Camping, kayaking and boating in the Okefenokee Swamp

 

Date: 1/17/15 – 1/19/15

Location: Stephen Foster State Park, Fargo Georgia

Camping Site # 49 

For a long time now, Julie has had camping in the Okefenokee Swamp on her “bucket” list. Since we can’t seem to find any campsites in Florida with openings this time of year, we decided to make a reservation at Stephen Foster State Park in south Georgia. This state park is actually totally within the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, which make it a little different than many of the other state parks.

We arrived at the state park on Saturday morning after a very easy two hour drive from our home. In Georgia State parks you reserve a campsite that is suitable for the type of camping you do (tent, trailer, large rig, etc), but not for a specific site, Being that we were coming in on a Saturday we were a little concerned that we wouldn’t find a nice site. But we had nothing to worry about as there were a good number of sites to choose from that would accommodate our trailer. Most sites in this park are well spaced, so you are not right on top of your neighbor.

After we got set up, we ate a quick lunch and then decided to do some kayaking. Near the park store and check-in is a large boat basin and a canal that leads out to Billy’s Lake. The canal has large grassy banks on one side, which makes launching your kayak or canoe very easy. The far bank is swampy, boggy area where he many gators hang out and watch as your get into your boat!!

Coming out of the canal you enter into Billy’s Lake with is a long, narrow lake of about 3 miles in length. For today’s paddle we decided to take a left and head over to Billy’s Island to take the nature walk around that island. It was an easy 2 mile paddle to get there.

It was an overcast and somewhat grey day, but the wind was down and the temperatures were perfect in the low 60’s.

This the GPS track of the track we took to get to Billy’s Island.

 

There’s a dock and boardwalk at the landing, but it was a little crowded with other canoes and motor boats. So, we decided to just pull up on land.

Here is a photo sphere picture of the docking area at Billy’s Island.

Billy’s island was originally inhabited by local Native American's, but later became a small town where many working the lumber industry lived. Back in the early 1900’s there were attempts to build canals and drain the swamp to make timber harvest easier. They finally abandoned that idea and the town on Billy’s Island ceased to exist. But before they gave up, a lot of the swamps cypress trees were cut and hauled out by train on tracks built to cross the swamps.

There’s not much left of the town on Billy’s Island, but theirs is some old pieces of equipment scattered here and there. Also, there is a small cemetery located near the boat docking area.

The hiking trail on the island is relatively short at three quarters of a mile. Below is the GPS track of this hike.

 

On our paddle back to the state park, we took a few side trips in the small creeks that lead deep into the swamp. These creeks are not marked and after your go a short distance you realize how easy it would be to get turned around and loose your way. When hiking or paddling we always carry a GPS and track where we’ve come from. Hopefully making it unlikely we’d get turnaround and lost.

 

While paddling around these back areas, we encountered many flocks of birds and had a few owls screeching back and forth to each other. Besides the birds, there really is no other outside noise. Really a pretty cool experience.

And our GPS track from Billy’s Island back to Stephen Foster State Park

 

On Sunday morning we found the boardwalk that begins behind the visitors center and heads off into the swamp. After about a quarter mile the boardwalk ends, although you can see old sections leading off into the distance. Probably a victim of the fires that ravages these swamps a few years ago.

 

The Okefenokee Swap is huge, taking up about 440,000 acres straddling the Florida/Georgia boarder. Back in 2007 a lightening strike started a wild file that consumed over 600,000 acres in the area, including vast areas within the Okefenokee swamp. Another large wildfire in 2011 burned other sections of the swamp. As a result, much of the area around Billy’s Lake looks like the picture below. A good article about the fires can be found at this link.

 

Here is a photo sphere picture of the end of the board walk looking off into the swamp.

Here is GPS track of our swamp boardwalk hike.

 

Sunday afternoon we wanted to go further into the swamp than our paddling arms wanted to take us. The park offers john boats with small gas motors for rent. We decided to get one of these boats for four hours.

We first headed west on Billy’s Lake as far as we could go. We motored about a mile and a half to Mixon’s Hammock where we turned around and then headed east back towards Billy’s Island.

The Okefenokee Swamp is called the land of the trembling earth, for all of the floating islands of vegetation. But it should also be called the land of many gators. They were everywhere and we passed one after another as we boated by. And those are just the ones we saw. I’m sure there were an equal number of gators that we didn’t happen to notice. 

 

A picture showing the areas of burned out trees from the wild fires that consumed this area.

The Okefenokee is the headwaters for the Suwannee River, with about 90% of the water flowing out of the swamp feeding that river. We passed this sign pointing out the Suwanee Sill where the river originates.

