The search for Bear Creek

Saturday April 6, 2013
Site 9 Ochlockonee River State Park
Sopchoppy, Florida

 

Saturday April 6

Today after breakfast and packing a lunch.  We take the kayaks down to the boat launch where we pump up the Sea Eagle so we will have kayaking for three.   I “should” have taken some pictures of this for those who haven’t seen it before but I just plum forgot.

 

This is a very BIG map but you’ll need it.

 

The park has a couple of nice places to put into the Ochlockonee River and a paddling trail of 7.5 miles down Bear Creek.  It’s a beautiful day and this looks like a great trail.   See the above map, it’s marked in red.

David gets this map from the ranger station and after waiting for several motor boats (a hazard of week-end paddling) we set off to the right as he directs.  See the boat dock labeled on the map. Luckily this is in the opposite direction of the bigger wave making boats. 

 

 

 

David has the map while we are paddling.  We’re following the relatively straight red line down to where it cuts across through the squiggly red bear creek back to the Ochlockonee River and back to the ramp.  A nice circle.  And the nicest thing is that we will be going with the river all the way as we cut across.  Going with it to the Creek, through the creek and back out the other side.  NICE!

Although at the beginning we can hear the bigger noisier boats; as we begin to paddle, things get quieter and quieter.   I wonder and ask David what is this creek called.  He says this is a part of the river. (see map)

 

 

 

 

 

We paddle quite a long way before we get to “the river”.

Later we find the map has no bridge on it at all.  The map looks like a satellite image so why didn’t it show the bridge?   We never do figure that out.  The river is much rougher than the water we have been in.   We go straight across and start down to the Bear Creek turn in which is supposed to be the first left.

 

 

 

 

 

As we cross the river, on the other side we see this osprey nest with the resident at home.

 

 

Oh my,  paddling back up.

We paddle with the river down and down and down and finally we determine that somehow we have missed bear creek.   Now we have to turn around and paddle back up this river against the current.   I don’t have pictures of that.  It wasn’t fun and I couldn’t stop paddling.

By the time we find Bear Creek David has determined that he misread the map.  That the Boat dock was not where the sign on the map was but where the arrow pointed to and we had turned incorrectly immediately. (see map)

We had actually gone to the right out of the boat dock and down the little dark squiggly line rather than going to the left and directly into the river.  It was a lovely little stream and we are all glad that we spent more time there than on the busy river.  If we had just turned left when we got to the river, we’d have been fine.  But we were already past Bear Creek before we came out into the river. 

 

 

 

We find Bear Creek finally.

We have spent most of the afternoon going the wrong way and figuring out what went wrong so we have only a little time in Bear Creek and are sorry we will not have time to come back and do it right before Carrie leaves.   But it is back across the river for us.  The water is much less rough now later in the afternoon and there are fewer boats.

 

 

So back to our little creek we go and back to the boat dock. 

 

The Sea Eagle prefers backwards.

David has been having a bit of trouble with the Sea Eagle all afternoon.  It keeps turning him around and prefers to go backwards.  I jokingly tell him I think he must have put the seat in backwards.  That turns out not to be true.  We wonder now if didn’t have the bottom pumped up fully enough.  We don’t use the Sea Eagle often and probably should look up some directions and keep them with it.  Or get some advice from those of you who use yours all the time.   But we had fun and David got very proficient at paddling backwards.

 

   

 

 

 

We Finally Find the Final Four.

After our wandering kayak, we decide we’ll have dinner and watch the NCAA Basketball Final 4.  We don’t have any teams in the final 4 but we all like basketball and have watched ACC and then NCAA basketball for years.  BUT, apparently the only CBS station is broadcasting from the North side of Tallahassee and we are 30 miles south of Tallahassee about 10 miles from the Forgotten Coast.  So we can’t get CBS on TV at all.  Bummer……….but Carrie says she knows how to get the NCAA on the computer so that’s what we do.

Congrats to you Howard!

 

    

This sure has been a day of searching for things.