I loaded my board and drove to the Youth Camp at Wekiva Springs State Park. It felt like a reunion—Ronnie Kemp of Sea Kayak Georgia, Ashley Brown and Jeff Atkins of Wave Paddler, and Christa Foisy of Paddle NC and more. My kayak buddies had switched from boats to boards.
Fishing SUPFishing SUPs are wide and stable
We learned stuff on the water, and we learned stuff on land. David Hernandez and Will Niemann from St. Augustine Paddle Sports spoke about fishing SUPs, a quickly growiong market segment. These SUPS are large and stable, with hatches, attachment points for coolers, and even a bar to stand up. Not a bad way to spend a day on the water.
Chillaxing in the dining hallBoard optionsSwag
Plenty of options each day, ranging from an L1-2 IDW/ICE to coastal paddling to ‘Meet and Greet’ paddles on the Wekiva River and Rock Springs Run.
Menu of activitiesInflatable boards bounce off of rocks
Chaz Corallo of, ironically, Flatwater Paddle Co. of New Jersey showed us the gear necessary to do battle with rocks, including body armor, helmet and breakaway leash. Not just anyone can style Nantahala Falls on a SUP.
Rocking the Cross Tail Heel side Low Brace (Photo credit: Steve Faives of H20 Stoked)Chaz Styling Nantahala Falls (Photo credit: Steve Faives of H20 Stoked)
Inflatable boards bounce, not break, on rocks. I can’t say the same about bodies. Body armor seems like a good idea.
Ronnie Kemp of Sea Kayak GeorgiaWhat lurks below Rock Springs Run
One day, we paddled down Wekiva River and up Rock Springs Run which has 3 primitive campsites, perfect for a SUP camping trip. Despite the proximity to Disney and Orlando, this landscape feels primeval and wild.
The best fish tacos everWekiva Island-just down the road
Road trip to Wekiva Island for fish tacos and beer! Noone left hungry.
New friends, new skills, and a new board for Watertribe. I’m looking forward to Paddle 2 the People, part deux.
Can I paddle 300 miles in 7 days on a paddleboard? Do I want to attempt this feat? The WaterTribe Everglades Challenge is “an unsupported, expedition style adventure race for kayaks, canoes, and small boats” from Tampa to Key Largo, approximately 300 miles. The shorter Ultramarathan—the sprint version—extends the 67 miles from Tampa to Placida. The Watertribe blend of endurance, navigation, and expedition has tempted me ever since I first learned of this event. In January 2019, I attended the WaterTribe Boot Camp in Fort De Soto Park to see if I had the right stuff to enter the race in 2020.
Boards Loaded and Ready to Go
The Boot Camp format consisted of a talk by Chief followed by a paddle and camping trip on Shell Island. Chief’s talk covered a range of topics critical for both starting and completing the challenge safely. A paddle or sail down Florida’s coast through the Everglades and Florida Bay is a serious undertaking. I already own and carry much of the safety gear based on my kayak training, but he reinforced the idea that critical gear should be carried on our bodies or PFDs. In my 5* BCU class, Gordon Brown emphasized the same point as we practiced on-water boat repairs. Chief’s mantra regarding GPS devices stuck with me: Two is one, and one is none, an accurate reflection of my experience with marine devices. Salt water and GPS’ do not play well together.
Courtesy of WaterTribe.com
Chief also posed a question that each of us can only answer for ourselves. What are your goals in this challenge—to win your division or to finish? To me, finishing would be a victory. As Chief spoke, I did the math in my head. The event is almost 300 miles, and you have 8—really 7—days to get to Key Largo. The final party is in Key Largo on the 7th day, and I am not one to miss a party. That means approximately 45-50 miles per day. Can I handle the mileage and pace for 7 days straight? I have a year to figure that out.
My first challenge was finding a trail name. All long distance paddlers and hikers need a trail name. Through hikers on the AT and PCT have creative names, and I wanted a name that would also work for my upcoming AT hike. So I became Flamingo, and Janice chose HighTea in homage to her British heritage.
Courtesy of WaterTribe.com
After Chief’s talk, the group headed to the beach where an array of boats and boards lined the shore. I was relieved to see another paddleboard there, but I was surprised to see so many sailing Hobies. I had assumed there would be more kayakers or canoers. One kayakers was incredulous when I revealed that I had a kayak at home. Why a paddleboard, he asked? I don’t think I can answer that, other than that I love the freedom of standing on a SUP.