 

Heading north out of Billy’s Lake we followed a river (or a at times a narrow stream!) that is part of one of the many canoe/kayak trails that wind through the swamp. We had hoped to get as far as Big Water Lake which is the northern most boundary for “day use” activity. But the boating was slow with many twists and turn along the way. And we encountered a somewhat large group of boy scouts canoeing in the opposite direction. It was obvious that they were not ever given any paddling lessons as they were bouncing from shore to shore, with almost none of them heading in a straight line. So, we puller over many times to let them pass and found their antics amusing. Although we did feel sorry for the one group with the canoe that had tipped and they were attempting to tow the submerged canoe the three miles back the dock. A few of the adults in the group looked a little grumpy!!

We did make it to the Minnie’s Lake Rest Shelter. This is a structure above the water built on stilts. It was a good place to get out and stretch your legs and have a little lunch. There were a few other groups there and it was interesting talking with them and hearing about their day.

Here is the track of our day on the water in the john boat.

Sunday afternoon, after our time on the water, we found a few of the other short hiking trails they have within the park. The Upland trail winds its’ way from the park road, out into an old old pine forest, which is now mostly gone with some young pines now starting to fill in. The only problem is that about three-quarters of the trail is under water. We had out water shoes on, so we decided to forge on and completed our hike.

And one last photo sphere picture at the half way point of the Upland Trail hike.

 

And our last hike was the Fitness Trail which boarders the camping loops. Along the way they have some exercises for you to do. Julie did some of them and I watched!!

 

On Monday morning it was time to pack up and head back home. Julie and I have added this park as one to make a return trip to and do some more exploring sometime in the near future.

A weekend trip to explore the Dunedin and Clearwater area of Florida

 

Location: Dunedin, Fl

Date: 8/1/2014 – 8/3/2014

 

Julie and I decided that we need to start doing more weekend getaways. With work and all the other activities, time flies and before we know it it’s been months since we’ve done anything out of the ordinary. Being summer in Florida, it’s way too hot for any camping trips, although we do have a week of reservations in the keys for next month at Curry Hammock State Park.  We are really looking forward to getting down there and doing some camping, exploring and kayaking

So, we made a deal. We would take turns planning short getaways and the one doing the planning would get to make all the choices of location and activities and the other would have to just go along (no complaining!!). Also, you don’t have to share any details of the getaway beforehand.

Both of us took Friday off from work and we headed out in the early morning. I had the idea that we were headed to the Sarasota Beach area for the weekend, but that was not the case. Julie decided that we needed a “walk down memory lane”. Julie grew up in Clearwater and I spent my high school years in Dunedin which was a town just north and we met and started dating when we worked at a steak restaurant in Dunedin called Chief Charley’s.

Taking US-19 south, we checked out many areas of interest to us, like the church where we got married, the place where we had our wedding reception as well as the areas where both of our parents lived for many years. In the case of my parents, there were quit a few!!

We eventually made it to the place Julie reserved for us to spend the weekend, called Beso Del Sol. This was a nice “resort” on the intercostal in Dunedin. Below is a picture taken from our balcony showing the pool deck and the boat docks leading out to the water. Way off in the distance is Caladesi Island which is now a Florida State park. The next day we would be doing some kayaking in that area.

And another shot from a park just south of our location during the sunset.

 

On Saturday morning morning we got going fairly early to get some breakfast and then headed to the causeway leading out to Honeymoon Island where we would rent a double kayak for four hours to do some exploring. The Caladesi Island State Park is a short 6/10’s of a mile paddle from the causeway. It was a fairly easy trip over, but being extreme low tide, some of the areas were very shallow around the island.

 

Caladesi Island has a kayak trail which winds through the mangroves surrounding the east side of the island. As you can see below, this was like paddling through a mangrove tunnel. It did get very narrow in parts and we had some people ahead of us there were going verrrrrry slow. But we eventually made it back to open water. We were thinking that we had done the whole trail, but later finding a map on-line we realized that we only did a short section of the trail. I guess we’ll have to make another trip here to do the entire length of the trail.

 

We then started heading back north towards where we started. On the north side of the island there are some nice sand beaches. We got out here and walked around some to stretch our legs. We were getting a little stiff after sitting in the kayak for 2 to 3 hours.

A lot of boaters park there boats in the shallow areas and enjoy the sandy beaches.

Here’s the GPS track of where we paddled.

Later that evening we met up with a friend and his wife whom we hadn’t seen in 32+ years. Julie and I both worked with him at the Chief Charley’s restaurant I had mentioned earlier.  The last time we had seen him was at our wedding. I had found his business e-mail on-line and sent him a message. He got back to us and we made plans for a dinner in downtown Dunedin.

