Canoeing vs Kayaking in the Urban Core

[InnerCityPressure]

@Noone

Thanks for that.  I remember having looked at that photo gallery a few times.  I think that is the first I heard of paddling in the city and I have been intrigued ever since. I would be very interested in going out with you sometime.  If for nothing else, to put a face and experience with the man who has exhibited so much passion for the Duval water and its place in our community!

[Overstreet]

As far as tides, is it best to begin a journey when low is going high to ensure the water level is adequate for the entire trip? 

Is there a height that I should completely avoid?  For example, March 29th low tide is projected to be -0.2 ft.  Would that present a problem?

Also, is it just wind and motorized vehicles that will affect the currents or do certain tides create difficult conditions?

Depends upon where you are going and how long you'll be there. For example, down stream of the Guana dam at low tide canoes and kayaks will likely be stuck in the mud, BUT you can see where the shallows are and don't go there.

Downtown and other city streams there is plenty of water low tide or otherwise. But you might want to remember that sometimes a high tide means headroom gets less. Tides are a dynamic thing. They are affected by the moon phase and season. Winter tides are often much more than some summer tides. Tides at Mayport are usually greater than the same tide at the Buckman bridge. The high tide at Mayport happens earlier than the high tide at the Buckman bridge. Tides travel and take longer to get farther away. That is why you look at tide tables for the area you are going to be.

Wind can control tides. For example a nor'easter will blow water into the river at Mayport. A rising tide, wind blown water and the resulting "daming" of the opposing river current flow may mean higher tide than forcasted. Downtown it may not mean as much as in coastal marshes.

The lower number gives you some idea of how low the water may get. But look at the higher number too. For example when low is a -.2 and high is 3 that  is a 3.2ft range of tide change. You might have a -.2 low and 5.6 high that is a range of 5.8 ft. (add them togeter)  What does this mean? The high will be higher in the second example. That means that in the 6 hour period between high and low tide more water will be leaving or conversely entering. Thus the water velocity will be greater. (ie more current. )

Most fishermen explore a new area by entering on a low tide to see what the bottom looks like and so they can get releif from a grounding by the rising tide. Canoes the same. The last time I got stuck it was  a 4 hour wait. Time to eat my lunch, make a few calls, and take a nap. Not so bad.

.On ..".motorized vehicles " they don't affect the tides so much. They just get in the way. Look out for them though. Some don't see low vessels too well. (canoes and kayaks) Also look for boat wakes and take them head on or quartering. But not abeam.........from the side.

[Ocklawaha]

Most of my paddling has not been in tidal water but in short shallow creeks like McCoy's, Hogan's, Christopher or Fishweir you'll want to go in before the tide peaks and out before it gets deep into its fall. Otherwise do you like GUMBO?? LOL! In more stable or typically deep water like McGirts Creek remember a hikers rule of thumb, 'it's ALWAYS twice as far back.' You can use the tides to lessen that effort. Another way to defeat the fatigue is tandem paddling. With two people you can select a flowing run like Juniper Springs in the Ocala National Forrest and go in two vehicles. Park one at your take-out point, lock it up and ride the other to your put-in point, then you can follow the flow to the end of the line. This makes a 6-8 mile trip easy and fun.

This is a great primer:

http://www.youtube.com/v/UGqiwcIDOgQ?hl=en_US
Introduction To Canoeing


Some of my favorite waterways are here:

http://www.youtube.com/v/WCdfzU_JFeg?hl=en_US
Our canoe trip on the Ichetucknee River 2011

http://www.youtube.com/v/mhLzWyHdAyQ?hl=en_US
Canoeing Through the Ocala National Forest on Juniper Run, Florida

http://www.youtube.com/v/jwUYehv1u5g?version=3&hl=en_US
Paddling the Econ River

http://www.youtube.com/v/ipY9uGpk680?version=3&hl=en_US
The Wekiva: River Out of Time

THE CREME DE LA CREME (But you'll have to dodge the fools in power boats that think it's funny to shave past you at 50 knots).

http://www.youtube.com/v/wx3Q655P7fI?version=3&hl=en_US
Canoeing the Oklawaha River, Florida (The State of Florida FDOT has misspelled the name on numerous maps and on some highway bridge crossing informational signage, this led to the 'Town of Oklawaha' misspelling its name, the town is probably a lost cause but to FDOT's credit they HAVE fixed maps and signs that I have pointed out to them).

The Econ and Juniper Springs run will require a bit more practice due to current, technical obstacles, width and occasional depth issues.

[Ocklawaha]

Ditto everything Overstreet just said! One more little resource you might want to invest in;

Florida's Fabulous Canoe and Kayak Trail Guide



http://www.amazon.com/Floridas-Fabulous-Canoe-Kayak-Nature/dp/0911977252

This is one of the best guides I've ever seen for any state, honestly if this doesn't light your fire your woods wet!

