Kayak – Travel with Goneguru

Paddling to Darien

In an earlier post, we described and illustrated what the flooded Altamaha was like on our Georgia Conservancy paddle trip. This post will take you down the river and through the marshes to Darien. Remember the water is still up.

We left camp headed for Darien, with most of us leaving our gear up to dry knowing that we’d be shuttled back to camp to pick up cars and belongings. On the water, we passed under the abandoned bridge that had threatened to be a boat magnet on the day before. Once we were safely downstream from the bridge our expert leaders from the Georgia Paddlers Association and the Georgia Conservancy gathered us up for the paddle to Darien.

The Altamaha is a big river and on our day on the river it was moving fast so we could easily spread out to an unmanageable degree. To prevent this, the lead boat stopped our forward progress occasionally, however the few stops did little to dampen the enthusiasm of the group

Experienced paddlers and novices both found their stroke and let the mighty river roll them along. Of course, the Altamaha doesn’t actually flow through Darien so one of the concerns of the leaders was making sure that the flotilla didn’t lose any members because they missed the cut off into the creek. The creek, Stud Horse Creek, had a great name and served to provide passage over to Lewis Creek.

The creek wasn’t that small but if you didn’t know where to turn you would certainly have a problem. We all made it safely down the Altamaha to the creek where one of our safety guides was paddling in place and pointing us in the direction to go. A mile or too into the creek and you began to realize the diversity of the lowland river. We had seen the wide Altamaha with the water out of the banks and now we entered an area of reeds and water grass. A place where we keep a sharp eye for alligators but saw none. You’ll have to wait for the post on the Georgia Conservancy trip to the Okefenoke to hear the alligator stories.

The Altamaha and the river system around it was once a bustling timber industry river route with log rafts built upstream and floated down the river to Darien. Someone decided that the winding river channels weren’t meant for that so, before the Civil War, slave labor was used to build a canal. Our venture through Stud Horse Creek served to put us in position to re-enter the Altamaha just upstream of the Rifle Cut.

This hand dug canal stretches for a mile across the lowlands and provided us with a short-cut to Darien. Called the “rifle cut” because of its straightness, it is now only a curiosity. The canal doesn’t seem large enough to have been able to handle rafts of logs and indeed the thinking was that erosion would make the canal larger and therefore useable. It didn’t happen. However, because you are in the low lands near the ocean you do need to know about your tides because the water in the rifle cut is greatly influenced by the tide and you might find yourself paddling a little harder than you anticipated if you judge the tides incorrectly. You don’t really want to paddle against the tide for a mile.

You probably know that the trees along the banks of a body of water such a river or stream lend to lean over the channel, but that seemed extreme as we were going through the rifle cut. As you see in the next picture some of these trees seem to have defying gravity for quite a while.

The rifle cut takes you into the Darien River above its confluence with Cathead Creek and on the west side of I-95. It is a bit disconcerting to arrive back at civilization coming under a concrete and steel overpass where thousands of cars pass every day, with almost none of their occupants ever getting the chance to see what we got to see on this trip to Darien. Of course, the trip had to end so we pulled our kayaks up to the boat ramp near Skipper’s Fish Camp. We came to lunch at Skipper’s on this trip and then returned to Skipper’s later in the year when the Bike Ride Across Georgia ended in Darien.

Of course, tied up by the board walk along the river, are all the fishing and shrimping boats that are still in use in Darien. Nearby stand the ruins of the buildings from two hundred years ago when lumber ruled. We’d never been to Darien before, yet we wound up going there twice in one year. Because of that, I had to tell you about getting there and invite you to come paddle along with the great people at the Georgia Conservancy.

The Dry Tortugas west of Key West

70 miles west of Key West sits a group of islands that when first discovered by the European explorers where reportedly home only to birds and turtles, hence the name Tortugas in honor of the Turtles. Attempts at making them useful were thwarted by the fact that there is no fresh water on the islands, thus the dry was added to the Tortugas.