Crossing the bayClear waters around Shell Key
We launched from the boat ramp for the short paddle to Shell Key. Chief had sent us coordinates and waypoints for the campsite on Shell Key and for several paddling options. The Challenge itself leaves from a beach facing the Tampa Bay shipping channel, and crossing a shipping channel is always nerve-wracking. For the Boot Camp, the weather was sunny and warm, and the water glassy, but conditions are rarely that benign for the Challenge.
A tight squeezeWrong way
Plan A involved paddling through a mangrove tunnel, then through Bunce’s Pass to the outside of Shell Key. We paddled around a small island searching for the promised mangrove channel. We made it about 50 feet then realized it was a dead end. Since it was too narrow to turn around, we paddled backwards—fin first which might turn out to be a useful skill. On to Plan B, we crossed the shallow flats, passed the motorboats lining Bunce’s Pass, then headed north to find out campsite.
Drying gearBeach camping
Our group camped midway up the beach. It’s hard to believe this level of wilderness camping exists so close to St. Pete and Tampa. I set up my 1-person tent that I bought for the Appalachian Trail. Packing like a backpacker is crucial to SUP expeditions. The weight must be balanced and centered. The Hobie Mirages might carry 80 pounds of gear, but I can only carry approximately 30 pounds, including water, on my board. One new tip: pool noodles. From now on, I’ll stow them in my gear bags to increase flotation in case of capsize. One of the best parts of the Boot Camp was picking up tips about gear and packing. The other part: the people.
SunsetEarly morning coffee klatsch
The WaterTribe draws kindred spirits. After all, only so many people want to paddle from Tampa to Key Largo in any vessel, much less a paddleboard. After the sun set, we gathered around the campfire and traded stories. Though people came from all walks of life, it was a congenial and helpful group. I now understand why people come back year after year.
Abandoned boat near Bunce’s PassSkyway BridgeCargo Boat in the shipping channel
The next morning, I drank coffee as the sun rose, a luxury I might not have during the Challenge. To make miles, I assume that I’ll be on the water before dawn. Most people savored the slow morning and moved on to their own adventures by 10 am. Janice and I paddled around Mullet Key to see the launch site. As we headed back, the wind came up, a premonition of future conditions.
I have no doubt the Everglades Challenge will be difficult, probably one of the hardest things I will ever do. Between now and Challenge 2020, I’ll hike the Maine section of the AT and kayak Alaska’s Inside Passage which will prepare me. I’ll also train on the paddleboard and consider what size and length board will work best for me. I already know that my 12′ Fanatic is too slow. But I look forward to the next year of training, planning routes, and figuring out gear. Do I have the right stuff? I’ll never know unless I try.
Salt Springs Run hints of old Florida, before Disney and development transformed the land. The scrub landscape bordering the run offers a glimpse of the Florida William Bartram encountered centuries ago. Paddling this river lets me escape the twenty-first century for a little while.
I launch at Salt Springs Marina and slide my paddleboard onto the calm water just below the head-spring. The water is cloudier than the last time I visited a year ago, which saddens me. Heavy rains and over-pumping from the aquifer have degraded many area springs. But even so, Salt Springs rarely disappoints.
The Salt Springs Marina sits at one end of a large pool. To the left lies the headspring itself and just downstream a pack of motor boats have anchored for an afternoon of swimming and sun. I turn my right, downstream, away from boats and people. It only takes one river bend to step back in time and imagine how William Bartram felt when he floated down what he called Six Mile Springs. On my first trip to Salt Springs, I paddled In William Bartram’s Wake on Paddle Florida’s 2015 Bartram History Paddle. Dean Campbell and Sam Carr, designers of the Bartram Trail in Putnam County, regaled us with Bartram lore as we paddle down Salt Springs Run and up the St. Johns River to Palatka.
In 1766, Quaker naturalist and explorer William Bartram and his father John Bartram encountered Salt Spring Run while exploring the shore of Lake George, a wide spot in the St. Johns River. They rowed upstream against the slow-moving current until they reached the head-spring which they called Johnson Spring. Their journal entry, dated January 24, 1766, describes the oak hammocks, cypress knees, and pines that still characterize this run. Today, adventurers can paddle, hike, and bike sections of the Bartram Trail in Putnam County using maps and QR code that identify sites mentioned in Bartram’s travel journals. Site 28 marks the entrance to Salt Springs Run on the western shore of Lake George. Both University of North Florida’s Florida History Online and Bartram Trail in Putnam County provide ecological, historical, and literary commentary on the specific sites Bartram visited.