About the only thing we haven't directly addressed is big open water. In a canoe, because of the 'sail effect' unless you have a canoe designed for it, you'll beat yourself to death. Windy days are great if your in a sailboat, don't go there out on the St. Johns in a canoe.

Funny? Last time I did this I had a short run along Lake Monroe to reach Enterprise Creek, the wind was howling and the water was choppy but not so bad on the Enterprise side. Mullet were running and jumping all around the boat (wonder what was chasing them?) and suddenly one came flying out, smacked me in the face knocking my glasses off! The glasses hit the water about the same time as I did, fortunately as I dove DETERMINED I grabbed them and cradled them as I sunk into 3 feet of questionable muck. I laughed until I cried, but it did teach me wind and canoes are not friends. 

[Overstreet]

Ock .... Noone may want us downtown all the time, but it looks as if we have similar river preferences. It is just more relaxing away from the concrete.

As long as we are digressing away from downtown. Lets look at flood levels. Rivers have personalities. Rain causes them to get bigger and faster. Bigger and faster is not always good. For example take the Suwannee River. It reacts to rain events from the Okefenoke (sp) Swamp in Georgia down to the west coast of Florida.  Kayakers can get specific by location but most judge the river by a standard of the level at White Springs. For example, see

http://www.srwmd.state.fl.us/realtimeriverlevels/realtimeriverlevels.aspx

We see that the present water level is 65 ft. That is below flood stage of 77, but well above a normal height around 51ft. The water will be up in the trees. It will be up the walls of some of the limestone clifs. The shoals will be covered. The islands will be covered or partially covered. A rookie could get caught in a strainer, sunken log, stob or overhanging pocket. It is probably too high for most people. Current can exceed most people's ability to paddle against it. It is much more picture worthy when the water is down.

Another thing to keep in mind with trip planning is that road maps are terrible to use to determine distance on the river. Use topographical maps or google earth to measure a trip mileage. Ask me how I know that but wait till we are around a camp fire. It was a loooooooonnnnnnnngggggggg paddle and a longer story.

[InnerCityPressure]

It's unbelievable that you posted this and used the Suwannee as an example.  I was just getting on to ask some questions about paddling the Suwannee.  The times that I have visited, it seems calm enough to paddle against the current making a round trip back to the launch point possible.  Is that pretty accurate as long as the water level is not so high as it is now?

Re: Paddling in town - I am mainly intrigued by that because I could load up the family after school and go for a quick two hour run before dinner.  I know that I could make that happen often. Some of the videos Ock posted and the idea of doing the Suwannee are high on the list for me too!

[Ocklawaha]

We've got some good 'jungle cruises' right here in the city, what we don't have (Okay Seminole Club are you watching?) are decent videos of the paddle. Noone? Hey man we REALLY need to record Goodby's, the Pottsburg's, McGirts/Ortega, Cedar River, Broward River, Dunn's Creek and of course Julington/Durbin. How can we promote paddling in 'The River City' when Youtube is a desert? I bet we could come up with a PADDLE JAX video page.

Frankly if this were anywhere but Florida, Pottsburg and Julington/Durbin would probably be connected with a multi use trail system. Can't be done here because we need those new lanes (without the multi use trail or signature design) on the Fuller Warren!

Overstreet, OH ARE YOU SO RIGHT! Stuck on the Econ once until I was seeing ghosts of Flagler walking around Kolokee! Then there was the infamous 'BULL PICNIC' held on a RAPIDLY evacuated island near Lake Harney. Speaking of bulls, how about real live LONGHORNS? Yeah, you might want to stay off of upper Haw Creek too.

Weather? They still talk about the time my wife and I had started on Juniper and just reached a 'point of no return' when literally out of the blue came the ugliest thunderstorm in the history of the Ocala National Forrest. Lightening was falling like a rocket attack, it was raining mortar shells! Windows were rattling from Arcadia all the way to Spartanburg South Carolina! We used our bent shaft paddles and stood that canoe on its stern as we accelerated up to around 30 knots. Then as quickly as it came up, it vanished, we never got a drop of water on us and we hold the world speed record for the Juniper Run. The Suwannee is a sea of strainers at high water (trees and crap that will catch a kayaker or canoeist like a colander and 'strain' you through as your boat is sunk, torn to pieces, and you drown).