Nevertheless, the United States Government in the early 1800’s determined that the islands were vital to the security of the southern shores of the United States and began building Fort Jefferson. They built this house upon the sand and although it has had an interesting history, including a stint as the prison holding Abraham Lincoln’s assassin’s doctor, one Dr. William Mudd who was convicted of treason for setting John Wilkes Booth’s leg, the fort was never finished in accordance with its original plans. It was sinking too much and became obsolete while being built. Today, a small park service contingent and tourists on vacation, along with the occasional wayward Cuban refugee, are the primary people interested in Fort Jefferson and the Dry Tortugas. To get here, you can take the ferry, from Key West. The boat trip takes a little over two hours and day trippers can come to the island and stay until about 4:30 pm when the ferry returns to Key West. For the lucky few, however, overnight camping reservations are available. The reservations are limited and need to be made well in advance, however, the ferry ride can be arranged the day of your trip. If you don’t want to ride the boat for 2+ hours to get to the Dry Tortugas you can also take a seaplane from Key West for approximately the same price as the ferry. The seaplane, makes two trips per day and the guests get to stay about the same amount of time as the folks who ride the ferry. We spoke to the pilot who has been flying this route for the last several years and he says he has no intention of giving it up. Who can blame him, with living in the Florida Keys and making two short trips a day as his primary job? The plane is bigger than it looks, so if you want to be an overnight camper you can get your gear out here on the plane, however, we’d recommend the ferry. You can bring a cooler or two on the ferry which comes in handy since there are no provisions available on the island. Remember that you will be in the DRY Tortugas and that there is no water available on the island. Fill the coolers with ice and water and what ever other beverages and perishable items you will need for your stay and jump on the ferry. You can also get to the island if you are lucky enough to have your own private boat or a charter. While we were there a resident of the east coast of Florida showed up in his boat and anchored beside the fort. He single-handed the trip. I think I would have brought a friend. The limited campsites include a permanent grill and a picnic table, so you are essentially car camping from a boat, with no way to get to a store.

You are in a small grove of trees just to the south-east of the walls of the fort and there is not much else on the island. There were about 8 of us who came over on the boat and another 5 or 6 who came to the island on a private boat so after 4:30 in the afternoon the entire island was deserted except for the campers and a lone ranger who stayed in his quarters inside the fort. We were fortunate that we had great weather and were treated to an amazing spectacle in the sky at night as there was no ambient light to diminish the stars. We sat on the beach in the first picture above just south-east of the fort and were amazed at the stars you never see around civilization. The fort is an unfinished marvel.

As noted above, during the decades it was being built the sheer weight of the millions of bricks began to make the fort sink, thus only the first and third levels of the fort were ever outfitted with cannons. Further, the invention of rifled bore cannons soon made the smooth bore cannons installed on the fort obsolete. The garrison stationed at the fort had to be truly miserable and the letters on display inside the small museum attest to the fact. Their uniforms were wool and they were required to wear them while stationed here even though the tropical heat and humidity would at times make them unbearable. A doctor and his family was stationed here, but ironically, the doctor fell ill and died from typhoid fever while Dr. Mudd was imprisoned here. Mudd then aided the sick and was credited for nursing many of them back to health. Eventually he was pardoned for his role in treating these patients after having been imprisoned for treating the wounded John Wilkes Booth. You will also be entertained by the permanent residents of the Dry Tortugas: the birds including the seagulls and the pelicans. The eastern part of the island is a bird sanctuary and you are not allowed to go there, but the pilings of the abandoned and long demolished coal resupply station provide hours of bird watching.

The dark area under the pilings is not grass but rather millions of bait fish in schools. The pelicans dive off the pilings to grab the minnows and the seagulls jump onto the head of the pelicans and try to steal the minnows out of their mouths. In the water, silver flashes cut through the bait fish (see the circled area) as mackerel feed on the minnows. The feeding goes on for hours until near sunset when the birds head off to roost. We were here in September, the shoulder season in Key West, when there were few tourists and lots of time. If camp overnight here, you may never have a more peaceful night. I’ll update this later on with a few more notes.

