03-08-2019 Kayaking the Silver River Once Again

Current Location: Jacksonville Naval Air Station Florida

Clear and 55 degrees F at 7AM

I didn’t plan it this way, but somehow it was perfect.  Our last day kayaking in Florida was on the Silver River.  For me it was just a tiny bit bittersweet.  I fell in love with this river during my first trip to Florida in March of 2000.  Florida was entirely new to me and a complete surprise. 

Paddling against the current, trying to keep from running backwards into this guy as I juggle the camera

I had never imagined the beautiful forests or the clarity of the springs, and the feeling of soft velvet Florida air.  I hiked down to the river from the state park and daydreamed about someday owning my own kayak and being on this beautiful river.

Colors on the upper part of the Silver River are breathtaking

I visited the springs and the river several times over the years, riding the jungle cruise boats and the glass bottomed boats from the springs, but it wasn’t until 2007, when Mo and I made a cross country trip to Florida in the baby MoHo with our previous kayaks that I actually got on the river in my own boat.  (the story is here). It was mid December, and the trees had no leaves and it was a chilly day. Still, it was a beautiful day and we were surrounded by an incredible number of birds on that trip.

Juggling camera settings while paddling, got some kind of “art” thing!

Our trip to Florida this year was about making one last cross country journey all the way to Florida for the main purpose of kayaking the spring runs. As always, with Florida planning, I had a bit of trouble scheduling weeks in the proper order at the proper places.  When I scheduled our two weeks on the eastern edge of Northern Florida, I thought that we might have access to some nice boating areas around Jacksonville.

Lower portion of the Silver River is a bit darker, not quite as clear as the upper part

What we discovered, however, was that most of the kayaking in the Jacksonville area isn’t exactly what I imagined when I planned to drive so many thousands of miles to find clear spring runs.  Instead, there is the huge St Johns River, which is more like a bay, and its many beautiful estuaries.  Salt marshes, low tides exposing sharp oyster beds, and thick brown water.  The more I researched, the more I decided that a 2 hour drive to return to the limestone backbone of the state where the best springs are located was OK.  After all, if we could drive 3500 miles to get here, we could drive 95 miles to kayak clear water.

There were some options, but none seemed as perfect as returning once again to the Silver River and Silver Springs.  We knew the launch point from our previous kayak, and we knew the paddling against the current upstream was doable.  We had done it.

Lobelia in bloom along the river’s edge

We left early in the morning, hoping to be at the launch by 10:30 or so.  What we didn't’ count on was my wrong turn that took us to the eastern edge of Orange Lake instead of the west side, adding another hour to the trip. I should know to turn on Miss Google’s voice when I am driving instead of getting all cocky and thinking I know where I am going.

We were launched and on the river at exactly noon, an easy, non slippery, and soft launch right into the canal that leads down to the Silver River.  It is important to mark the location of the canal so you don’t miss it on your return trip our you will end up in the big, brown Ocklawaha River.  We reached the Silver River in just a few minutes and turned west toward Silver Springs.

Hmmm.  I didn’t remember the current being this strong.  We had 5 miles to go to the spring upriver, and my shoulders definitely noticed the power of the current.  I think it must have been a bit more than the 5 mph listed in the kayak book.  Lucky for us, after a couple of miles, the current seemed to lessen a bit, or at least we got used to it.

During the first couple of miles, the river didn’t appear as clear as I had remembered, and I was a bit disappointed.  By the time we reached the 3 mile marker, however, the water began to clear more and more.  The river seemed big after the Rainbow and the Ichetucknee, and it was deep! There are numerous springs where the water boils on the surface, trying to turn the boats in circles. 

The bottom of the river shows turquoise and green where the springs boil up and you can see huge gar and bluefish in the depths.  I think some of those parts of the river must have been more than 40 feet deep.

Black crowned night heron

Limpkin, the only species in its family

This lonely baby wood duck was our favorite, especially when it found its mom

We didn’t have as many birds as we saw on our December trip, but we did have a LOT of fellow travelers.  It seems that floating downriver is the most popular way to do the river, and we were going upstream.  After awhile I got really tired of saying “hello, hi, good afternoon” so many times to so many people.  Another surprise to me was the presence of motorboats on the river.  Required to travel at idling speed, they still felt rather intrusive in such a place.  We never saw a boat on that river back on a chilly day in December of 2007.