ALAPAHA SUCK

The Econ and the Alapaha come to mind as among the worst offenders in this area. I've seen the Econ, normally a little quiet Pottsburg like stream right up to the bottom of the Snow Hill Road Bridge and 2-3 city blocks wide. Likewise the Alapaha is seasonal, part of the year it is as dry as the Prairie Dog Town Branch of the Red River, the rest of the year it will simply kill you. IF you can catch it in-between, its a beautiful paddle, but PAY ATTENTION to weather reports. Don't go there if its sunny here and due to storm all day in Valdosta. The Alapaha has another danger that novices not only to canoes and kayaks but to Florida need to know. It has 'sucks.' The Alapaha Suck is deadly dangerous but beautiful, between flood stages and dry stages the river flows south to the suck and drops into a cavern under Florida. Near Lake Harney, 'Osteen' area, about 1985, I reported to the Audubon Society that I sat and watched (at some length) a Ivory Bill Woodpecker (extinct?) after he grabbed my attention with a strange telegraph like two step.

[Overstreet]

A "suck" is where the river goes into a sink hole. Conversely a "rise" is the opposite. Santa Fe river has a pair of those.

One nice thing about downtown, Julington Creek, Browns Creek, Goodbys creek, Arlington river, etc is that they all have bridges or overhanging concrete structures that you can hide in/under during thunder storms. I've done it in kayaks and the center console. Just look out for the bridge scuppers. They are road drains that drain direct, ie straight down, to the river. The water will be COLD and can fill a canoe or open boat in a short time.  Remember too that lightning can strike three miles ahead or behind  the storm clouds so take shelter early.

[Overstreet]

Are alligators a threat? The prospect, however unlikely, of becoming a hungry reptile's afternoon snack is the only thing keeping me away from kayaking around Jacksonville.

Only if they associate you and food. Now if someone has been feeding them (note illegal in Fla) they will be trained to come to people for food. Then you are in trouble. Most gators sound......submerge....before you get close. Kayaks, canoes and people sticking up out of them are bigger than their normal prey.

Of course when it comes to gators there are the orange and blue variety that are unpredictable.

[bobsim]

  Great thread going on folks!

  I'd like to offer our experiences on the local waterways, some are just drop dead gorgeous! Our trip logs give gps data and tracks are shown on a map with a slide show of the pictures we took while paddling. The idea is to give some firsthand info about each location and take lots of pictures so you have an idea of what's ahead. Hopefully encouraging others to get out on these local treasures. Here's a link:

http://www.everytrail.com/profile.php?user_id=233228  Zooming in on the small map in the upper right may be easier to navigate than browsing the trips.

  Also if anyone is interested the river clean-up is this weekend. 

[fieldafm]

Paddling tomorrow after work downtown with the Jumping Fish swimmers if anyone is interested in getting in (or in my case, on) the water. We are meeting at RAM at 6pm and then heading towards Metro Park. Trip time is about 45-ish minutes.

[InnerCityPressure]

@bobsim - Great trip logs.  What a great resource for me to get to know a few of the spots around town!

[Bill Hoff]

I'll start this off by saying that I am relatively clueless when it comes to watercrafts .  I've been casually following the downtown kayaking discussions here for years.  I'm now very interested in getting out and paddling with my family.  The key word there is "family."  I hope to do all of this in a modestly priced canoe.  Do all of the discussions about kayaks in McCoy's and Hogan's creeks apply to canoes as well? 

There will be both kayaks & canoes in Hogans Creek in SPR this Saturday morning, as part of the river clean up. Come see how they maneuver for yourself. : )

[InnerCityPressure]

Would love to come out (and will someday) but I'll be out of town.  Should I buy this while I'm on the Gulf Coast?  Any thoughts on the cedar strip canoes?  Pros/Cons?  This is a beautiful lady and there would have to be something terribly wrong for me to be able to turn her down...



Admittedly, it was made by a guy selling it on Craigslist...which gives me the willies.  But for $500; I think it's just magnificent.  Talk me out of it.

[Ocklawaha]

Seems cheap, I'd ask to take it for a 'test drive,' take him/her with you, let the wife or girl or guy friend try it out to, doesn't have to be long but try for getting in and out while its floating, (stability), try to paddle it with a slight lean like you saw in the how to video, ABSOLUTELY make it turn in a tight circle, try a '3-point turn', reverse stroke, ROCK THE BOAT, you need to get a feel for how well it tracks, does it track straight and with ease? these along with the obvious stuff like holes, leaks, broken ribs, floor boards, seats and does it have floatation and if not can you add such in the ends with some foam filling?

All things being pretty fair and square... BUY IT. A wooden canoe is like one of my steam locomotives, she may not be as economical to operate, but you can bet she gets more tender loving care born of passion.

We should all get together (once I can walk again) and have a group paddle. You in Overstreet? Noone? fieldafm? bobsim? others? Noone, what do you say if I get Lori Boyer and Parks to allow us to move a piece of fence, and make a sand launch site on Goodbys at Camp Tomahawk? Y'all up for some labor, a picnic and a really beautiful paddle? Anyone got a chain saw? We could open another small course, these are perfect, small, quiet, and shallow, perfect for beginners, children and families.