Altamaha to Darien with the Georgia Conservancy

This is the first of four posts inspired by a phenomenal group of people who are advocates and conservators for our great outdoors and plan and facilitate great outdoor experiences for the rest of us. For this a personal debt of gratitude is owed to the Georgia Conservancy and their Mr. Bryan Schroder who Ramrods their adventure outings. We had gotten to know Bryan a little at one of the presentations he participated in at an REI store when we started kayaking and then again on a kayaking tour of the Okefenokee Swamp which we will highlight in another post on the blog in coming weeks, but this trip on the Altamaha was the turning point on resuming the Goneguru blog and sharing what we saw and encouraging you to meet up with us along a trail or around the bend of a river.

The Altamaha float to Darien is part of the Georgia Conservancy’s Heartland Rivers series of outdoor adventures. Go to their link above and you’ll get full data on this great series of canoe/kayak trips sponsored by the Conservancy and open to anyone. Better yet, go to the site, become a member, make a donation to preserve our waterways, and then take a trip with the Conservancy. We had been signed up for this trip for months and had regularly gotten updates from Brian about what to expect on the trip, accommodations for tent campers, kayak and canoe rentals, and basically any information any level paddler would need to prepare for the trip. However, as the date drew nearer the forecast on the Weather Channel grew more ominous. A huge storm was projected to cross the Altamaha on Saturday as we paddled down to Darien. Being on the wide Altamaha, the largest river in Georgia and one of the largest on the East Coast, in the middle of a violent thunderstorm with high winds wasn’t on any paddler’s bucket list. Brian reported that some paddlers were dropping out due to the weather and that the Saturday paddle had been changed to an out and back across the river into the tributaries with the longer downstream paddle moved to Sunday.

Most of us gathered at the Altamaha Regional Park just inside Glynn County, Georgia on Friday afternoon, with some choosing to join us early Saturday morning. It made little difference as the frontal system provided us with grey skies, cool temperatures and high winds throughout Friday and into Saturday morning. The Altamaha was flooded out of its banks and was roaring toward the ocean. As we enjoyed the low-country boil dinner under a shelter on Friday night, Brian and the other experienced paddlers, many from the magnificent Georgia Canoe Association, began to prepare us for the next morning’s transit across the river.

Looming just below the launch point at the campground is a massive abandoned railroad bridge and midstream island that threatened to act as a boat magnet for those who didn’t judge the current correctly. Brian and representatives from the GCA talked about the crossing and strainers and what our plan was to be. The next morning we had a safety briefing before we could enter the water and once on the water a GCA paddler demonstrated how to cross the river and went to the other side to mark our target channel for entry into the back water.

One we had safely crossed the river, we headed up into one of the creeks that feed into the Altamaha. As noted the river was flooded out of its banks and the storm that had passed the night before had given us a downward temperature shift and grey skies that made the daylight paddle a little surreal.

Looking upstream, we could see that there was a clear channel for the creek as we first entered it, but our hosts and guides had warned us that the seemingly tranquil waters could be dangerous once the channel narrowed and we began to get into areas where water didn’t usually flow.

They explained that strainers are any obstruction that stops an object on top of the water from moving with the water as it flows past. Thus, when the water is out of the banks, overhanging tree limbs and shrubs reach down to and below surface of a water. A paddler who gets into one of these and grabs on will find that the water will take his boat right out from under him and gravity will put him into the water.

I can assure you that we were well-instructed and informed of the dangers, nevertheless, two of our paddlers got to experience the effects of strainers first hand and were ingloriously helped back into their kayaks, wet but un-harmed.