We were entertained by several young rhesus monkeys playing in the trees

It was a beautiful paddle.  At about half a mile from the spring, as the afternoon light was lengthening, we asked each other if we really needed to go all the way to the spring.  Having done it before, we decided that paddling around with the glass bottomed boats, the river boats, and the tourists wasn’t something we cared about doing.

Turning back downriver, suddenly we realized that we were at last alone on the river.  For most of the gliding float downstream, we had the river to ourselves, with only a few hardy souls returning upriver to the Silver Springs launch site. It was gorgeous.  And it was bittersweet.  I knew that every dip of my paddle into that water would be among the last. I savored every moment in the way life should be savored all the time. 

It took us about 3 hours to paddle 4.5 miles upriver, taking time to photograph the birds, alligators, and monkeys.  We floated downriver in about an hour and a half, for 5 hours total in the boats doing 9 miles. 

I should mention the monkeys, since obviously they aren’t endemic to Florida.  The legend is that they were released when the Tarzan movies were filmed in the area in the 40’s, but research indicates the monkeys are actually escapees from the Jungle attraction that used to be at Silver Springs.  There has been talk of trying to remove them, and some feeble attempts were made, but since they are so popular with tourists, thus far they remain.

It is a bit difficult to explain how paddling on the water through all that green feels a bit like you are inside a green glass bottle with the sun coming through.  Somehow the vermillion light fills my heart as well as my eyes. I am so glad the Silver River was my first and my last Florida river.  A treasure I will remember always. Mo just reminded me again to mention that the day was absolutely perfect, the weather was perfect, the skies were gorgeous.

03-03 through 3-09-2019 A Week at Jacksonville Naval Air Station

Current Location: Jacksonville NAS Family Camp, Jacksonville, Florida

Clear and 70 degrees at 8PM

We left Mayport on a quiet Sunday morning, ready to travel the short distance across the bay to our new digs at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station.  Knowing we couldn’t check in until 11AM we spent an easy morning walking the beach one last time, having a nice breakfast, and enjoyed a leisurely time as we readied the MoHo for travel.

The camp manager was so helpful, calling us two weeks prior to our visit and then again on Sunday morning, giving us explicit directions as to how to get to the park, where to go to check in, and then where to go to actually enter the campground.  Too bad I didn’t pay attention when he told me to take I-295 since it was the quickest route.

After our experience coming into Jacksonville last Sunday, I got the bright idea to instead choose the no tolls, no highways option on Google Maps.  If you look closely at the photo below, you can see what happened.  I was routed right through downtown Jacksonville, across the big drawbridge, and through the very narrow brick streets in the historic neighborhoods before finally getting on something remotely resembling a highway.  No freeways, and two hours later we arrived at what is locally known as JAX NAS.

We definitely got an eyeful of Jacksonville, more than we had in our previous sheltered week at Mayport, and I needed to learn a bit about the city.  What I found was a surprise.  Jacksonville is the 12th largest city in the United States for population and the largest city by land area in the contiguous United States.  No wonder we saw Jacksonville city limit signs miles and miles out of town on Amelia Island.

It seems that in the latter part of the 60’s, the city center was abandoned to the suburbs, and was in a state of decay with no tax dollars to improve the situation.  The suburbs were floundering as well, without services and any kind of central government to manage some kind of infrastructure.  As a result, the city of Jacksonville actually annexed a huge area of all the surrounding small towns and communities to create one huge city. 

I think it worked.  Jacksonville now has a thriving economy, with a big military presence, high employment rates and a decent standard of living.  For a big city. And it is a really BIG city.  Somehow I had no clue just how big it was until we spent another week driving Jacksonville traffic trying to get around to “do stuff”.  The other problem with trying to get around in Jacksonville is all the water.  Part of the wealth of the city is directly related to the huge St John River, and the deep water port, navigable from the Atlantic Ocean.  No matter where you go there is water, and there are bridges, lots of them. 

