Somewhere Down The Crazy River

Take a picture of this…

My best friend Jim and I are kayaking down northwest Florida’s Blackwater River. We’re chatting it up, discussing work, philosophy, religion, politics and generally acting goofy. We round a bend in the river and there’s a couple sunbathing in lawn chairs on a large sandbar. They look like they’re probably in their early- to mid-fifties; he’s balding with grey hair and reminds me a little of Ernest Hemingway. She’s got long black hair on the verge of going grey. They’re both on the heavy side.

They’re also completely nude.

As we get closer, and they see our bright red and yellow kayaks, they both start getting dressed. I’m a “live and let live” sort of guy. Nudity doesn’t bother me, so I yell out to them and tell them “don’t cover up on our account!” She already has her bathing suit back on (women are such masters of the quick change) but he’s moving a little slower, so he stops, thanks me, and settles back into his chair wearing nothing but a pair of rubber sandals and a big grin.

I slow down long enough to talk to them for a few minutes. They had started out just a mile downriver from where we put in and were taking an aluminum canoe — which looked like it was well stocked for a day trip — down to the next bridge, Bryant Bridge. I think Jim probably feels like I’m “so open-minded my brain might fall out.” The whole time I’m talking with them, he’s paddling downstream trying to look at anything but Mr. Smiley and his honey.

This one event could probably sum up the entire day’s hilarity, but that wouldn’t make for a very good blog.

I’m A Man With A Clear Destination

To do this right, I should probably back up a little bit. Sometime last week, in our ongoing email conversation, I had asked Jim when we’d get out and go kayaking. He’s got a couple of open-top sea kayaks that we’ve been paddling around in for years. We decided on this weekend, and after days of discussion about when exactly we’d meet at his house (4 a.m. or sometime rational people wake up) we planned to leave Pensacola around 6:30. I was up at a quarter to five and it took me about forty-five minutes to get to his house. When I got there, we sat down with all of our maps — mine from Mapquest and his a bound Florida gazetteer. Our original plan had been to use two vehicles (mine is the only one that can carry a kayak) so we could shuttle to the upper of two bridges, Bryant Bridge, and float the distance between them. Years ago, we’d paddled upstream from the lower bridge, Deaton, to Bryant and floated back. That took us about six hours in my two-person canoe. Upstream is no fun, so we were going to float/paddle this time.

After looking at the map, we decided to try a different segment of the river. We would put in at Cotton Bridge, near Baker in Okaloosa County, Florida. We’d leave his car at Bryant Bridge so we could drive back to get my truck and pick up the kayaks. It seemed like a good plan.

We stopped in Pace to get gasoline, and Jim suggested that we drop off his car at the lower Deaton Bridge landing. This would make the trip a little longer, but we weren’t sure exactly how much longer. I hadn’t had time to do the research to find out how long the river was between each stop, and I had no time restraints, so I said “Sure, why not?” Jim had to be back home by about six, but I figured it couldn’t take the whole day to float down the river. Cotton to Deaton it would be.

East of Milton, we turned north off of US 90 and crossed the train tracks on Deaton Bridge Road. As planned, we dropped the car off at Deaton Bridge and followed Deaton Bridge Road through Blackwater State Park to Bob Pitts Road. This runs east-west and we took it east until it dead-ended on Bryant Bridge Road. You only get one guess as to which bridge this crosses. We took Bryant Bridge Road south and then East to Holt, Florida. We jumped back on US 90 for a few miles to Galliver Cutoff Road. This took us north to Baker, Florida where we picked up state Highway 4 toward Munson. Halfway to Munson, we crossed Cotton Bridge. The driving distance between our starting and ending points was about 22 miles.

We unloaded the kayaks at Cotton Bridge. The parking lot, a Santa Rosa County park and playground, is a short walk from the bluffs and the sand beach where we launched. As we were taking the kayaks off the racks, I asked Jim if he had his cable to lock up the kayaks at the end of the float. I had brought a lock and chain, and wanted to know if I needed to carry them along. “Oh yeah,” he said. “It’s right here in the bag.” I grabbed my gear, which is always ten times as much as Jim carries. I have a regular survival pack I carry when I hike, bike, fish or kayak. It’s got everything from flashlights to bandaids to lip balm. I like to be prepared. I’ve got matches, money, a compass and a multitool that MacGyver would drool over. I’ve even got a separate floating capsule I wear around my neck that carries my keys and a selection of OTC drugs: antihistimines, decongestants, NSAIDS, etc. Oh yes, I’m prepared.

