Wilderness Canoeing

One of our neighbours at the campground belongs to a Florida canoe club and invited along on one of their trips. We were excited to go until he told us that they usually see over 200 alligators along this stretch of river. Not wanting to miss such a great opportunity, we called the kids, put our affairs in order and signed on.

We went through a canoe rental company and they outfitted us and dropped off at our starting point. Our friends had not yet arrived so we decided to get the rust out of our canoeing skills. After all, these guys belong to a canoe club! You will notice that in all the photos of us we are wearing our life vests. We are trying to set an example for any grandkids who may check out our blog. Also, we figured that it would be awful hard for an alligator to swallow us with out of these huge things on. A hundred meters up the creek (I'm not sure I like that expression), we spotted our first wildlife, a great Egret. Thats the white dot in front of Grammie.

Around the next turn, we hit the jackpot. Just over Grammies right shoulder is a blue heron, large and majestic. All the other black fowl (or should I say foul) are vultures. Either they heard we were coming or they migrate here for the winter. We later found out the latter was true, but we were on edge till then.

I might as well kill the suspense right away. The temperature was about 40F for the day and apparently alligators don't come out when its cold. We did see a small one swim in front of us but, by the time I got the camera out of its water proof bag, it was long gone. That's all we saw was one scrawny alligator. After worrying about being attacked by hordes of bloodthirsty reptiles, it was a bit of a disappointment really. We did see this and from a distance it looked like an alligator skating across the frozen pond. But, the pond wasn't frozen and that was just a fallen tree trying to tip us over.

Well, our friends and the other canoe experts finally arrived and off we went. This was true wilderness canoeing. We didn't see anyone else or any sign of humanity along the Hillsborough river. It looked like it must have 200 years ago. We spent most of our time weaving around fallen trees, dead heads and sand bars. We soon found out that the average depth was about 3 feet but by then it had started to rain and the life vests helped us stay warm, so they stay on.

Around every turn there more birds to see. Because this area is a wilderness park, few people venture in here so lots of birds roost here for the winter. We saw a number of flocks of white Ibis like these ones.

This is a Roseatte Spoonbill. Their beak does look like a spoon and they are pink because they eat mostly shrimp. Only saw 2 of these; must be uncommon. The shoreline around him was pretty standard, Trees growing in the water and marsh plants everywhere. Probably perfect for shore dwelling birds such as these.

The trip we took was divided into 2 sections, one 2.5 miles and the other 2.4 miles. Because of the winding overgrown nature of the river, it took us about 3 hours to get to the midway stop and have our lunch. It had rained most of the trip and we were just glad to eat, stretch our legs and have a whiz.

After a nice break we headed out on the final leg of our adventure. You will note by the clothing displayed, that it continued to rain as we continued.

Heres a better picture of a great blue heron. He looked as wet as we did and decided not to move allowing me to get a nice close shot. The river was very windy and as it narrowed, the current picked up. Sometimes we wiggled through a blockage only to be pushed onto a fallen tree by the current. I've never paddled such a constricted route and by the end was getting pretty proficient at almost, but not quite, tipping over.

As we neared the end, the rain stopped and the sun tried to come out. I swear steam was coming off our life vests. No alligators, no dunkings, and no serious disagreements, I'd call that a darn good trip. As we paddled up onto the beach, the truck arrived to take us back to our car; perfect. One of the other canoeists, a canoe instructor, said they were worried we'd be able to keep up and not long into the trip felt we were pushing them, so he felt we could fit into their rarefied level of canoeists. Just another canuck in a canoe, nothing special.