When we arrived at the campground, the camp host was right there waiting for us, showing us to our site and making sure we were positioned for hookups.  He also warned us about the unlevel cement pads, and offered some wooden blocks to add some height.  We managed to level without them, but he hovered around quite a bit trying to make sure we were comfortable.

The campground is a lot different than Mayport.  It is smaller, and tighter, and the sites are much closer together.  There is no cable TV, but full hookups.  Most of the people here seem to be settled in for the season, and almost all of them seem to have “Retired Navy” either on their rigs, or on their tee shirts and caps. 

The laundry room is also free, but the machines aren’t as new or nice as Mayport, but at least they do have some folding tables which is helpful.

After settling in, we decided to explore the small nature trail that goes from the campground along the bay, but much of it was muddy and overgrown.  Late in the week, we never made it back there, because we would walk Mattie on the wide open grassy spaces around the park. and at the wonderful big regional park we found just outside the gates of the base.

A surprising thing about Jacksonville are the number of parks with various lands within the city limits operated by the National Park Service, Florida State Parks and the City of Jacksonville Department of Parks and Recreation. Jacksonville operates the largest urban park system in the United States, providing facilities and services at more than 337 locations on more than 80,000 acres located throughout the city.  Rather amazing I think.

During our week at JAX NAS we spent some local time at one of these beautiful city parks, Tille K Fowler Regional Park.  On one afternoon we hiked to the observation tower, and on another day we traveled a bit of the Island Trail. 

It was wonderful having such a dog friendly park directly across the street from the base, just outside the main gate.  I have never seen a dog park like this one, with actual trails for the dogs to run, surrounded by tall chain link fence to keep them safe.  There was a small dog park and a large dog park, but with all the standing water in the small park we chose to let Mattie hang out in the big dog park.  No other dogs were around, so she was ok to run and play all she wanted to in that big open space.

Another great benefit of JAX NAS is the brand new commissary.  It is huge, about as big as any Costco, with lots of good produce, including organic, excellent meats and seafood, and just about anything you could ask for in the deli section.  I was shocked at the low prices, with items costing sometimes half of what I am used to paying in Oregon and elsewhere on this trip, even here in Florida. The NEX was also huge, with lots of choices, but the prices at the NEX didn’t seem all that different than anywhere else, except you don’t have to pay sales tax.  Well, we are from Oregon, so we aren’t used to paying sales tax anyway!

During our time here, we spent a day cleaning up and shopping, two separate days exploring nearby Saint Augustine, (post to come soon), a day traveling farther south to kayak the Silver River, (see this post) and a couple of days doing nothing but catching up on stuff, doing free laundry, and taking the dog to the park.

It has been a good week, and the campground served us well for the time we were here.

03-06-2019 Saint Augustine Treasures

Current Location: Jacksonville NAS campground, Jacksonville, Florida
Brilliant sunshine, breezy, and a high of 54 degrees F

Actually, the “real” current location as I write is home at Sunset House in Grants Pass Oregon.  I did a decent job of keeping up the blog during our travels, all except for this visit to Saint Augustine.  One of the most difficult parts of writing this particular story is the overwhelming amount of fascinating history that is associated with the city of Saint Augustine, and with each of the beautiful buildings that we visited.

As I attempted to write, I found myself getting completely overwhelmed, and have decided that instead of rehashing all the history of each of the places we visited, I will add links that you can peruse at your leisure if you are interested.  I’ll write what we saw and how we felt, and if you want the rest of the story, you can follow the links.  It is the only way I will ever get this post completed.

When we once again piled into the Tracker for the trip across the bay from Jacksonville to Saint Augustine, we were more prepared for another expected cold day.  I wore shoes and warm socks and dug my winter coat out of the storage bin in the Tracker to brave the chill.  Coats and warm shoes and socks made a big difference but the sunshine was an additional bonus in spite of the chill.

The Casa Monica Hotel was impressive both inside and out.

Arriving a bit early for our 10AM tour, we wandered the streets nearby, enjoying the complexity and loveliness of this part of the city. We delighted ourselves with a coffee and shared a pastry at the luxurious Casa Monica Hotel.  I walked around the lobby, feeling a bit nervous looking for the bathroom, expecting to be expelled from the hotel as a lowly tourist rather than someone staying there. 

