One of the first things I wanted to check out when I moved to Tallahassee was the springs and rivers. Gainesville is pretty renowned for having awesome outdoor activities, and I had been hearing Tallahassee actually rivaled the Gainesville area for natural attractions, so I have been excited to find out for myself. One of the places I was most intrigued to seek out was Wakulla Springs. Wakulla is one of the highest magnitude springs in the world, over 200 million gallons a day flows through Wakulla, or about 15,000 gallons a minute! All of this empties out into a clear river called the Wakulla river, which eventually meets up with the St Marks river, and then the gulf of Mexico. Wakulla is so deep that there are Mammoth, Mastodon, Ice Age Camel, American Lion, and Giant Sloth bones still found regularly at the bottom by divers. Wakulla was the site of several Tarzan films, as well as the Creature from The Black Lagoon. Despite all this history Wakulla is more well known in its recent history for an infamous event. Back in 1987 the Wakulla river was the scene of one of the most gruesome and graphic killings of a human by and alligator ever. An FSU student had been seen traveling up river while snorkeling. Serveral minutes later a glass bottom boat filled with tourists passed over an 11 foot alligator when people on the boat realized the alligator had something in its mouth. They immediately recognized the legs and flippers of a human being were being dragged along the bottom by this enormous alligator. The park was temporarily closed, the alligator was eventually trapped and killed. But to this day even a quarter of a decade later all I hear when asking about Wakulla is "There are gators everywhere there" and "people get killed by alligators there". Well let me tell you about my adventures on the Wakulla river, and rest assured I did not see a single alligator in my five hours spent on nearly the entire length of the river.
I left my house around 12:30. I would have left much earlier, but it was in the 40's out and the forecast had it in the mid 70s by 2, so I decided to try and time my arrival with the arrival of warmth. It only took me around 30 minutes to reach Highway 98 where the last bridge over the Wakulla is. There is a small canoe and kayak outfitter located right next to the bridge, but I brought my own so I just parked underneath the bridge, took my boat off, and prepared to launch.
Perhaps it was because it was a Saturday. Perhaps it was because it was the first warm Saturday of the year. Perhaps it was because it was the last Saturday of spring break. Perhaps it was because of the proximity of a reasonably priced outfitter. Whatever the reason I have never seen so many Kayakers on a single stretch of water before in my life! I think I saw at least 100 different boats on my time on this river. Now I usually like to find a little alone time on the water to enjoy a couple of beers or a left handed cigarette, but unfortunately the amount of people on the water made it difficult for me to do so discretely. I did take advantage of the company. Seeing as how I rarely have a paddling companion I do not have a lot of pictures of me on the water, so I asked a nice couple to take a few pictures of me for my archives, and they were happy to oblige. As well I realized I did not have a bottle opener with me that day, and one fellow was more than eager to help open my beers in exchange for one of his own.
The river itself was so beautiful. Because it is exclusively spring fed the water is almost perfectly clear. It reminded me of the Itchetucknee river, only much wider like the Santa Fe. Also like the Santa Fe there are many houses along it with docks and boats along the side. On this particular day I saw many people sitting out drinking on their docks, using their boats as sun decks, and I even saw one man in waist deep water building a new dock, obviously unafraid of deadly river gators.
Along the journey I saw lots of wildlife. There were numerous herons that would sit on the water and when you got within 10 feet of them they would take off, quickly skipping across the water for a few seconds before taking flight in a magnificent display right in front of you. There were countless turtles. The smaller ones seemed to jump the second you approached them, but the larger ones would sit patiently up until the moment you pulled out a camera, then they too would make a swim for it. There were a rare few turtles who bothered to hang out and listen to my inane prodding while I took their pictures and made like Austin Power's was their photographer. Yeah Baby!!
So after about two hours of paddling upstream I made it to the next bridge. Just past this bridge was Wakulla state park, and they had put up a fence across the entire river to keep boaters out of the park. There was a hole in the fence big enough to kayak through, but I did not want to contend with glass bottom boats or angry park rangers, so I just turned around. This fence would officially mark the half point to countless boaters journeys.
On my way back I encountered many of the same wildlife I had on the way up, save for one spectacular out-lier. As I drifted back I noticed a group of about 4 boats floating with all the occupants staring directly down. Of course the group curiousity was too much for me to ignore, so I paddled up to inquire as to the spectacle. Now if you recall even though it was in the mid seventies that day, it had actually been below freezing the night before. As such several warm blooded water creatures had found the 72 degree spring water up river much more inviting than the freezing cold gulf water 10 miles down stream. So there in the middle of the river were two gigantic manatees, one much larger than the other. My boat is 9 feet exactly, the smallest of the two was about the same size so I would estimate he as about 9 feet as well. The larger of the two was nearly twice that size, probably about 14 feet in total! Seeing these gigantic creatures swim underneat my small craft was amazing, although I feared if either of them tried to surface that I would be joining them in their swim, along with my cell phone, camera, and expensive left handed cigarettes. So I snapped a quick picture and took my distance to avoid any aquatic mammal complications.
I returned to my car just in time to realize I was sunburned. It is always the worst when you start to see the burn while you are still out in the sun, because you know that it is just going to get worse later. It is like when you stop drinking right when you start to feel sick, if you already feel it it is too late, because it is only going to get worse from that point even if you stop right then and there. And that, my friends, was my adventure of the week. No alligators to speak of, just turtles, birds, and gigantic aquatic mammals. The stuff that groovy is made of. Until next time.
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