Reaching Beautiful River Rise By Water

Tuesday March 24, 2015
O’Leno State Park
High Springs, Florida

 

 

 

Those of you who follow along with us will remember our hike over to River Rise just a few days ago so you’ll be familiar with how really lovely it is.   If you missed that post you can find it here.

River Rise is just so beautiful that when we discover we can paddle up there from a free county boat ramp put in, we are all over it.  It does mean we have to paddle up the river against the flow for 2 miles or so but then we can float back.

Luckily for us the Santa Fe is not a swift river but still unless you pull over to the side and find a place out of the flow, you have to keep paddling.

 

I really like the Santa Fe for paddling especially during the week and not during the summer.  The river is born in Lake Santa Fe, a spring fed lake 42 miles from O’Leno.  It flows a total of 72 miles from the lake to the Suwanee River which then flows to the Gulf of Mexico.  Rivers and streams seem to me to be like the veins and arteries of our planet Earth.   The Santa Fe is the Suwanee’s largest tributary. 

 

The most famous thing about the Santa Fe is its disappearance down a sink hole in O’Leno State Park and reappearance 3 miles away in River Rise State Park.  That’s where we are going today.  Up river to where it rises out of the ground after its 3 mile journey.  Another interesting thing is that the two sections of the river, before and after the sink/rise are quite different.  I learn all of the following information from a very informative sign at the county dock where we put in.  I want to remember this so I’ll share it here.

The upper Santa Fe from the lake headed to O’Leno runs through a region of wet pine forests and swamps where there is an underlying layer of impenetrable clay.  The rain that falls there is captured at the surface and returns to the river in slow moving streams where tannins from decaying swamp vegetation stain the water the color of tea. 

As the river moves westward toward the sink, the landscape changes to a dry plain.  There is no layer of clay.  The rainwater sinks quickly through sandy soil into the porous limestone bedrock and flows underground to the river.  The many sinkholes, springs, swallets and rises seen along the Santa Fe after the river rises formed as naturally acidic rainwater dissolved the bedrock over thousands of years.  Such a landscape is called karst.   The most dramatic karst feature on the river is the river sink and rise here.

 

More than 75 springs, whose water is filtered by limestone, is remarkably clear and comes from the Florida aquifer,  feed the lower Santa Fe River.   During periods of low rainfall the water in the upper Santa Fe decreases and the springs, which contribute hundreds of millions of gallons of water a day, cause the lower Santa Fe to run very clear.  However during rainy periods, tannin stained water pours out of the Santa Fe Lake surrounding swamps and bottomlands along the way which cause the entire river to turn brown.   It’s a very interesting river.

In the first two pictures above you can see a couple of mushroom sort of looking things in the water.  Coming out of this launch it’s a good thing the river is not too swift since you wouldn’t want to crash into them; they are concrete.  These are the remnant pilings from a wagon bridge built around 1900.   It was the only bridge over the river until the Rt 441 bridge, over which we drive here, was built a quarter of a mile east of here in 1934.  

 

Back to our paddle on this neat river.

High today is predicted to be 69 so the air is very pleasant but not exactly warm. We each wear a jacket over our kayak shirts. The skies are totally cloudy which makes for a white background in all the pictures. Not my favorite.

We head up river paddling against the current.  We pass only about 6 houses with docks along the entire way. I am frankly shocked that this and the fact that all but one of these houses is a very nice distance back from the shore keeping this river very peaceful.

 

 

As we pass by one of the houses I see along the river an uncommon sight.  Wisteria growing along the bank.  It smells fantastic and gives a bright spot of color on an otherwise rather dull weather day.  Beautiful flowers.

 

 

 

The paddle is peaceful and too lovely for words.  A perfect river trip.   I guess we’ve gone about a mile or so upstream when we see the sign that says you are entering River Rise Preserve and State Park.  It is off to the left side and Mother Nature is clearly trying to hide it.