Of course the inhabitants of the wetlands adjacent the river have to move when the river floods and that includes the snakes. This picture isn’t very good, but you get the idea as to why there is another reason not to get caught in the strainers.

We were a cautious but not timid group so we dutifully filed through in single file where needed and kept our eyes on our fellow paddlers in case the need arose.

Sometimes the fog, flood and remnants of bygone days were simply eerie. The railroad had been built across the tributaries and presented a an eerie reminder of man’s abandoned encroachment into the river wilderness. Sometimes it wasn’t an intended abandonment at all but rather the river reclaiming its own property. We came across a fish camp with a canvas and wood hut and a porcelain sink. Of course, you’d be standing in thigh deep water to use it on the day we saw it.

After a few hours of paddling around in the creek and the flooded woods along the Altamaha it was time to head back across the big river to our camp. The GCA paddlers and experienced Georgia Conservancy paddlers, staff and volunteers took great care of the in-experienced paddlers and all the paddlers from novice to gnarly veteran finished up the day on the river with smiles and agreement that we had made a great day out of a day that threatened to be completely unusable.

That night under the big pavilion at the park, we were feed on barbecue with all the “fixin’s” or a vegetarian meal starring portabella mushrooms. Either way you couldn’t go wrong. The campers were as varied as their kayak experience with some in motor home RV’s and some in tents provided by the Georgia Conservancy, but they all agreed the trip was amazing. The weather had begun to clear and we were promised fair skies the next day so each and everyone was ready to get back on the river the next morning to head downstream the fifteen miles to Darien. If you would like to feel what its like to go on one of these amazing trips go to the Georgia Conservancy website and sign up.

Georgia State Parks: Endangered Species!

We decided to add kayaking to our skill set, partially because we attended a Georgia Conservancy/REI lecture on paddling the rivers of central Georgia and partially because a friend recommended Paddle Georgia to us as another adventure. We knew that we would like to start this outdoor activity with a group, so we decided we needed to take a lesson before we burdened any group with a pair of absolute newbies. REI’s Outdoor School offered several classes on kayaking and since I have a tender shoulder and back, we thought kayaking might be easier than canoeing, so we signed up.

Our class was held at Ft. Yargo State Park, near Winder, Georgia. We had never been to this state park, so we looked it up on their website and learned that they offer a wide variety of outdoor opportunities including camping, hiking and fishing. We checked with the park and found that we could reserve a campsite on the lake in the park for the Friday night before our class as well as Saturday night after the class. We chose a walk in campsite on the lake. The view of the lake was beautiful, and although the location is only an hour from Atlanta and just off Georgia 316, it feels like you are in a wilderness.

100_0246 — Break of day camping in Ft. Yargo State Park

While setting up we encountered another camper who said he had spent a lot of time at the park, but that he had heard that the park was likely to shut down by 2015. We decided not to take his word for it, so before we left on Sunday we decided to check with the ranger station and see if he was correct.

Before we got to talk to the ranger we found out a lot about the park ourselves. You can get details from the link to their website in the text above, but here are a few of the notables. Camping is cheap; the walk-in site with an improved tent site, fire ring and picnic table was $23 per night. If you preferred an RV site or true tent car camping site, those were $29 and $25 per night and gave closer access to running water and electricity. All the campsites were within a hundred yards of very nice toilet facilities, with flush toilets, lighting, hot and cold water and showers. If you want to bring a family to the outdoors but don’t want to camp, there are six yurts on a point of land extending into the lake. The view from the yurt balconies extending over the water is fabulous. Each yurt sleeps 6, has electricity, and a heater as well as a hardwood floor and its own canoe. The yurts were renting for $70 per night while we were there. There is a seven mile hiking trail around the lake that goes through the campgrounds; parts of the hiking trail is shared with a 12 mile mountain bike trail around the lake. There’s a beach with a large picnic area and a rental office that rents kayaks, canoes, paddle-boats, jon boats, and paddle boards. There are a lot more treasures, including an authentic 1793 log fort preserved on the grounds, that you can find by taking a visit, calling or checking their website.