Site 28-Rocky PointPaddle Florida’s Bartram History Paddle 2015
Today, Salt Springs Run is part of the Salt Springs Recreation Area in the Ocala National Forest, easily reached by Highway 19. In the time of Bartram’s Travels and even well into the early twentieth century, most people travelled by boat. The dense and swampy Florida landscape made overland journeys difficult and dangerous. To reach Salt Springs, the Bartrams rowed up the north-flowing St. Johns River and up what we call Salt Springs Run.
Sign at Salt Springs MarinaCourtesy of Google Maps
William Bartram returned to Salt Springs in 1774 and again floated the spring run. But his observations and “romantic imagery” after this second descent reveal so much more about Bartram and his enchantment by the spring.
“But there are yet remaining scenes inexpressibly admirable and pleasing. Behold, for instance, a vast circular expanse before you, the waters of which are so extremely clear as to be absolutely diaphanous or transparent as the ether; the margin of the bason ornamented with a grat variety of fruitful and floriferous trees, shrubs, and plants, the pendant golden Orange dancing on the surface of the plellucid waters, the balmy air vibrating with the melody of the merry birds, tenants of the encircling aromatic grove.” (Travels)
William Bartram’s ornate language captures the magic of Florida’s springs. I see the magic on my friends’ faces when they plunge into a spring’s clear waters. Bartram’s flowery descriptions likely influenced writers and poets far beyond Florida. Scholars have traced Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan to Bartram’s description of Salt Springs.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
Salt Springs, like all Florida springs, flows from an ancient sea, deep under the Floridan Aquifer, passing through limestone and karst caverns. Coleridge’s sacred Alph could very well be our own Salt Springs Run. Who isn’t captivated by our springs?
Even though the water was more tannic than my last visit to Salt Springs, in my mind’s eye, I envision the crystal blue flow that William Bartram must have seen–the water that is “absolutely diaphanous or transparent as the ether.” I’ve seen this clarity on the Ichetucknee, Naked Springs at Gilchrist Blue, and Cannon springs during the Ocklawaha drawdown, so I know what is possible.
Cannon SpringsNaked SpringsGilchrist Blue springs
My father recently passed away at Oak Hammock in Gainesville, FL, after struggling with dementia for several years. After he died, so many residents and staff at Oak Hammock spoke fondly of my father, whose Charlie Brown smile lit up the room. My mother and I worried that nobody knew my father as we knew him, in the past. But they loved him as they knew him, as he was in the last years of his life.
I’ve only known and loved the springs in their current state. My husband Kevin tells me how much cleaner they were when he first came to Florida over twenty years ago. Still others reminisce about their clarity before air conditioning made Florida newly habitable and brought millions of new residents, including myself. I love them as they are.
Salt Springs Run is an out and back paddle, and fortunately paddling back upstream to the marina is not difficult. I paddled past the marina towards the headspring where motor boats congregated just beyond the ropes marking the Salt Springs swimming area. After the solitude of the spring run, the competing stereos emanating from the boats was jarring, but we all have our ways of loving Salt Springs.
Boats anchored outside Salt Springs Marina
William Bartram’s words illustrate how some visitors responded to a landscape alien to them. I’m interested in landscapes and the people who inhabit them, past and present. Paddling on the waters that Bartram described helps me imagine the springs in a former, more glorious state. Even though I love the springs as they are, I know we can do better. Perhaps if we can expand our ecological imagination, we can find the will to restore and repair our springs.
Paddleboarding through fjords surrounded by sheer cliffs. Drinking pure water from waterfalls. This is why bucket lists were invented. When I discovered SUP Norway’s five-day expedition through Naeroyfjord, or Narrow Fjord, there was no question—I was going, along with four other Floridians. This trip combined three things I love: paddleboarding, expeditions, and travel.
Fjord Map
After months of planning, we flew to Norway in June and met our leader Titus Kodzoman and the rest of our team at a campground in Gudvangen. Kevin, Janice, and I arrived by boat which, Titus noted, was cheating since we previewed some of our trip’s highlights. But, I wondered, could the view from a tour boat compare with experiencing the fjord from a paddleboard?
Resting on calm water
In the narrow fjord
That evening, our team bonded over a welcome barbeque and the ritualized branding of the cups. Titus gave each of us an individually branded cup which we promptly filled with champagne to celebrate our upcoming adventure.
Branding the cups
By the following afternoon we launched our gear-laden boards from a small beach in Gudvangen. Titus issued everyone a 65-liter yellow drybag that held most of our gear, including clothing, sleeping bags, food, and tents. We strapped these bags on the front of the boards, centering them for balance. We paddled RedcoPaddle inflatable boards which we stiff enough to carry paddler and gear. To protect the boards, groups of three or four carried the loaded boards on and off the water.
