Big Shoals

Hamilton County is bordered on three sides by rivers and an additional river runs through it.  The Suwannee is the eastern and southern borders and the Withlacochee forms the western limits dividing us from neighboring Madison County.

The largest whitewater in Florida is located on the Eastern border dividing us from Columbia County.  Today we set out to see the Big Shoals located in a state park.  The day was uncommonly warm for February at 83 degrees.  We followed the signs off highway 41 in White Springs.  A little before four p.m. we turned onto the recently scraped dirt road leading to the park, traveling a little over a mile to the park and parking area.

We walked down to the river and heard no whitewater.  In fact, the Suwannee was calm with little current.  As we started up the path, a family  returning from the shoals, told us it was about a fifteen minute walk.

We wound through the path (I neglected reading the sign showing the distance!) and passed under old live oaks and through palmettos seeing an occasional spring bloom here and there.  The day was still with little breeze under the partly cloudy sky.  The path had an occasional root and changed elevations fairly frequently.

We pressed on.  Twenty five minutes into the walk, we heard the whitewater.  Five minutes later, we saw the falls.

The website describes the shoals, “Big Shoals State Park features the largest whitewater rapids in Florida. Limestone bluffs, towering 80 feet above the banks of the Suwannee River, afford outstanding vistas not found anywhere else in Florida. When the water level on the Suwannee River is between 59 and 61 feet above mean sea level, the Big Shoals rapids earn a Class III Whitewater classification, attracting thrill-seeking canoe and kayak enthusiasts.”

I’ll take their word for it.  It was pretty, but we were already regretting not having water with us.

As we neared the end of our hike back to the car, I sat, leaning against the rough bark of an old oak tree, hot and thirsty.  As I rested, I wondered  if I never made it back to the car if there were any bears in the woods.  Klep walked ahead and met me just before I got back to the parking lot with bottled water.  He is a very good man!

We felt really good as we celebrated our success in the air conditioned car as we headed toward the setting sun and home on the other side of the county.

Swamp to Sapelo Island

We breakfasted at the hotel, exchanging pleasantries with two couples headed down to South Florida from points north, grateful that we were headed just a few miles east to Sapelo Island, off the coast near Darien, Georgia.

As we awaited the departure of the ferry, we listened to workers for the University of Georgia marine research facility discuss the upcoming super bowl, we enjoyed the sights of the muted winter color of the marshes and the glassy surface of the water at low tide.  I had forgotten no see ums, one of the plagues of most coastal regions in early morning and late afternoons when the winds are calm, but I got a reintroduction to them.  The miniscule creatures were thick and menacing, temporarily robbing us of the serenity of the scene.

Underway at 8:30, the trip took only twenty minutes.  We were greeted by our tour for the day, J.R.,

who quickly incorporated us into a larger group of eight which contained a couple returning to the island who had lived there for years.  We enjoyed the extra insight we got from their remarks as we toured the fifteen mile by four mile wide island.  Europeans first arrived on the island in the fifteen hundreds and have been there ever since with the island going from plantation to timbering to a rich man's private possession, and now to an educational research facility.  During the plantation years, the ancestors  of the inhabitants of Hog Hammock were brought here as slaves.  Some of their culture is still seen on the island with some of the women still weaving the grass baskets which are an art form of the Gullah culture.

The island has many stands of ancient live oaks, many types of pine trees, and is reminiscent the coastal areas of the southeaster United States before they were over built and over developed.

Since there are few inhabitants on the island, 43 currently with five school children, there are few vehicles about.  The tourists who come to rent the available houses or to stay at the Reynolds mansion, get

around in golf carts.  Riding around the island is a bumpy affair over small narrow roads.  Unfortunately because of the natural beauty of the island, some of the long time residents have sold property to people to build vacation and a few rental places.  The Bird Houses are an example of this, houses on stilts which look out over the marshes to the distant ocean.  In the seventies an acre of land sold for twenty-five thousand dollars.  Now an acre brings about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.  J.R. stopped for a few minutes at the one store on the island which he laughingly called the Sapelo Wal Mart.

Many of the cottages in Hog Hammock were brightly colored; most had screened in porches which also serve as sleeping porches through the summer season.  Behavior Cemetery dates back to slave times.  One of the Baptist Churches on the island was built with lumber which washed ashore after a bad storm.  The people of the church had been praying for money enough to build a church when this happened.

Many of the buildings used by the University of Georgia were built by R.J. Reynolds who would fly down for weekends in his DC 3 and land on the air strip on the island.  He built a large fountain for one of his wives and when she complained about something, he detonated a stick of dynamite in it.  The fountain still stood, but the windows in all the surrounding buildings were broken out.  He said obviously the fountain was meant to stay.  The wife, he divorced.

The island has many birds including the wood stork which I saw when walking on the boardwalk to the pergola built deep in the woods in what was planned as a garden.

Some of the more familiar large birds were sharing a midmorning confab in a tall tree by one of the estuaries.

Toward the southern end of the island is a mansion which was last restored by R.J. Reynolds and now is used as a hotel.

After entering the front through the deep columned porch, we came to the music room with a white grand piano.  Next to the piano set a cannon.  We wondered if perhaps it was to encourage the piano players as they performed.  We picked up our lunches here, and headed to the nearby beach for lunch.

The waves were gently lapping the shore of the almost deserted beach as a slight breeze blew in off the water.

Our last stop before heading back to the ferry and the mainland was the lighthouse which was built in 1820 .  The lighthouse has been damaged in several storms through the years but recently went through a renovation and stands today as a reminder of all the history it has seen down through the almost two hundred years their on the coast of Georgia. It is still an operational lighthouse.

 We enjoyed the sight of a few more birds as we sat atop the ferry returning to the mainland, feeling the wind blow and the warm sun beaming down.

We spent some time in the Sapelo Island Visitor's Center, set our course toward home, and watched the clouds build in the western sky.

It was good to get away; it was good to be home.

Running Away to the Swamp

January has come and gone. With the tenth anniversary of Klep's retirement, we decided it was time to run away from Mosquito Gardens and the lengthy to do list.  We didn't want to run far.  After the heavy fog of the last few mornings, we were afraid we would have a difficult traveling morning, but the day dawned as near perfect as any February day could be.  We decided to head toward the Atlantic Ocean with our first stop the real swamp, not that football field down in Gainesville.  We saw more real gators than I had ever seen in my life.

We made our first stop the Okefenokee, the Land of the Trembling Earth.  After a quick lunch

under the picnic shelter of the National Wildlife Refuge, we boarded the boat with some authentic flat land foreigners from up north and headed down the canal built by Henry Jackson in an effort to drain the swamp in the 1890's.  Fortunately he died before the last seven miles were built and his effort became known as Jackson's folly.

Our boat captain Steve

kept up an informative narrative as we slowly traveled over the tannic waters through cypress, pines, and finally old stand hardwoods dripping with Spanish moss all along enjoying the gators,

big gators, little gators, mama gators,

and daddy gators, all sunning along the banks of the canal, gators swimming bank to bank,

turtles (soft shell, snapping and gator) cavorting on driftwood and in the water, and warblers singing in the trees.

We passed kayakers dipping their oars in

the water and gliding along being pretty much ignored by the gators before we turned into Chessers' Prairie where we saw both great blue herons and white ibis. The water on the prairie was only about three feet deep over very deep deposits of peat.

After we turned and proceeded back to the dock, we passed a tree with a large bard owl out viewing the goings on.

We took a leisurely drive through the refuge, stopping briefly at the old homestead before we set the GPS for Darien and an early supper.

We enjoyed crab stew and oyster po'boys at Mud Cat Charlies and called it a day.