Port Leon Trip
I just got back from a fun paddle down the St Marks River from the Fort down to a little past the ghost town of Port Leon. It was a great trip for a gorgeous afternoon!
I got to the parking lot near the San Marcos Fort ramp and set up then ran to the bathroom. When I got back and elderly gentleman was admiring my kayak, Tica. He asked several questions and then asked if his wife could take a picture of us and the kayak. It was a little odd, but pleasant enough, and then I was able to slide on out into the river. The tide was very near its maximum height when I set off but it was still coming in a little so I had some tide to fight as I headed downstream. But the real killer was the wind. As usual the breeze at the coast was much stronger than inland and was blowing about 8 knots from roughly SSW. This meant I was headed pretty much dead into the wind most of the time. I almost wished I had chosen to taken Vida because the river is wide enough to tack, but in the end I was glad I had taken Tica. For one thing there was a lot of boat traffic at moderately high speeds and it would have been a pain watching out for them as they came planing up or down the river while I was tacking through the channel. And the workout was more fun anyway. One thing is for certain though-- I much preferred motorboats headed down river because I could surf their wakes a little without robbing me of any speed. The upriver wakes just stole my forward velocity from me and, if big enough, would threaten to swamp the boat.
At one point I passed a working fishing boat and he cut across my path with a steep wake that ran over my foredeck into the cockpit. This wouldn't have been too bad, but he was also dumping fishy water over the side as he passed, leaving with a distinct piscine perfume. Eventually I passed a creek that I thought was Port Leon Creek. I became confirmed in this belief when I saw the remains of an old dock a little ways farther south. I wanted to pull up closer, but there was a guy anchored there fishing and I didn't want to bother him. So I kept going until I decided that I had had more than enough "downstream" paddling against tide and wind. I turned around, passed back by the guy fishing, and then turned Tica's nose into the mouth of Port Leon Creek and I went up its winding path through salt marsh. Several times I scared a gator as I quietly rounded a corner and it would plunge into the water with a prodigious splash. The creek was sinuous but reasonably wide and quite deep all the way up to where the salt marsh grasses started to be replaced by a more fresh water assemblage. Not long after that I came upon a long dike and a broken dam which had once formed Port Leon Lake. The sides were quite steep and the water was quite deep right up to the dike walls which made land exploring a bit tricky. I looked around a bit and then went on up into the overgrown lake as far as I could. I then followed a small side canal along the edge of the dike until the stream closed in on me and I ended up turning around in slightly less than a kayak's width space.
I headed back down Port Leon Creek, again surprising gators and the occasional mullet. When I got back out into the open river I found that wind had picked up to probably over five knots and with the tide starting to turn there was a lot more chop. Thankfully I was going to be going with the wind this time. As I got closer to the Fort and the confluence with the Wakulla, I crossed over to the left bank to go up the Wakulla for a bit. I passed some large rafts of cormorants just hanging out as I went up the Wakulla. But I soon realized that it was getting late and I should head back in. Plus the Marine Patrol was pulling inspections on many passing boats. I had my PFD and everything was shipshape, but I didn't want to rish the hastle, so I turned back down to the confluence and then back up the St Marks to the boat ramp park. All in all, I would say that it wasn't a half bad afternoon.
I got to the parking lot near the San Marcos Fort ramp and set up then ran to the bathroom. When I got back and elderly gentleman was admiring my kayak, Tica. He asked several questions and then asked if his wife could take a picture of us and the kayak. It was a little odd, but pleasant enough, and then I was able to slide on out into the river. The tide was very near its maximum height when I set off but it was still coming in a little so I had some tide to fight as I headed downstream. But the real killer was the wind. As usual the breeze at the coast was much stronger than inland and was blowing about 8 knots from roughly SSW. This meant I was headed pretty much dead into the wind most of the time. I almost wished I had chosen to taken Vida because the river is wide enough to tack, but in the end I was glad I had taken Tica. For one thing there was a lot of boat traffic at moderately high speeds and it would have been a pain watching out for them as they came planing up or down the river while I was tacking through the channel. And the workout was more fun anyway. One thing is for certain though-- I much preferred motorboats headed down river because I could surf their wakes a little without robbing me of any speed. The upriver wakes just stole my forward velocity from me and, if big enough, would threaten to swamp the boat.
At one point I passed a working fishing boat and he cut across my path with a steep wake that ran over my foredeck into the cockpit. This wouldn't have been too bad, but he was also dumping fishy water over the side as he passed, leaving with a distinct piscine perfume. Eventually I passed a creek that I thought was Port Leon Creek. I became confirmed in this belief when I saw the remains of an old dock a little ways farther south. I wanted to pull up closer, but there was a guy anchored there fishing and I didn't want to bother him. So I kept going until I decided that I had had more than enough "downstream" paddling against tide and wind. I turned around, passed back by the guy fishing, and then turned Tica's nose into the mouth of Port Leon Creek and I went up its winding path through salt marsh. Several times I scared a gator as I quietly rounded a corner and it would plunge into the water with a prodigious splash. The creek was sinuous but reasonably wide and quite deep all the way up to where the salt marsh grasses started to be replaced by a more fresh water assemblage. Not long after that I came upon a long dike and a broken dam which had once formed Port Leon Lake. The sides were quite steep and the water was quite deep right up to the dike walls which made land exploring a bit tricky. I looked around a bit and then went on up into the overgrown lake as far as I could. I then followed a small side canal along the edge of the dike until the stream closed in on me and I ended up turning around in slightly less than a kayak's width space.
I headed back down Port Leon Creek, again surprising gators and the occasional mullet. When I got back out into the open river I found that wind had picked up to probably over five knots and with the tide starting to turn there was a lot more chop. Thankfully I was going to be going with the wind this time. As I got closer to the Fort and the confluence with the Wakulla, I crossed over to the left bank to go up the Wakulla for a bit. I passed some large rafts of cormorants just hanging out as I went up the Wakulla. But I soon realized that it was getting late and I should head back in. Plus the Marine Patrol was pulling inspections on many passing boats. I had my PFD and everything was shipshape, but I didn't want to rish the hastle, so I turned back down to the confluence and then back up the St Marks to the boat ramp park. All in all, I would say that it wasn't a half bad afternoon.