All great journeys must come to a end!!!

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Back out on the main river we again met up with the folks from the southwest Florida water management district... We told them of the springs that we had just visited but they where unaware of them...The two of them where testing a smaller spring on the north side of the river... Our sun was beginning to get a bit lower but that did not stop us from paddling even further down river. ..Ten more minutes heading west the river splits with the left side for the larger boats and the right side being more suited for canoes or kayaks...We padded for some time...Perhaps a half hour and ones again the route split...this is where we made our decision to start making our way back up the river to the campground..Paddling the trip back up river seemed easy....Perhaps the wind at our backs was helping us with our return trip...About half way back to civilization we where approached by a large boat. The four men on board asked if we would like to make the front page of the Sunday Citrus County Chronicle newspaper...All as we needed to do was to follow them back to the boat dock...As we did..they snapped many pictures of us paddling from the sides and to the back of there much larger vessel...Ones back photographer Matthew Beck asked us to follow a bit feather...He had one more place he would like to take photos...That place is where in fact the photo that ended up in the paper was taken...After we pulled out at the boat dock and loaded the kayaks on my Ford ranger Bill could not thank me enough times for such a great trip...As he prepared to drive away on his way back to home to Thonotosassa he stopped and said the next time you go kayaking Gator...Make sure to include him in any of my river trip plans... With the sun fading fast in the west I pulled my little Scotty silverside camper in to lot #45 of Chassahowitzka River campground. After pull out a chair and sitting down for a bit of a brake...I called Serro Scotty camper enthusiasts Barbara Ellis of Wildwood Florida to tell her about how wonderful Chassahowitzka River was...Not long in to the conversation I felt the first signs of night fall...Mosquito's where beginning to show up. I told Barbara that night fall was coming quick and that I needed to get a campfire going fast...I sat in front of that campfire for about four hours .... Listened to the sounds of crickets and a good number of owls in the cool night air...Yes Chassahowitzka River and Chassahowitzka river campground is on my return list of places to see ones again in the very near future...This wild life sanuary is only twenty two miles from my home in Spring Hill Florida. So in fact this could end up being my host campground. The one I end up taking many of friend to see when they visit me here in Florida...Some from as far away as New Hampshire or Massachusetts...Whether you canoe or kayak with friends or just like the solitude of a river...Perhaps you like fishing, wildlife photography, or still life painting, tent camping in the outback or camping in your Scotty camper.......You will love the Chassahowitzka river and the Chassahowitzka river campground...Kayaking the Chassahowitzka river here in Florida was truly a religious experience and the most exciting river I have kayaked in the sunshine state... Folks that know me can tell you better than I can that I'm not a religious man...Having said that... And having a place like this so close to my finger tips make it even more inviting for my return...I can tell you one thing... that sharing a kayaking experience on the Chassahowitzka with a good friend...Is like sharing a kayaking trip with God...Your friendships will be even stronger having done the trip...The Chassahowitzka river is truly a heaven here on earth!!!

....................Gator Ron

Chassahowitzka River Campground 8600 West. Miss Maggie Drive Homosassa, Fl. (352) 382-2200

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This story brought to you by the Yahoo Vintage Camper Group of Florida and the other 50 FREE State Vintage Trailer clubs.