When I was in high school, downtown Dunedin was your typical downtown area which had seen better days. Much of the businesses had moved to the malls, leaving empty storefronts. Well Dunedin has done a great job of revitalizing its downtown area and there is now a great combination of restaurants and other businesses to lure you down that way. We met our long lost friend and his wife at one of theses restaurants and had a great time catching up after all these years. It was kind of interesting to find out that we had a lot in common in our interests, such as camping, our kids sports, etc. 

The next night we walked the half mile to the Dunedin Brewery which is the oldest microbrewery in Florida. We had a flight of beer to get a good idea of what they had to offer and then made our selection from the good list of brews. They also serve food, so we ordered some appetizers as well as some fish tacos. All were great, but the highlight was their chicken wings. They were awesome and went well with the flavorful beer that we ordered.

Sunday morning was check out day, but we wanted to do one last activity before we headed back home and back to “reality”. Pinellas County has a well developed collection of bike trails following many of the old railway tracks that had long been abandoned. The place that we stayed offered free bikes for use, so we took a bike ride on the trail south to downtown Clearwater and then back north along the roads that follow the intercostal waterway.  The Pinellas Trail is very popular and there were many biking, walking and jogging along the way.

Here’s out GPS trail of our bike ride throughout the Dunedin and Clearwater areas.

 

A trip to New England for some family gatherings

 

Date: 6/28/2014 – 7/6/2014

Location: Parsonsfield, Maine

 

In late June Julie and I headed up to New England, flying into Boston. We spent a few days in Marlborough which is the town that I grew up in. My father had moved back there several years ago and the family was giving him party for his 90 birthday. Here’s a picture of my dad and his sister Alice. They are both doing great for their age.

 

After the party had concluded and everything was cleaned up, then five of us made the 2 hour drive up to Maine where two of my brothers and wives own a large home on a very peaceful lake. This is a great place for family gatherings. But this was the calm before the storm. The five of us enjoyed our quiet days before the 23 (give or take a few) other family members joined us for Fourth of July festivities,

Here are s few pictures of the lake taken from their dock. A beautiful place!!

My brother and I got in some early morning fishing on the lake. I caught a few, but couldn't keep up with my him. Plus, I didn’t want to show him up!!

             

The days before the large group of family arrived was also a good time to relax and do some reading. Here’s my niece and Julie during some quiet time.

            

 

We also did a short day trip to one of the dams on a nearby river. We explored the rocks and areas below the dam, even though there were signs warning us of the dangers.

This lake is also great for canoeing and kayaking as there’s usually very little boat traffic. Here’s Julie and my sister-in-law during a late evening paddle.

Julie and I did a few paddles around the lake. Here’s the GPS track of one of those trips.

 

As the fourth of July rolled around, the amount of family at the lake place grew exponentially! At one point there were family members from Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Vermont. We had a great time celebrating the holiday. 

Here’s the youngest member of the Whitney gang. Just joining this world several weeks earlier. He was dressed for the occasion.

 

And the tradition continues. Last year we had the first Curtis Cup Corn Hole Challenge. This was a full day of corn hole competition and finishing with the championship match. So, this year we continued on with the 2nd Annual Curtis Cup Challenge. Curtis is my father who donated some $$ last year to the winners pot. So, we decided to name it after him.

We have to use a chalk board to keep track of the score, since none of us can remember as the game progresses. Not sure if it is old age or the beer, but our memory sure is lacking during the tournament.

Here are some young fans cheering on the competition.

Here’s some not so young fans, also watching the corn hole matches.

My daughter and her husband even came dressed in their corn hole competition uniforms. They came to play and were determined to win and take home the money. Guess they’ll have to wait until next year.

After a long series of matches, the eventually winners were my brother and his wife. This cements the Florida hold on the corn hole tournament winners. Last year their son and his wife were the winners.

 

Another highlight of the weekend is the clam and lobster boil. Things get very quiet for awhile and everyone gets serious about digging into their dinner. Here’s a few pics of everyone chowing down.

 

 

Here’s a few pictures of the gang that had gathered for the family celebration.

 

We also did a few rounds of Thunderstruck, which is now becoming a family tradition. I’m just saying it involves way too much beer and can lead to some wild times. But this year we seemed to somewhat behave ourselves.

A few remaining random pictures.

          

Before we had to head back home we did one more short hike with my cousin from Vermont. We wanted to see if we could make it all the way around the lake. Luckily we were able to make it all the way since I wouldn’t have wanted to turn around. Here’s the GPS track of that hike.