom and surprisingly there's a 2-3 foot channel most of the way.
There's an abundance of giant (to me) ferns with 6-8 foot leaves along the banks. Many large, dead, moss covered cypress trees with their conical shaped trunks line the shores in some stretches as do large vine covered live oaks in others. The jagged stumps of many cypress and other trees stand in the water and on the banks. In some areas, clusters of large cabbage palms huddle together as if seeking safety in numbers. Palmettos were plentiful as they formed an overly thick and prickly carpet under the slash pines in the background. Other types of ferns and bushes grew in mixed profusion in certain sections.
Plenty of bass, mullets and some kind of striped fish could be seen darting away in the water. Other than that, the only wildlife I saw were a few blue jays and a couple of blue herons. I don't know if this is what they call a black river or not but the water is generally very dark, probably from decaying vegetation.
Certain stretches of the river are blocked off from the sun as oaks and other trees reach across to the opposite shore. Spanish moss and vines hang down off of them, sometimes trailing in the water. This deadens the sound in an already quiet and serene environment. There no outside noises except for the dip of my paddle and the occasional rush of small ripples.
Dead trees lie across the water, in the water and under the water so much of the time you're going over, under or around various types of obstacles. I got to use more draw strokes, forward and reverse sweeps than I ever have before and spent a fair amount of poling and pulling myself along. But there was always a way through and I could see little evidence of the river being groomed for paddlers. This is the type of paddling I traded the Necky Looksha IV in for the four foot shorter Perception Acadia. (that's a bunch of 4's right in a row).
This was certainly a different kind of paddling for me. My main concern was that I didn't hurt myself with the paddle. Going through some areas I was like a dog with a big bone in its mouth trying to get through a narrow doorway.
A couple of more miles upstream, I started seeing the first of the paddlers following the normal trip course downstream. I think the rental company upstream must have held everyone at the starting gate and then let them out on the river one by one. 10-15 canoes passed me one after another and I don't think they were all part of the same group. They kept asking why I was paddling upstream instead of down. My standard response became "To meet all you interesting folks coming downstream. All you guys get to meet is the really dumb ones paddling up the river".
I continued upstream until I got to a small dam where a couple of kayaks were having lunch (the people in the kayaks, not the kayaks themselves, silly). They (the people) indicated there was another hour of paddling to Riverbend Park and that section is supposed to be the prettiest of all. I had lunch with them and we were all entertained when a know it all in a rental canoe stood up in the canoe and promptly fell over without getting his companions wet.
My tendonitis was acting up from paddling against the tide and current for 3 hours so I decided to call it a day and go with the flow on the way back down and leave the last stretch for another day. I stopped at Trapper Nelson's on the way back. This is the homestead of an eccentric who lived on it in the 30's and donated it to the state when he died.
If I hadn't gone back to that downed cypress a second time, I would have missed a thoroughly enjoyable paddle, one that ranks up there with my all time greats. I shall return!