I woke up early today and drove down to Concord Cove Park since I still had my kayak on the truck from the Fontana paddles earlier this week. Concord Cove is about a 12 mile roundtrip paddle from the house, which pretty much is as far as I can go in one push, so putting in there gave me the ability to start exploring some new stretches of Loudon.
But instead of heading out onto Loudon I paddled past the Concord Yacht Club and into Sinking Creek. I spent a few hours exploring there, cruising past the Concord and Fox Road marinas and up into the farthest reaches of the creek. At one point, I had to wait for a river otter to swim under the Emory Church Road Bridge before I could enter, ducking my head to avoid scraping it as I paddled through. The area up past the bridge is awesome. Very remote feel despite how much it’s in the middle of everything. In addition to the otter, the highlight of the trip was watching an osprey chase off a Canada goose. Not sure what the goose did to earn the Osprey’s wrath, but it was pretty fun to watch.
Total paddle was almost 12 miles roundtrip. More photos. I’m thinking I’ll leave the kayak up in the garage for a while to encourage me to explore more sections of Loudon and its associated tributaries …
As I paddle past groggy, grumpy herons, I see an osprey take flight at the entry to Duck Cove. I hope this means they’re nesting somewhere in the trees up on Saltpeter Bluff.
It’s a perfect morning. Sunrise is shooing away the fog that settled on the water overnight, and I realize how long it’s been since I’ve been on the water at daybreak. To my mind, it’s without a doubt the best time to paddle. Dorsal fins slice through pollen-stained water. A muskrat swims parallel to me along the shore. Kingfishers, titmice and swallows percolate overhead. To think, I almost opted for another slog on the elliptical instead of going down to the dock and dropping the kayak in the water …
I decide to paddle over to Prater Flats, crossing the main channel of Loudon and hugging the south shore until I reach the entrance to the Flats. From there, I head up to International Harbor Marina (not sure what’s international about it) in Friendsville. I paddle around Prater Flats for a while before deciding to head home. All told, it’s 9.7 miles of bliss. I can’t wait to do it again.
As I paddled up Crystal Spring, I was trying to convince myself that even if I didn’t see any manatees, it still was worth the trip. The weather was perfect. The water was calm and clear. My kayak already was starting to feel like a part of me.
That’s when a massive, gray form came downstream toward me, flowed beneath my boat and continued out toward King’s Bay. Wow. I was instantly amazed by how large and graceful the manatee was. Several others followed, and before all was said and done, I’d seen dozens of them.
I paddled up to Crystal Spring, where manatees were huddled together enjoying the warm water rushing up through limestone fissures. As I returned back down toward the bay, I managed to paddle parallel to a cow and a calf for about a half-mile. It was an amazing experience watching them glide through the water, surfacing occasionally to take wet, slobbery breaths of air before descending again. There was an uncommitted tone to those breaths, caught somewhere between gills and lungs, water and air.
I spent a while paddling around King’s Bay, enjoying several more close encounters with manatees, before I headed down the Crystal River for a few miles. It ran through my mind to try to make it to the power plant, which I could see in the distance, but I had no idea how far that was and the wind was starting to pick up.
Instead, I ducked into an inlet where I found a small stream winding into the dense vegetation. The channel kept getting narrower and narrower, and I realized I was pretty much at eye level with the bank. I started thinking dark thoughts, scanning for reptile prints in the muck. If a gator came blowing through those reeds, we’d basically be eyeball to eyeball.
I decided it might not be a bad idea to back out of there, which I did. I spent a bit more time paddling around in King’s Bay before returning to Hunter Springs, loading my kayak and heading back to Ocala.
Great resource: I found a comment by JackL on Paddling.net that I used to help me find a good place to put my boat in the water and see manatees. It’s the sixth comment in this thread and it’s very useful if you want to do the same trip. Kudos to JackL for providing clear, concise instructions. Also, kudos to the other folks I saw on the river while I was out. Everyone I saw was very respectful of the manatees, giving them space and not harassing them. The boaters and swimmers also obeyed signs that restricted access to certain waters so the manatees could have some peace.