By nine o’clock Saturday morning we were standing on the boat ramp inside access B to the state park, near the pier used by the University of Georgia crew teams when they come to the park to practice. The REI Outdoor School had unloaded half a dozen kayaks. Instructors Carson and Jackie greeted us and put us through the ground school phase of the instruction, then we walked the one person kayaks down to the water and gingerly followed their instructions on getting into the boat.

100_0230 — One person kayaks for REI Outdoor School class

With our foot pegs properly adjusted and our thighs pressed against the hull of the little boats, we felt locked in and ready to go. We managed to get in position to watch as Carson demonstrated the forward sweep stroke used to turn the boat, the draw stroke to move it sideways, and the forward stroke and back stroke used to move the kayak along a line. Jackie sacrificed herself for us demonstrating how to eject yourself from the kayak if you happen to tip over. (None of us did). Throughout the morning we watched their demonstration of different strokes and tried to emulate them as we paddled across the lake and back, growing ever more confident that we could do this and that it could be a lot of fun. After a short lunch/bathroom break we hit the water again for a tour of an arm of the lake and concluded our class. We are eager to put what we learned to use on an adventure. These two instructors were as good as any we have ever had in any class. There was no BS and there was no ego of how good they were that overshadowed the instruction. It was great and I highly recommend the class. They agreed with us that REI ought to incorporate the overnight camping with the kayak class and make it a multitasking weekend adventure.

Later that afternoon we pulled the hybrid bikes off the rack and rode around the park, stopping at historic Ft. Yargo and marveling at what our pioneer ancestors went through. Then, Sunday morning we hiked the seven mile trail around the lake. From a spot across the lake from the beach, we watched as a religious group baptized some of their members in the lake. Trail runners and mountain bikes were few, but we encountered a couple and in each case the behavior was courteous and sharing. It was a great walk in the woods by a lake.

Then it was time to pull up stakes and head home. Another group of fellow travelers had stopped at our campsite to borrow our stove and a few other pieces of gear for a trip to Cataloochee, so the packing was lighter than usual. Fearing the worst about this marvelous state park, we stopped at the welcome center just inside the main gate. Park Manager Ray Smith, Jr. was sitting in his office just off the welcome area when he heard us ask the staff whether there was any truth to what we had been told. With an upbeat air and an optimistic attitude, he told us that it was indeed true that there was a financial mandate from the legislature that each state park become at least 75% self sufficient by 2015 or else face some service cutbacks. He then explained that the park revenue counted in this does not include the $5 per car daily fee because that money is automatically sent directly to the general fund. Instead, the park has to reach the goal of paying its operating expenses out of such things as overnight camping rental, pavilion rentals, and other user fees that do not include the basic user entrance fee. He said they were already understaffed and expected to make more changes to try to meet the mandate, but, that Ft. Yargo was in the same boat with all the Georgia State Parks, many of whom were not quite making to the needed 75% level. We asked him how their situation would improve and he gave us a simple answer. If more users come and stay overnight or rent pavilions or take advantage of the other revenue generating features, rather than viewing the park as a day-trip, they could make their budget needs. They have the capacity, particularly during the week and during the cooler months.

So, here is the bottom line. Georgia State Parks and the state parks of the other states are a great deal. They provide tremendous value for the buck, but they are taxpayer supported and are on the block. This is something each individual outdoor enthusiasts can do something about simply by choosing to incorporate the state parks into your annual events. Make it a point to go to the state parks and learn what they have to offer and then take advantage of more than the entrance fee. Go camping there, rent a boat, have a party at a pavilion, suggest a state park as a venue for a corporate outing, and tell your friends to do the same. You don’t have to write a congressman, make a donation or do anything you wouldn’t enjoy doing. All you have to do is choose to spend some time in a particular part of the great outdoors.