St George Street was beautifully quiet at this early morning hour, and we enjoyed a view of the Basilica from the outside, waiting for the Ash Wednesday services to end so we could visit the lovely interior later in the day.

We discovered later in the afternoon that visiting St George Street was much like any other busy tourist town, with lots of stores full of “stuff” and lots of people.  It wasn’t a place we chose to hang out for long.

Later in the day on St George Street

The magnificent Ponce De Leon Hotel was built between 1885 and 1887 by Henry M. Flagler, the hotel and railroad magnate whose activities contributed greatly to the development of Florida’s eastern coastal area. Upon entering through the main doors, the magnificence of the lobby and the beautiful dome is overwhelming.  Covered with gold leaf and painted with gorgeous murals, surrounded by hand carved oak pillars, and underlain by stone and marble floors, it is as luxurious and opulent as almost anything we have seen anywhere in the world.

The interior of the hotel is decorated with imported marble, carved oak, and gorgeous murals. The stained glass windows were created by Louis Tiffany of New York.

We were escorted on our tour by a student who explained to us the history of the hotel, the history of how it was converted to Flagler College in 1968, and several tidbits about the artists, the interior and the construction of the hotel and what it was like living there as a student.

Can you imagine eating meals every day in this room?

We visited the dining room, surrounded by Tiffany windows, elaborately sculptured dining tables and chairs where students went about their business, well used to the groups of gawking visitors.

We were shown the beautiful ballroom, with portraits of Flagler and his wives, and examples of the kind of dress that was expected when one went to dinner at the hotel, mingling in the parlor for the women and of course the cigar smoking library for the men.

We then viewed the courtyard and listened to stories of a hotel with running water and electricity in every room, in the late 1800’s, completely unheard of.  We enjoyed the fine details of design, with overlapping themes of shells and water, with a frog pond that also functioned as a sundial. 

I highly recommend making time for the student guided tour, worth the effort, and a wonderful way to experience the hotel more deeply than you might just wandering through on your own.

After completing our tour of Flagler College, we walked a few blocks west to explore the beautiful Memorial Presbyterian Church. Another of Flagler’s masterpieces, the Flagler Memorial Presbyterian Church was built by Henry Flagler in 1889. It is one of his most significant projects, because it was constructed as a memorial to Flagler’s only daughter, Jenny. The mausoleum adjacent to the church is where Flagler, his daughter, granddaughter and first wife are buried.

The stained glass windows are breathtaking, and while not done by Tiffany himself, they were created by his protegé who also worked with Tiffany on the windows at the Ponce de Leon Hotel.

After our visit to the church, we wandered back in the direction of St George Street and the Cathedral Basilica.  It was Ash Wednesday, so the sanctuary was basically off limits to casual tourists, but we were allowed to enter during the services as long we we were quiet and respectful. 

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine is home of the oldest parish of a permanent European settlement in the country. I wasn’t able to get to the front of the church during the service but did manage to take a couple of photos from where we sat quietly in the rear.

We followed Pam’s suggestion to skip the trolley stops in favor of walking the downtown area, meandering along St George street toward the Castillo.  We were getting a bit worn, and knew we had yet to see two more iconic sites in St Augustine. On the previous day we had passed an Irish pub along the main street, and with a quick check with Google Earth, realized we were right on the path to another place to warm up with lunch and an Irish Coffee.

Meehan’s Irish Pub was just the ticket for a chilly day in March.  We ignored the open air porch on the second floor and instead settled into a nice little corner table by the window downstairs.

Instead of Irish coffee, we decided on cold beer, and with Guinness on tap I couldn’t resist.  Mo had something else since she isn’t a dark beer lover.  Irish chips and corned beef egg roll appetizers were a great lunch.

Thus fortified, we were ready to continue our day of sightseeing and walked a few blocks down the street toward the beautiful Castillo de San Marcos. The fort looked much more inviting on this lovely sunny day that it had on the previous day shrouded in cloudy skies.  The temperatures were almost warm enough that we could open up our coats!

Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort and the best preserved example of a Spanish colonial fortification in the continental United States. Much of the history of Saint Augustine and of Florida in general is contained in the history of this dramatic fort. It protected Saint Augustine from pirate raids, and from Spain’s major rival, Great Britain, during a time when the Florida-Georgia-Carolina coastline was an explosive international battleground.

