Apalachee River to Causeway III
Thursday, July 29, 2004 brint.adams@us.army.mil
The conditions were about as good as I could hope for on a typical July night. At 6:00 PM, the temperature was starting to come down, there was no wind and the tide was low and still going down. My gator friend was in hiding tonight, as I started out heading east towards the Blue Gill. My stopwatch read 5:21 as I past Blue Gill's and when I reached the Apalachee it was 7:28, so I figured I had a chance for a decent overall time, even though I knew I had following current heading east. The return, was a little slower into the current, but the Blue Gill's to Riverdoc's split was still a reasonable 6:40 out of total 17:10.
The leg out to the drainage culverts under the Causeway was flat and relatively easy to negotiate. The water around the culverts was roiling around some, so I knew it was still draining out. The trip down to the Interstate bridges by Exxon was pretty quick with the direction change of the tide running out. I made it to my turnaround in 37:38. So, the return trip east had the opposite challenges, into the current heading towards the culverts and once past, with a following current the rest of the way back to Riverdoc's. My overall finish time tonight was 56:36, which was an improvement of 1:23 over the 7/7/04 paddle.
By the way, the State continues to work on the old Riverdoc's site. What used to be the parking lot and building foundation area is now very smoothly graded out and looks like they may seed it and let grasses fill in the whole area. All trash is picked up, the old pier is pulled out and the old boat ramp is now only barely visible. The only thing left is a small, low wooden bulkhead and a light pole around where the building came to the edge of the water. By next spring you won't be able to tell that anything was ever there.
The conditions were about as good as I could hope for on a typical July night. At 6:00 PM, the temperature was starting to come down, there was no wind and the tide was low and still going down. My gator friend was in hiding tonight, as I started out heading east towards the Blue Gill. My stopwatch read 5:21 as I past Blue Gill's and when I reached the Apalachee it was 7:28, so I figured I had a chance for a decent overall time, even though I knew I had following current heading east. The return, was a little slower into the current, but the Blue Gill's to Riverdoc's split was still a reasonable 6:40 out of total 17:10.
The leg out to the drainage culverts under the Causeway was flat and relatively easy to negotiate. The water around the culverts was roiling around some, so I knew it was still draining out. The trip down to the Interstate bridges by Exxon was pretty quick with the direction change of the tide running out. I made it to my turnaround in 37:38. So, the return trip east had the opposite challenges, into the current heading towards the culverts and once past, with a following current the rest of the way back to Riverdoc's. My overall finish time tonight was 56:36, which was an improvement of 1:23 over the 7/7/04 paddle.
By the way, the State continues to work on the old Riverdoc's site. What used to be the parking lot and building foundation area is now very smoothly graded out and looks like they may seed it and let grasses fill in the whole area. All trash is picked up, the old pier is pulled out and the old boat ramp is now only barely visible. The only thing left is a small, low wooden bulkhead and a light pole around where the building came to the edge of the water. By next spring you won't be able to tell that anything was ever there.
posted by brint @ 7:03 AM
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