Silver River

I did the Silver River this morning. Yeah, that's right, the whole thing, five miles up and five miles down. Of course, at least three of the downstream miles were the sweetest drifting this side of Huck Finn, but I more than earned my keep paddling upstream. Oh, and my $300 Garmin GPS fell in the water and died, because I thought it would be "cool" to see where I was on the river, and where I was turned out to be a place where GPSs can get irreparably soaked.

The Silver is a heavily trafficked river, so I put in as early as I could get down there and was the first one in the water. I didn't meet a soul until I was on my way back downstream, and the only motorized conveyance I saw was a pontoon boat straight out of "The African Queen," complete with ladies in safari hats. I hid in a little cove until they passed.


I took a half day off from work to do the whole thing, because I've aborted mid-trip so many times on the Silver that I was determined to make it all the way to the glass-bottom boats if it killed me. I'm tore up from the floor up, but it was worth it: I've seen every anhinga, cormorant, ibis, wood duck, and turtle in the state of Florida and many of its finest gators; I know what it's like now to be completely stationary from the waist down for four hours; and I had a day of paddling so vigorous, I had just enough strength to get the kayak back on top of my truck.

Waxing philosophical about paddling is a fool's game and I try and avoid the facile stuff, but drifting for an hour without touching my paddle, letting the current spin my boat around as only it knew how, was nothing short of prayer--even with the GPS emitting its electronic death rattle in the back compartment. To know the birds by their calls, enveloped in the white noise of the cicadas, to feel the river actually lift your boat as the aquifer belches up a fresh supply of water, to begin to know a plant or tree by its smell, well, that's a sense of spirit I don't believe I've ever had.


Tomorrow: Who knows?

R.I.P.