Spain built the Castillo de San Marcos to counter the attempts by the British to take Florida.  Begun in 1672 and completed in 1695, the fort replaced the nine wooden forts that had protected Saint Augustine since its founding.

The design and construction of the fort was so amazing that it was never actually taken in battle, with ownership of the fort only occurring through treaties and agreements.  It withstood several sieges, and never actually fell to an enemy.

The fort is small but quite beautiful, constructed from blocks carved from coquina, a shell filled limestone that is somewhat soft. The simple square design is fortified by diamond shaped bastions on each of the 4 corners, sloping walls that descend to a moat, and cannon arranged so that they can fire in overlapping directions.

Photo from Wikipedia showing the design of the fort with it’s diamond shaped bastions

A story that each of the trolley drivers loved to tell was how the British would shoot cannon balls at the fort, and they would simply stick in the soft rock.  The Spaniards would retrieve the balls from the walls and shoot them back at the British. 

The laughter was a reply to my question if they use 6 pound cannonballs for the reenactments.

We enjoyed exploring the fort,  and watching the short theater presentation of the re enactment of shooting the big cannons.  We later spoke to a ranger in period dress who said they shoot the cannons every weekend, but the neighbors across the inlet didn’t like the cannonballs, so there are only 1/2 pound balls shot instead of the 6 pound balls that the cannons can shoot for a distance of more than a mile and a half.

It was getting late in the day when we returned Old Town Trolley for a ride through town back to our car. 

Although there is a trolley bus that will cross the Bridge of Lions to the St Augustine Lighthouse, we wanted to be independent of any kind of schedule and take our time visiting.

Across the Bridge of Lions to the lighthouse

Once back to the Tracker, we settled into the fairly heavy traffic flow south through town and toward the bridge.  We were lucky enough to miss any kind of drawbridge lift, and in no time were across the inland waterway toward the beautiful lighthouse.

Even this late in the day, parking was tight, but we managed to find one of the last spots in the tiny parking lot at the lighthouse.  The museum is lovely, the grounds are beautiful, but the most fun of course is the 218 step climb up the winding stairs to the top of the lighthouse. 

It really isn’t a bad climb, with nice wide landings about every 20 steps or so and plenty of room to pass people going up and down.  Nothing like those towers that daughter Deanna and I climbed in Italy last fall!

The best part of the climb is the gorgeous 360 views of Saint Augustine and the barrier islands between the lighthouse and the Atlantic Ocean.  We could see some rather amazing kayaking routes from that height, but knew that this time around, those paddle routes would be left to other boaters.

We also saw a tree full of nesting spoonbills and wood storks at the Alligator Farm down below us a few miles south along the highway.  Without any desire to pay another entrance fee, and to try to park and deal with crowds, we let our desire to view of the birds go.

It had been a very long day, with an overload of gorgeous architecture, complex history, lots of walking and climbing, and we still had to get back through Jacksonville traffic to get home.

I haven’t even come close to talking about all the other “attractions”  (the ones we didn’t visit, that are part of seeing Saint Augustine.  There is the Fountain of Youth, the Potter’s Wax Museum, Ripley’s very first Believe It Or Not, the Old Jail and the Oldest Store and Museum, There is the Alligator Farm, Mission of Nombre de Dios and the Our Lady of La Leche Shrine. There is the Spanish Military Hospital Museum, the St. Augustine Pirate and Treasure Museum, the St Augustine Aquarium, scenic cruise tours, private sailing charters, pirate ship adventures, helicopter tours, and zipline canopy adventures. Food and drink are everywhere, with breweries, restaurants, hotels and B and B’s filling in what few spaces are left.  It is a busy place, feels somewhat like Disneyland at times, and it takes planning and some discipline to not get overwhelmed, especially with just a short visit. 

Completing this post feels somewhat like I felt that last day that we visited Saint Augustine.  Wonderful, a bit overwhelming, a bit exhausting, and yet something I am so glad we did.  I am also very glad that I did write this post instead of following my temptation to just skip it and let my photos be my own personal reminder of our time in this beautiful historic city.