“No Wake, Idle Speed” – Goodbys Creek
We put in at the Goodbys Creek boat ramp and first paddled south near the apartments and were quickly turned back by an old steel roadway. The creek was littered with tires and trash and not very pleasant. The paddle upstream took us through a constant series of docks and waterfront homes. Basically the whole creek is “developed” and you have to look very hard to find nature.
Gray on Trout Creek
We continued our practice runs on this impressive creek just south of the Shand’s Bridge. Trout Creek Park is a nice large facility with a large boat ramp and plenty of parking. The paddle upstream was 2.3 miles to SR-16A. The creek started out wide and narrowed after about a mile. Docks and houses covered the east bank. On the west was a private reserve with prominent “Keep Out, No Trespassing” signs posted every 50 ft next to their barbed wire fence. In between houses nature was trying to reveal herself. Not until we passed 16A did the creek go to a pristine state. We were turned around soon after by many fallen trees and branches.
3 boats passed us just cruising. I’m not anti-social, but part of being out on the creek is to find peace and solitude in nature, and being passed by a powerboat with a crew of happy campers is not my idea of getting away. A great paddle if you like to check out docks and everyone’s boat.
Creek Abstract – Durbin Creek
Durbin Creek has been one of my favorite mystery place for some time. I had visited the Bartram Canoe Trail launch point on Racetrack road many times to photograph the impressive creek entry. I thought about buying a pair of waders to go further into the creek to see what was just beyond the next bend. Now I could solve that mystery. Gray and I continued our practice of backing his trailer and unloading the boats. With my small point and shoot, I was gaining confidence in my ability not to destroy my more expensive equipment.
The yellow flies were at the height of their activity. Yellow fly bites hurt, and I have a particularly bad reaction to their bites. They didn’t seem to bother Gray at all. In addition to a liberal application of OFF! I brought along a can of Raid flying bug spray. Turns out that these guys never heard of OFF and you have to swat them out of the sky to get rid of them. Yellow flies are noisy and you can hear them swarming about like a bunch of bees. I think they must be territorial too, as they will annoy the heck out of you for a while and if you keep paddling they will disappear, soon to be replaced by one of their friends. I wore long sleeves and pants but they manage to bite through the thin “expedition” gear I was wearing. Sigh!
Golden Morning – Durbin Creek
We paddled up to the big “clog” at the power lines. We made no attempt to go further, the area was thick with water hyacinth and without a massive effort there was no way to get through. Later we learned that the Clean Waterway Society had cleared the area last year and everything grew back. This is a big problem for the creek, as these plants are invasive and can cause a major disruption to the health and flow of the creek.
Overall we’ve been happy with our boats and our ability to get out to some wild places. All of this is new for us and it is truly a wonderful feeling to know that all of this exists in your backyard. I may never leave this place!
Paddle Dip – Durbin Creek
First trip – Julington Creek from Mandarin Park
Our inaugural paddle! Just installed the Yakima Sweet Roll cradles on my Pathfinder roof rack and managed to get my boat up there. The Cuda 12 weighs in at 70 lbs w/o the seat and that’s a lot of plastic to be pushing on the roof of a car. As much of a challenge is getting it down…and it does slide down fast when you get it going. We managed to put in at the Mandarin Park boat ramp and didn’t realize that on a windy day the river really kicks up some waves and makes it tough to paddle. We made it to the Julington Creek Bridge (about 300 yards!) and then turned around and went west for a bit. The waves were really tossing us around and we ended up working HARD trying to get these big wide fishing yaks back to the ramp. What a workout, not going to do that again. So much for the first ride…it was short.
I’m a native Floridian, born and raised in Jacksonville and pretty much stayed out of the water. We have easy access to a river, the Intracoastal Waterway, and the Atlantic Ocean, plus hundreds of nearby creeks and lakes, but I never owned a boat and rarely did I venture into water based activities. Having spent a lot of time photographing in national parks across the US and longing for new exotic places, it suddenly occurred to me that there is a lot to see and do right outside my door. Isn’t this the usual case with most things, we have to go somewhere new and far away (often at great effort and expense) to find adventure?
My landscape photography interests focuses on trees. I’m usually on a trail or a dirt road exploring and photographing. I’ve been to several creeks and photograph on the banks or a crossing bridge. I was always curious about what lay beyond what I could access because these areas are profuse with different trees and vegetation. Recently I mentioned to my photo buddy Gray Quetti that we should get kayaks so we could find some different places to shoot. He expressed some serious interest in trying this out so we hired a guide (outfitter and naturalist John Pemberton) to take us out. Our first outing was on Thomas Creek and from that point we were hooked.
First paddle on Thomas Creek
Gray did a ton of research on kayaks for photography. We both went for sit-on-top fishing kayaks, I went for the Jackson Cuda 12. We purchased at our local store, Black Creek Outfitters. There’s a lot of information available online on kayak selection. The best advice is to buy from someone who can advise and let you try out several models. Overall I’m very pleased with my boat. Gray ended up buying a trailer which makes it easy for me when we paddle together. I also can transport my kayak on my roof rack after installing a Yakima Sweet Roll cradle.
Doug on Cuda 12 photo by Gray Quetti
Our adventure begins!