Byrne's Lake
Sunday, February 20, 2005 brint.adams@us.army.mil
Due largely to Larry McDuff's charisma and magnetism as a group leader, upon arrival at the Bruno's lot, I was not surprised to see a number of vehicles carrying boats. After only posting this as a flash paddle on Friday, we had ten paddlers in nine boats push off from the Byrne's Lake launch area at around 1:00 PM. The skies were fairly dark and threatening, but with a slight breeze and a warm 76 degree temperature, we were energetically off and paddling. The group consisted of Larry, Mary, Nick, Roland, Margaret, Dottie and I in kayaks, with Mike and Sara in their canoe.
Larry decided to go straight for the gator den, so we paddled downstream and took the first left into a side branch. Larry and a couple of other paddlers in the front were greeted with the same large gator I wrote about on our January 22nd trip, just a month ago. However, this time he was awake, saw us coming and silently slipped into the water while we were still 25 meters away.
We continued out to the Tensaw River and poked our noses out into the Tensaw's choppy waters. We debated briefly about paddling across to Gravine Island, but decided to turn and head back. After passing the park area, we continued as far as we could upstream. I broke out my saw, which allowed us to continue for another 100 meters or so.
This is a beautiful and fun little paddle of about 4.5 miles, which took us about two hours. Although the landscape was still overwhelmingly winter brown, there were some hints of green starting to pop up and some golden club starting to poke out of the water along the bank. It won't be long and spring will arrive in all its glory.
Due largely to Larry McDuff's charisma and magnetism as a group leader, upon arrival at the Bruno's lot, I was not surprised to see a number of vehicles carrying boats. After only posting this as a flash paddle on Friday, we had ten paddlers in nine boats push off from the Byrne's Lake launch area at around 1:00 PM. The skies were fairly dark and threatening, but with a slight breeze and a warm 76 degree temperature, we were energetically off and paddling. The group consisted of Larry, Mary, Nick, Roland, Margaret, Dottie and I in kayaks, with Mike and Sara in their canoe.
Larry decided to go straight for the gator den, so we paddled downstream and took the first left into a side branch. Larry and a couple of other paddlers in the front were greeted with the same large gator I wrote about on our January 22nd trip, just a month ago. However, this time he was awake, saw us coming and silently slipped into the water while we were still 25 meters away.
We continued out to the Tensaw River and poked our noses out into the Tensaw's choppy waters. We debated briefly about paddling across to Gravine Island, but decided to turn and head back. After passing the park area, we continued as far as we could upstream. I broke out my saw, which allowed us to continue for another 100 meters or so.
This is a beautiful and fun little paddle of about 4.5 miles, which took us about two hours. Although the landscape was still overwhelmingly winter brown, there were some hints of green starting to pop up and some golden club starting to poke out of the water along the bank. It won't be long and spring will arrive in all its glory.
posted by brint @ 6:03 PM
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