Tag: silver springs

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Travel Bob Uncategorized

Hiking in Ocala National Forest

trail.jpgI fled to Florida with the idea of spending a lot of time on the water, but winds and cold temperatures combined to limit my paddling opportunities.

So I decided to try hiking the Ocala National Forest.

I drove to Salt Springs, where I walked around and checked out the natural spring at the park. But I couldn’t find the trailhead I was looking for at the campground. After realizing it was on the road to the marina, I headed over there and hit the trail.

There’s a 2.5 mile spur trail marked with blue blazes that leads to the orange-blazed Florida National Scenic Trail. I followed the spur and headed south when I came to the national trail, hiking another few miles before doubling back.

It was a great hike through marshes and scrub oak. I didn’t see a lot of wildlife, perhaps because I was out around midday. But the trail is flat and well marked. I didn’t see other hikers, with the exception of a Popcorn Sutton lookalike on the spur trail and a guy who was sitting beside the national trail smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. I said boy howdy and kept hiking.

One of the highlights of the hike was sitting quietly beside one of the marshes, watching a flock of sandhill cranes fish the shallows. Overall, it was a great day. Even if it wasn’t spent on the water.

More photos.

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Paddle Bob Travel Bob

Return to Silver Springs

I heard them long before I spotted them.

After scanning the shoreline for a few moments, I saw furtive movements. About 20 rhesus monkeys were along the shoreline. Their shrieking stopped when they saw me, but after they realized I was no threat and no food was forthcoming, the continued playing, squabbling and eating. I let my bow nestle into the vegetation, grew quite and played the voyeur, watching their monkey business and listening to their shenanigans reverberate through the surrounding forest, answered by strange bird languages that struck my ear as something that might come from a mutated cockatoo.

After watching the monkeys for a while, I made my way up to the springhead, giving the gators along the way a wide berth. The springhead is astounding, as much for the Florida tourist kitsch that has erupted around it as for the sweet, transparent water rising up out of limestone fissures. Fortunately, the park is only a small portion of the paddle, and most of it feels more like navigating a Tarzan movie than watching fat Midwesterners gawk at alligators.

This was my second time paddling Silver Springs, and clearly it didn’t disappoint. The weather was perfect — cool and sunny — and I had long stretches of water entirely to myself. The 9.5 mile paddle was sublime, the perfect antidote to the winter gloom I’d fled in Knoxville. Below is a detail of my GPS route at the springhead, and here’s a link to a few more photos from the paddle.

silver_springs_detail

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Paddle Bob Travel Bob

Kayaking Florida: Silver Springs

Since my kayak obsession began, I’ve been a hermit paddler. I tend to go out alone as much out of necessity as of desire. Not terribly smart, really. But I just haven’t found anyone yet who shares my passion for kayaks.

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That changed when I paddled Silver Springs with several folks I met via Paddling.net. Phyliss saw my post on the site and invited me along for their paddle, and it turned out to be the best of the three days I spent on the water in Florida. And given how incredible Gum Slough and Juniper Springs were, that’s saying something.

Silver Springs was teeming with wildlife during our paddle, and Phyliss was great at spotting it and identifying it as we went. We had a great encounter with a band of monkeys who wanted to get too close for comfort. Apparently, they like to get in the trees overhead and pee on paddlers, but thanks to Phyliss’ warning, we avoided that unfortunate fate. We watched for a while as a dominant male and several other monkeys come in close hoping for food. We didn’t oblige, but it gave us a great chance to get a close look at them, including a few youngsters.

We also saw a lot of gators, ranging from a few feet to 8 or 10 feet. They were content to let us pass and we kept a safe distance. The avian life at Silver Springs is amazing. We saw blue heron, white heron, ibis, cormorants and anhinga in the trees drying their wings. They reminded me of the scarecrows marking the Forbidden Zone in the Planet of the Apes. Black wings spread, dark and foreboding.

We also saw that most-common of all Florida wildlife, the wily and overpopulating tourist. They were sardined into glass bottom boats to admire the pristine views of the underwater flora and fauna that inhabit the springs. This was my third day of paddling spring-fed waters that are as clear and direct as a Hemmingway sentence. I never grew tired of it, but I couldn’t imagine the experience in the glass bottom boat was anything like seeing it from a kayak.

Our paddling partners included Dan and Carol, both of whom were a lot of fun and knew how to handle their boats. I definitely was the rookie of the bunch. Group paddling is a different dynamic for me. It was interesting to watch how we sometimes clustered, sometimes broke into small groups and occasionally wandered off to stalk the shoreline for interesting finds. It definitely made me eager to seek out other opportunities to paddle in groups. I’m sort of a loner when it comes to nature, and I love hiking or paddling at my own pace, in my own way. But the social aspect of being in a group and sharing knowledge has major benefits.

  • Fees: It cost $5 to launch at Ray Wayside Park, which is a nice facility with a perfect place to put in a kayak. Along the way, we stopped for a break at a state park canoe launch. That was free and afforded us a chance to talk to other people who were there to enjoy a beautiful Sunday afternoon on the water.
  • monkey4.jpgMonkey business: One of the things I’d hoped to catch a glimpse of was the monkeys who inabit Silver Springs. Legend has it they were escapees from Tarzan movies that were filmed here, but Phyliss told me the real story: An enterprising tourist trap operator had brought them in to create “Monkey Island” in the ’30s. For his residents he chose the rhesus monkey, which is the only one that likes to swim. It wasn’t long before they struck out from Monkey Island to colonize the surrounding swamp, cypress groves and live oak. A few of the male monkeys approached us brazenly, hoping for a free meal, but when they didn’t get that, they just sat around a few yards away and watched us as intently as we watched them. There were several youngsters in the group who frolicked nearby. We had to keep our distance for fear they’d leap for the kayaks or gain the branches above us, where they’ve been known to urinate on paddlers below.
  • Trip details: We put in at Ray Wayside Park and paddled up to the springs at a leisurely pace. The trip upstream wasn’t very strenuous but the current made it tricky in a few places. The entire trip was about 10 miles roundtrip, and it took us about five hours to complete, including a few breaks and lots of stops to gawk at wildlife or chat. We got an early start, between 8:30 and 9 a.m., which gave us a big advantage in wildlife viewing. As we returned that afternoon, a group of rowdy tourists were heading out, determined to “see the monkeys.” At first, I was hoping the monkeys were safe and hidden. But then my evil side was thinking it might be good if these tourists got to see their simian friends, and said simians had full bladders …
  • Phyliss told me two sobering tales: Apparently, a gator lunged for a kayak in the Central Florida area, taking a bite out of it and leaving several holes. That definitely gave me pause, but all the gators we encountered were content to bask in the sun and watch us drift past. They’re apparently at their most aggressive in the spring, when they’re in a mating mood. The second story was about someone who was lost in Gum Slough, where I kayaked on Friday, and had to be airlifted out. My caution while paddling there apparently was well-founded.
  • Gear heads: Phyliss and Dan both are multiple kayak owners, and I quickly had gadget envy as we talked about the various paddling paraphernalia everyone had indulged in. It definitely is a sport that fosters obsession.
  • Photos: Here’s a link to the Silver Springs photos and video that I shot.
  • Resources: I found more useful resources online here than I did when researching Gum Slough or Juniper Springs. jackl’s post on Paddling.net was very useful. Green Wave Forum has lots of useful info. This post on Central Florida Kayak Trips was helpful. And finally, Tales from the Delk Side has a nice post about paddling Silver River.