www.50StateClubs.blogspot.com

Contact Gator Ron @ scotty_lad_1973@yahoo.com

Exploring the Chassahowitzka River

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Our trip down the river continued but not for long...no sooner that we stated our journey we noticed a large amount of water entering the river from our right...We then paddled up this channel or creek fighting a pretty strong current along the way. Continuing on for about five minutes before coming to the channels end or should I say beginning... A large pool with two very large springs vents spews water up out of the ground in such a very large amount...This would be the larger of the springs we would see on our trip that day...It would also be the last time we would see any signs of true civilization. It was here next to these two massive springs that we also saw the two largest homes on the river.... and large homes they where...After riding the current back down to the main channel of the Chassahowitzka...we again headed down river. Some time later we found another creek....this time to our left. The creek was much smaller than the one we had just visited and this one was much more dense semitropical forest / jungle like...the kind of over vegetated creek that makes my blood begin to boil.... Yes If Bill and I where to in counter the Florida alligator..then it would be here on this creek run.... My guess was that if we paddled the creek we would also find yet another spring at its end and that we needed to at least explore part of the creek... So off we went..This was a very long kayak run. It took the good part of a half hour to get up this run... Of course I had to keep stopping to take more photos along the way but this part of the trip was slow going anyway... As we paddled further and further up this natural channel it began to get pretty narrow and the vegetation began to get much thicker...Not only was there more brush and trees in this part of our journey but the creeks bottom had this very thick and long grass than our kayaks seemed to just skim over...This grass although dark in color...gave off this kind of fluorescent green tinge as what little light stuck it from the filtering sun shining high above the tree tops...I could not see the bottom of the creek because of this long swaying grass and believe that this was one of the best breeding area for fish we would encounter on our trip...Soon the grasses would begin to slowly give way to a better view of the creeks bottom...As we looked down from our kayaks we could in fact see many large fish swimming under us and between the grassy areas... Where the bottom view had been blocked by the thicker grass the only way for us to check for water depth was to stand our paddles up right and to push them strait down in order to see if they would hit bottom...As the grasses began to fade away..I also noted that the water depth was getting to be less deep....Then what had been a very grassy bottom began show signs of a beautiful sandy bottom..At only about knee deep we decided to ground the kayaks and to try walking up the up stream bed... Leading the way up the creek as Bill lagged behind... He to was taking many photos of all the beauty that surrounded us..flowers, fish, birds, wild berries....We had found a living paradise all around us as we walked up the middle of this crystal clear stream and each corner we made would bring more surprises..Its such an incredible feeling to leave the boats behind and to start walking up this Florida creek...The sounds that you hear as we tread through the water...The sight of fish smimming by you...looking down on them from only inches away.... I then looked back and could see Bill was beginning to kind of fall behind a bit more that I had wish him to be..He seemed to be preoccupied by something he was photographing in the water on the waters edge...As I came around the next bend in the stream I could hear something over head....Just like the TV show "Fantasy Island when Tattoo yelled out "De plane! De plane!" .....I to got a glimpse of a plane passing over the trees tops and cry out "De plane! De plane!"....Only to spook a Florida black bear that was at the creek perhaps doing a little fishing himself...all you could hear from that point was the sound of small trees snapping off at there base... As this beast made off for the deep jungle or forest... I could see trees and brush as high as ten to twelve feet falling over as this bear not only ran away from us but plowed right into the trees and knocked them over in his rust to escape his intruding visitors...I was so shocked at what had just happened that I kind of just stood there...Then Bill yelled out...Whats going on up there!...Whats all that noise in the forest.!!! I just looked at him as he snapped a photo of me standing in the water and said while laughing ... Ah!!! Nothing...Another two hundred feet of walking up this jungle stream and we finally came to the most beautify large pool with two more good sized springs pushing out lots of water from its vents... Again these two springs looked pretty deep.. The neat thing about this place is it would make a such a nice place to pitch a tent for a night of true wilderness Florida camping... We rested here for some time before heading back to the Chassahowitzka River... Bill and I had found this place to be the best location of the day and the two of us seemed to have a diversely time leaving this area... but there was more exploring for us to do back on the river...One last look back at this unbelivible lagoon and we began our walk down the sandy stream bed to our boats...It was at that point that I had joked to Bill that maybe when we get back to the area down stream where we had left the kayaks that perhaps they would be gone...What a fix we would be in then...Up the creek with no boat!!!

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Chassahowitzka River...... "Piece Of Heaven Here On Earth"

By Ronald Levesque

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Can you say chassahowitzka?...It seems that I have trouble with many of the names down here in the south...Names like thonotosassa, chassahowitzka, pithlachascotee, withlacoochee...I'm getting better at it...I have a new rule that seem to work for me. That is...If I can kayak it...Then I can learn to say it. Yes we did get to do our kayak trip to on the Chassahowitzka river pronounced "Chaz-wits-kuh"...meaning "hanging pumpkin"..... Plus I did a nights stay at the campground there and I must say that I think I have seen a bit of heaven right here on earth...I can not say in words how incredible this place is... My friend Bill Pike and I arrived early to the campground... After checking in...it was time to get the kayaks in the water to see first hand this river. The Chassahowitzka river is only three miles long from put in to the gulf of Mexico so you should be able to make it to the gulf and back before the sun begins to fade...But think again!...There is so many springs feeding this river and so many places to explore that you should plan on a number of days of camping and kayaking to see much of this truly wonderful work of God... First of all the Chassahowitzka river is a fisher man or fisher womans paradise...You will see boat after boat heading down and up the river.... Kayaks, canoes, flat bottom boats, air boats.... Its one busy river for sure...Usually when I see this many boats in one place I tend to want to shy away because I like looking and photographing nature and to me...to many people on a river means much of nature tend to shy away as well... luckily for the Chassahowitzka river this is just not so... We literally saw with out exaggeration....Thousands of fish,....hundreds and hundreds of birds, sorry to say that on this trip we did not see any alligators but I'm sure there out there...Did get to see a bald headed eagle swoop down to the river and grab up a good size fish and then fly to the top of a high tree only to devourer it...I tell you that I have never ever seen so many fish in one place in my life.... I'm not sure what kind they where but we got to see more than a hundred of these one type of fish jumping up out of the water in a sideways motion.. all day long. They where doing this right in front of our boats...The first part of the trip we meet up with two very nice folks from the southwest Florida water management district. They where on the river with a small power boat testing the springs and rivers water quality...There where nice enough to lead us right to the first and second in a series of springs near the boat ramp..We got to talk to them for about ten to fifteen minutes and saw first hand there work on the river. I would have to say they have one of the very best jobs in the state of Florida and think I would almost kill to have it...They told us that the springs here on the Chassahowitzka river are made up of many linking underwater caves. The younger swimmers in the area like to dive down into the spring vents...swimming deep underwater from one cave opening and then resurfacing out of the water through another spring. I looked down into a number of the deeper springs from the comfort of my kayak and kind of got the quivers just looking down at them...Trust me!...cave diving is not a sport I will be taking up at my age....

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