We got out on the water at around 8:00 a.m. It was still cool enough that there was just a little fog in the air hovering a little above the water. The aptly named Blackwater is one of many “blackwater” rivers that cut across the South. Tannins from decomposing forest litter tints the water a deep reddish brown, like tea that has steeped too long. Where it’s shallow, it looks like iced tea. Where it’s deep, it turns brown to nearly black. Despite the color, the water is clear — deceptively so. You can’t tell from just looking how deep it really is. What looks very shallow may actually be quite deep, especially beneath the bluffs. Each bluff has its corresponding white sandbar, nestled inside each meandering turn of the river. The repeating pattern of bluff/sandbar and then sandbar/bluff makes up most of the river’s structure, offset by short, narrow, straight runs of faster water and overhanging forest canopy. Hurricanes with names like Erin, Opal, Ivan and Dennis have left the river crisscrossed with fallen logs, many of which have been cut off to clear the way for canoes and kayaks. Even with this maintenance, there’s still no letting down your guard. Many of the logs lurk just beneath the surface, ready to throw you in the drink.

The first hazard we ran into was a small spider in Jim’s kayak. I knew we’d be dealing with spiders, from past experience, so I had packed a big rubber spider in my kayak. Just when he said he’d gotten the spider out of his kayak I said, “Are you sure he’s out? I think I see him in the back of your kayak.” I tossed the spider and it landed square in his lap. He squawked and threw the spider back at me. I have to give him some credit. It was a very manly squawk. At least he didn’t squeal like a little girl.

The next couple of hours were fairly uneventful. We saw a few birds, but no other wildlife. Like I said, we discussed work, philosophy, sex, religion, politics — all the things you can’t normally talk about in public — and generally acted goofy. We jousted with our paddles. We got into ridiculous situations causing us to shriek and flail about trying not to fall out of our kayaks.

And then there was Mr. Smiley in all his glory.

Truth be told, I wasn’t the least bit surprised to see some nude sunbathing Saturday. The weather was beautiful. It was neither too hot nor too cool. The breeze was keeping the flies, gnats and no-see-ums away; either that, or it was still too early in the season. The sky was, for the most part, cloudless and brilliant blue. I said it many times that day, and I’ll say it again: we couldn’t have picked a better day. The water was cold and clear, and mountain laurel was in bloom all along the river.

So when we came around the bend and found a couple of fellow travelers enjoying the sun, I wasn’t shocked.

Unlike our sun-worshipping friends, I’d been slathering on a thick layer of SPF 50 every hour or so, all day. I looked over at Jim, who was decidedly pinker than when we’d started. I offered him some of my sunblock, but he was already too far gone. He was nearly as bright red as his kayak, and we’d only been on the water for a few hours.

When we’d traveled a couple of turns past the erstwhile nudist camp, Jim hit a log that tilted his kayak sideways and filled the seat with water. Sitting in what amounts to a plastic bowl filled with water for hours at a time isn’t pleasant, so we pulled up on the next sandbar for a break while he dumped his kayak and tried to dry off.

I decided to take advantage of our break to take a short swim. I’d worn swim trunks, but sitting in a wet swimsuit the rest of the trip wasn’t my idea of comfort. I hopped out of the kayak and stripped down to the best bathing suit ever — my birthday suit. What can I say? I was inspired by random acts of nudism. This embarrassed my friend, who after all of these years is shocked by my behavior. In my defense, I had warned him not to look unless he wanted to see my “lily white ass,” but that’s like telling someone not to think of a white horse…

See, you thought of a white horse!

The water was frigid. It was also flowing fast enough to drag me off my feet and downstream every time I tried to swim. The pure sandy bottom was soft and it was hard to stand still. I wasn’t in more than a couple of minutes before I got out, teeth clacking and shivering. The air temperature was much warmer, and the humidity was low, so I was dry before I got dressed and back in the kayak.

We had just gotten back out on the river when Mr. & Mrs. Smiley passed by. She was dressed in her swimsuit, but he was in the back of the canoe proudly paddling without a stitch on, still sporting that goofy grin. We let them pass us by as they continued downstream, but before they passed, I asked them how far they were going. “The canoe rental said the boat launch was eleven miles from the next bridge.” That meant we’d traveled over six miles and we were only halfway there.

