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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