02/20/07>Paddling Hontoon Island Area
I'm back in the Deland area mainly to get 60K maintenance on the van. A couple of tornados hit this area a couple of weeks ago. I, of course, left the area a couple of weeks before that. I passed a lot of damaged homes on the way to the put in this morning. Mostly roofs or parts of roofs being blown off. A lot of blue tarp out there now.
Hontoon Island State Park is on Hontoon Island, duh! A ferry takes people back and forth from the island and the mainland for free. I launched the kayak right by the ferry landing on what I think is the St. John's River. It's wide enough but there are a couple other rivers interlacing around here. The Hontoon Dead River and the Banana River, to name two. I'm not quite oriented yet. Ask someone? Nah!
Got $1500 worth of work done on the van yesterday and still need $800 worth of brake work. It's also been pretty cold the few days I've been back in the area. Today went up in the low 70's with little wind.
I put in and turned right (north) which if it was the St. John River, was downstream. I didn't notice any current all day. A couple of marinas on the right followed by smaller houses and docks followed by larger houses and wharfs. Palm trees and Spanish moss covered cypress trees on that side.
No development on the left. Some Spanish moss covered cypress, some palm trees, live oaks and some other stuff including lots of lily pads. Few birds, no alligators but lots of fishermen zooming up and down the river and several large powerboats and houseboats heading out too. Id see 1 bald eagle and a few osprey briefly but then they disappeared.
Right at red marker 46 I found a river going off to the left and followed it. Seemed to be mostly live oaks but no Spanish moss. Still not many birds and no alligators but the fishermen were fewer too... at least for the first 1/2 mile. Then I saw some houses and a whole herd of fishermen so I turned back.
Back on the other river I ran into a 10mph headwind for 1/2 mile then it dropped down. I was out about 3 hours. Just as I got back to the put in I watched 3 manatees go by together. I watched for a while and several more swirls in the water indicating manatees might be underneath but I only saw one surface for air.
02/22/07>Paddling Hontoon Island Area
Tried to get to Hontoon Island yesterday but ran into an accident with fire trucks, etc. and couldn't find a way around it so just hung out for the rest of the day. I went past the same homes damaged by the tornado again today. The interesting thing, if that's the correct word, is 4 or 5 homes in a row, for about 100 yards were missing roofs or parts of roofs but the homes on either side were fine. It must be pretty hard, struggling to meet mortgage payments, trying to get ahead and something like a tornado rips your home apart.
Well, I coulda gone down the St. Johns River but there would definitely be mostly developments on the shores. I saw an opening to the left of Hontoon Island and popped into that. It turned out to be just a big cove so I went around to the other side of the island. Presumably this was Hontoon Dead River.
100 feet wide, mostly moss covered cypress, no palm trees and not many birds. Lots of fishermen though. Signs indicated 'No Wake' because this is a manatee area so they weren't zooming up and down the river. Saw a few smaller alligators. Eventually came to a small overgrown creek that I guess defines the farther limit of Hontoon Island. The river widened beyond that point. I paddled on for a while on this great day and then turned back.