Down the Creek; With a Paddle

It's early Sunday morning; bright sun and few clouds. Here we are at the Earl P Powers Boat ramp in Southeast Gainesvile, Florida meeting our outfitter and group for our paddle down Prairie Creek. 

We head out to Newnan's Lake
  

Until we reach the entrance to Prairie Creek

A narrow, winding creek in a natural preserve area

Many cypress knees

A Limpken along the bank

Another Limpken amongst the cypress knees

The water is high considering all of our rainfall but we still have several down trees to contend with

LLL 'does the Limbo" with this tree. I'm hearing Chubby Checker in the my mind singing "How loooooow can she go?"

Apparently, quite low!  The rest of us got hung up on the other side with a submerged log. But there was no way I was going to be able to get under this log the way she did.

Another log requiring some assistance and a bit of "scrunching"

Prairie Creak is absolutely beautiful to navigate. Well worth the hassle of an occasional "scrunch" and "duck"

Many Apple Snail eggs attached to grass and  cypress knees. Vivid orange in some cases. Unfortunately for the eco system, these belong to an exotic variety instead of the native Florida snail and bodes for an uncertain future.

Not too many alligator out today. Just a few of the "small guys"

A "nature" quiet morning and afternoon.  (Nature is NOT quiet. I mean we heard no machine sounds during most of our paddle)

The creek skirts the eastern edge of Payne's Prairie State park.  Original water flow for the creek empties into the Prairie.  In the 1930's canals were dug to divert the water down to Orange Lake.  Still a very contested issue to this day.  Toward the end of our journey, we are in Camp's Canal and paddle past a weir which determines how much water flows to the Prairie and how much flows to Orange Lake. 

We exit the creek and headed home by 2:30 in the afternoon. Physically tired but emotionally exhilarated both by being in such close contact with nature as well as having challenged ourselves and come through. 

My ice cold tea from the car cooler would not have tasted so good under other circumstances. 

Smile.