Ready to launchCarrying a loaded boardGear in frontLoading the boards
Our first day was cold and rainy, a wintry day for us Floridians. We had debated for months about clothes and gear, and Titus answered a multitude of questions with unfailing good humor. He had posted pictures of smiling, happy paddlers in board shorts and bathing suits on SUP Norway’s Facebook page. They must be Norwegian, we reasoned—and packed heavier layers just in case. I wore most of them that first day, but I was never really cold.
Breathtaking waterfall
One of many waterfalls
Once we left Gudvangen, the stunning scenery captivated my attention, and I paddled along in awe. I kept looking upwards, craning my neck to see cliffs and the cascading waterfalls. I’m not sure how I didn’t fall backwards.
Reflections on glassy water
Over the next few days, we paddled through Naeroyfjord, one arm of the larger Sognefjord, and only 500 meters wide in some places. I see why so many tour boats and cruises ply the route between Flåm and Gudvangen. I enjoyed our boat ride but camping along the fjord was magic.
Paddling into Dyrdal
Farm machines come in by barge
On our second day, we stopped for lunch at the tiny town of Dyrdal. Arriving by boat is not unusual since the town has no road access. Ferries stop at Dyrdal and other places, bringing people and goods, but I wondered what it would be like living in a place accessible only by water.
Our breakfasts and dinners were mostly dehydrated camping meals, but Titus liked to surprise us with treats at lunch. At Dyrdal, he prepared a Norwegian lunch consisting of eggs, shrimp, salad, and salmon caviar. We squeezed the caviar out of a tube like toothpaste and were hooked after the first bite. Maybe it is the Norwegian equivalent of Cheez Whiz, but we loved it. It tasted like bacon—’liquid bacon,’ we called it. If only I could find it in the US.
Kaviar!
Lunch!
The weather cleared up after the first day, but we experienced some unusual winds. Late in the day on our second day of paddling, our tailwind became a headwind, and we couldn’t make that night’s planned campsite around a headland in the wider part of the fjord. It isn’t an expedition if everything goes as planned, so we discussed our options and decided to head back towards Dyrdal that night. It was a good decision—we had a long day but we avoided paddling in the open, choppy waters of the larger Sognefjord when we were tired. Instead we enjoyed a lovely campsite with a wonderful view.
BreaktimeHome for the night
The next morning we woke refreshed and ready to tackle the long paddle to Undredal, our one “town” night in an established campground. Several people elected to take the ferry from Dyrdal instead of paddling, an adventure unto itself. The rest of us aimed for Undredal, around a headland and en route to Flåm. Just before we turned into the main fjord, we battled an intense headwind for about 20 minutes. The wind stirred up the water, and passing tour boats created large wakes as motored by. Around the corner, we received our reward: a downwind paddle to Undredal. Wind at our backs, we surfed down the small wind waves. A very happy group of paddlers arrived in Undredal that afternoon.
Our Undredal campsiteUndredal ChurchTaking a break
The sun shone brightly on our Undredal campground. We laid out our gear to dry while we showered in anticipation of dinner. Titus was taking us to a restaurant for a local meal. A meal that was not dehydrated! The town is known for goats and goat cheese, so it was not surprising that goat stew was the restaurant’s specialty.
Titus initially planned to paddle back towards Gudvangen on our final day, but the winds made that difficult. Instead we opted for a downwinder to Flåm, the larger of the two fjord towns. This was one of my favorite days—the weather had warmed up considerably, and I was ready for a swim. We jumped off our boards and swam in the cold water which, by then, felt great. Swimming underneath a waterfall, feeling the water pour over my head, was a peak experience for me..
Titus collecting pure waterRelaxing in the sunshine
None us had thought about what swam below us until Scott founds the ugliest fish ever.
Who wants sushi?
Too soon we arrived at Flåm, along with several enormous cruise ships. What a difference in scale. Our days of isolation in the fjord were over. We piled our boards and gear on the beach, and Titus prepared a final treat: a barbeque lunchwith pølse, a sort of hot dog served with salad and onion bits. I rarely eat hot dogs, but in a Norwegian fjord, why not?
I was sorry our trip had ended but I learned that Norway and the fjords have so many more possibilities for adventure—paddleboarding, kayaking, and trekkinging. I look forward to seeing what new trips Titus develops. We also visited an outdoor store in Voss and learned about the DNT, Norway’s Trekking Association. I’m already plotting my return to Norway, and I know my fellow Floridians are doing the same.
Paddling into FlåmSUP pile in FlåmGear at our Flåm takeout
