The following was posted on Bacon's Facebook page about 16 hours ago
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=211683466253957&id=180579572697680Quote:
So today. Let’s see how I can describe my morning. I woke, very nervous about making sure I saw the takeout at Big Shoals. FYI no more signs or crashed sunk boat at the takeout. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Big Shoals is the only Class III rapid in Florida. It’s not particular tough but the rocks are very sharp and have eaten many boats and hurt some unlucky people. Ie Even I’m smart enough to know it to chance my race with attempting this. (Wow am I finally growing up) So after a couple hours of very anxious paddling I start to hear Big Shoals. Eventually get to the takeout and am relieved I didn’t miss it! Very proud of myself I unpack part of my gear, haul my boat up the incline, put it on the cart, repack it and start the 3/4 of a mile or so portage. My goal, under 30 minutes. I get all of 200’ into it when I realize there are trees blocking the portage road. I leave the boat to investigate further. Clearly the portage must be intact I tell myself. I’m not the first fool to come through here since the hurricane. Well probably the first fool with a battleship, I mean Kruger. So I search and search. The only thing I can locate is a half-a&@ trail leading at a step incline from the lookout down near the shoals and the partially back up before more large trees block it. That certainly was not going to work. I go back and walk through the woods and begin looking for a way through. After about 10 minutes and lots of dead-ends I begin to contemplate running the shoals. I look at them again, and with the low water they look even worse than normal with lots of exposed rocks. So back to searching. After another 10-15 minutes I have a plan in place. I WILL NOT BE BEATEN.. I tell myself. I dig out my shovel/hatchet and get to work. I slowly hack a path through the first thicket of palmetto palms and some other type of small trees. Just enough to squeeze my boat through. Then a short distance later another thicket and then the third with its 90 degree turn at the end to get back on the original trail. There off the cart goes the boat to slide under a downed pine. Back on the cart on the other side and off we go. The “culvert” area is washed out more than usual and seems a bit more damaged, but I was able to pull right over it. The rest of the portage went pretty smooth. I’m finally back in my boat two hours after I started. Bleeding, exhausted and way way behind schedule. I just start to paddle and get settled in, when I hear a woman yell, “Hey, lookout!” I don’t see anyone around, again, “You better watch out!!” I look up and from up on the top of the bank on a trail a woman is intently watching the water with her camera pointed in my direction. She then yells, “There is about a 14-15 foot Gator right in front of you!!!” WHAT!!! I look and see nothing, I look back at her and she says he just went under, “He is HUGE!” Great I think, I just put my shovel/hatchet away, now is when I really need it. I slap the water a couple times with my paddle and double time it out of there! I never saw the gator, and doubt he was that big, but I don’t want to find out either. I’m sure if Jarhead was around he would have dove in and got himself a new outfit out of the gator.. boots, jacket, belt and hat.. but that’s what you get from a man who chooses MRE’s over steak! Anyway I digress... so after Big Shoals is four smaller rapids that were fairly uneventful.. by fairly uneventful I mean that they each took a year off my life and added a hundred more grey hairs.. but I stayed upright. FYI I am a sailor not a paddler and certainly not a “rapids” paddler! To put things in perspective I later ran into a guy in a completely open canoe. He said he ran the shoals the day before. I asked, “Big Shoals” surely he must mean Little Shoals. He replied yes Big Shoals and “I’m from Virginia, that’s a ripple compared to what I’m used to.” Well then, don’t I feel pretty silly... also the little shoals are not things I was worried about maiming me or anything, more the thought of flipping the boat, gear everywhere, catching a rock wrong and breaking a bone. In the summer I would tube down these things in a bathing suit, without a second thought.
I didn’t make nearly the mileage I wanted today, only 40 miles but that also takes into account two hours for my portage. I’m really hoping for the current to pickup tomorrow and a good strong day out of me!
So here are a series of pictures from my day start to finish.
Keith