Oh this is sure stirring up some ghosts for me…

After that, we settled into the nice rhythm of meandering turn after meandering turn. Sandbars, bluffs and logjams began to look familiar, as if we had found some endless loop of the river — somewhere in the Outer Limits of the Twilight Zone. In fact parts of the river looked so familiar that we started to wonder if we’d paddled that stretch before. Years ago, we had taken my canoe upstream from Deaton Bridge — it’s much easier paddling upstream in a canoe — and turned around at a bridge. We couldn’t remember if we had turned around at the first bridge, or the second. This led to a discussion of how far we thought we’d traveled, and how far we had to go. We’d already been on the river three hours, and we had no idea where we were. It was around 11:00, and we were starting to wonder if we’d bitten off more than we could chew. By our calculations, we were over two hours from the next bridge.

Somewhere along the way, I the dubious title of “President of the Urine-nation” because of my frequent stops. I got to where I would paddle ahead of Jim, answer a quick call from nature, and hop back in the kayak before he rounded the bend. I’ve had too many bad experiences with dehydration, so I was drinking like a fish all day. Jim was like a camel. He didn’t drink anything all day.

There was a lull in the conversation, and Jim asked the only question that could have shocked me that day.

You did get the cable to lock up the kayaks, right?

Uh, why would I do that? You said you had it!

No, I said it was in the bag.

And you didn’t bring the bag?

Nope.

What followed was series of ill-advised plans which I summarily dismissed. Most of them involved walking through swamps, swimming large portions of the river, or leaving the kayaks “hidden” in the woods near one of the most popular State Parks in the Florida Panhandle.

I didn’t see any of those ending well.

We tabled the issue, figuring we had several miles of river to work out the details of a plan that didn’t involve risk of death.

Around that time, we passed a group of campers on a sandbar. I could see their truck in the woods a little higher up the bluff, and I asked them how close we were to Bryant Bridge. “You’re already there!” Sure enough, when we passed the next turn, we were under the bridge. The landing was busy, so we decided not to get out to stretch. We were starting to worry about how long it was going to take us to paddle the rest of the way. I estimated that the trip from Bryant to Deaton should take us around two hours. Any more than that, and the bottled water and granola bars I’d packed wouldn’t last.

A group of kayakers passed us going downstream. There were three of them: a couple of guys and a girl, somewhere in their early twenties. One of them was an ex-Marine. They had driven in from Cantonment, Pace and Clearwater and had put in at Bryant, headed for Deaton Bridge like we were. They had a tennis ball that they were tossing around, and I got in the game for a couple of throws. We talked about the river and how far we’d been; we got major kudos for getting up so early in the morning to take the trip. Eventually they pulled away and continued down river, still tossing the tennis ball back and forth.

After an hour or so, we started seeing campsites along the river and high on the bluffs to the north. Tents had been set up overlooking the river anywhere there was a clearing. I talked with campers as we passed, getting information about how far we were from the State Park.

Eventually, we settled on a plan for recovering both vehicles and the kayaks. I would leave Jim at the State Park and drive his car back to Cotton Bridge. I’d drop off the car, drive the truck back to the State Park and we’d load up the kayaks. We’d then drive the truck back to Cotton Bridge and pick up the car.

We were still trying to get back to Pensacola by 6:00…

…and it was already after 4:00.

I had an aerial photo of the Bryant/Deaton section of the river — that had been our original trip — and by counting sandbars and checking the position of the sun, I was able to pinpoint our position. We were still about two miles up river from the park. Every turn there were more campers, more children playing, more “tubers” and the smell of barbecue grills got heavier. And then, at 5:00, there it was: Deaton Bridge. We had paddled and floated down 20 miles of river over nine hours. I drove the forty mile round-trip to Cotton Bridge and picked up the truck. By the time I’d gotten back, Jim had the kayaks out of the water and he was waiting for me at the parking lot. We were both exhausted, but we got the kayaks loaded and headed back to the upper bridge to get the car.

By the time we got to Pensacola, it was nearly 8:00. I had watched the sun come up while driving to Jim’s house that morning, and watched it set as I crossed the Escambia River heading back toward Pensacola that night.

Everything worked out all right, save for the fact that we ended up getting back to his house much too late. It ended up being a pretty typical kayak trip for the two of us. We were worn out, hungry and cooked in our own juices, but we’d had a lot of fun down that crazy river.