 

 

 

There isn’t any sunshine to coax the turtles out onto the river but we do see this one and then a very interesting shape in the water.  Those of you who have been with us a long time know that I am always seeing faces and animals in the landscape around me.  But this was one of the best.

 

 

 

 

I’m paddling along at an easy pace when I look over and see this.  What does it look like to you?

 

 

I stop paddling and float back to get a full on front shot of this river creature.

 

The river is just exquisite.  Native spatterdock lilies reflect beautifully in the dark waters of the river as do the trunks of the striking cypress trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After about an hour and a half we see our destination.  The River Rise looks just as delightful from the water as from the land.   What a surprise it must be for those who don’t know about the sink and rise if they think they will paddle the river to is source.  Or perhaps those were only early explorers looking for the source and every modern day paddler is already aware of the famous sink and rise.

 

 

 

Just a few days ago we walked these steps down to the water and now we could walk them up to the land.

 

Because we have seen the enormous trees and picturesque land surrounding the River Rise we decide to use the fine two kayak parking space David selects to eat our lunch at water level.

 

The lunch selfie.

 

The lunch views.

 

 

By the time we leave to float back down stream. the sun is finally burning off some of the clouds and blue skies are peeking out.  We hope.   Yes this is a reflection shot of the sky in the river.

 

 

 

The sun brought out the turtles.  We’d only seen one or two on the paddle up.  But floating back they were everywhere.  Turtle lovers get ready.

 

 

 

 

 

The current seems to like to turn David sideways and around backwards.  He doesn’t have a rudder like I do.  He doesn’t care.  He just goes with the flow.

 

 

 

Seems like an unlikely pair doesn’t it.  And an uncomfortable position too.

 

 

 

 

Both legs out.  Wonder why they often seem to have at least one up in the air?  I suppose the only way to really know is to ask them.  It sure takes a lot of energy for me to do that yoga pose on my stomach holding both my legs up in the air.  To stay there for an period of time – impossible.

 

 

 

 

The gray skies turn to a little window of blue among the puffy clouds and then to more and more blue as we mostly float along down stream. 

 

 

 

 

We follow one or several, who knows, kingfishers down the river.  This is the best of the ridiculous number of pictures I try to take of him.  Many just taken a split second after he flies.    But I think this one may be my all time best.

 

 

 

 

 

I feel like we are traveling through a beautiful painting until we hear voices. 

 

 

 

 

 

They are the first people we’ve seen all day except for one hiker at the Rise who left just after we arrived.  On the water, it’s a family. Men on paddle boats. Well Dad and the boys.  One of them was around the bend when I took this picture.  Mom and the girls in canoe and kayak.  

The boaters are having some trouble steering as David floats right toward them.  He’s so mean.  He cut over to the left at the last minute.   It’s true they were on the wrong side but they hadn’t gotten the hang of it clearly.

 

 

 

 

It is just so peaceful floating down the river.  First David is behind me and then he’s in front of me turned around with the camera in his hand.

 

 

 

 

So I give him a look at my water boots.  It’s nowhere near cold enough in the water or outside to wear these but we overlooked our little low cut light weight water shoes drying on the picnic table.  They are always with the paddles, but not today.  Having water shoes makes it much easier to get in and out of the kayaks.

 

 

 

We finally get some nearly totally blue skies.

 

 

 

 

 

By the end of the paddle, the turtles are out in droves.  So different from our paddle upstream.

 

 

 

 

He looks sleepy.  By the end.  me too.  Actually you could take a nap on the way down the Santa Fe as long as it was a fairly short one.  The river will take care of you.   But unless you know the river banks well you don’t want to float on by your take out.

 

 

 

There’s our landing spot.  It took an hour and a half to paddle up and two and a half to float down.  It’s a lazy river and we let it do nearly all the work.   But still, we got some exercise for the day.

 

 

 

The Santa Fe is a very beautiful and interesting river with multiple springs along the way and multiple put in and take out points near by as well.   This won’t be our last paddle on it that’s for sure.