I know this is the wrong season for some of you but, I’m flying in on the 13th will be hitting the water some during the 10 days that I’m there. I’m open to anyone willing to brave the conditions and paddle rivers, intracoastal, or coast. Also hoping to do some surf launching/landing practice since I get none of that out here in the desert.
My general location will be centered around DeLand and I don’t have the ability to travel super far from there.
So hit me up if there’s an interest.
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Check out Florida kayak junkies on Facebook, I had a great experience visiting Florida with them. There are many nice up and back paddles in that area, some of the parks charge admission and have launch fees so factor that in. The delorme map guide is really good for marking launches and I used it even more than my guidebooks
O, it’s such a beautiful area. Silver Springs, Alexander springs, Wekiva river/Rock Springs Run system and others. I envy people who’ll see all that for the first time. Unfortunately some of these areas are a bit crowded, like Silver Springs or Emerald cut on Rock Spring run but that is because they are really beautiful.
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You have named several of my favorites.
Thanks for the suggestions of places but I spent my youth there and have paddled pretty much everything you’re going to recommend multiple times. So my first time runs on such rivers was canoeing them as a kid. What’s new to me is the intracoastal and ocean/Gulf.
For this short trip I’m just looking for others that are willing to brave the rain and heat. Later this year I’ll probably be back for a longer stay while working on my mom’s new place and will want to do some longer paddles on Gulf and/or intracoastal, possibly multi day runs.
And I’m not a Fakebook person so that’s always a challenge.
What can people tell me about the St Johns River between Lake George and Hwy 44, and 44 to Lake Monroe?
I guess technically that would be the other direction.
The St Johns is one of the few that I’ve never paddled.
My mom and the people that she paddles w/ are smaller river paddlers so they avoid the St Johns as “too big, too much development, and it has boat traffic”. I’m not opposed big water or semi urban paddling and rough water from powerboat wakes is just practice for other turbulent situations.
I haven’t done that section of the St. Johns River. I have canoed all of Juniper Springs Run down to Lake George and took out at a dirt ramp on the south end of the lake before you get to where the river exits the big lake. I paddled that about 6 years ago
I have also paddled Little Lake George and the Ocklawaha River where it comes into the lake. There is a launch at the bridge crossing the river on Hwy 19. this area isn’t so built up as the west bank of the lake and river are part of Ocala National Forest. That was back in the 80s I was paddling a canoe back then. I don’t have any recent experience on that section.
Thanks! I looked at several longer runs, one of them being Rock Springs Run to Wekiva - Wekiva to St Johns (past party island) - St Johns to Lake George. As it was I didn’t end up w/ time to do any real paddling, just a short 5 mile paddle w/ my mom.
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I was also hoping to do some beach launches and landings for practice . . . it went poorly. First off that tropical storm came by just after I got there and the waves were bigger than I wanted. The next chance I had was a Saturday and I took the 45 minute drive to evaluate the situation. As it turned out there were way too many swimmers/waders in the area. On the next opportunity, the day before flying out, the waves were forecast to be low so we headed out at dawn.
The first thing that I found difficult was that the short waves were breaking right about where the water was deep enough to start floating the kayak. The next issue was that the skirt I had in Florida was totally insufficient for pushing into breaking waves and imploded. I already have an appropriate one on order for my next trip out.
Now some “how to” questions and maybe @sing or @SeaDart or some other coastal people can weigh in here.
On my return in at some point a swell started to lift the stern and I felt my speed increase. I was using a stern rudder to stay straight and that was working well until I watched my bow bottom out in the trough and go under . . . that ended my uprightness.
So during that I felt like I was too far forward on the swelling, how do you back up so that you’re not so bow down?
And how should I have responded to the bow starting to go under?
I’m using a 17’.4" poly Eclipse/Sealion.