Santa Fe River at Worthington Springs

My days of paddling in shorts and a t-shirt appear to be over for a while. By the time I put in, the temperature had climbed to 55 and the air was so clear I could see the edges of leaves many yards downriver. All the humidity had been relegated to a puffy mist right over the surface of the river. In fact, the water itself was surprisingly warm.

This part of the Santa Fe is deceptive. It appears to be wide and navigable, but the levels are so low that my boat dragged the bottom the entire time. Even fallen trees of moderate thickness stopped me in mid-paddle...and there were many fallen trees. As portage in 50-degree weather wearing shorts and a t-shirt was not an option, this was a relatively short outing.

My descriptive powers fail to represent the alien beauty of this part of the river. The banks are high and steep and expose the ornate networks of the tree roots that line them. The tannin is so highly concentrated here that the water is black and opaque even when it is 6 inches deep. I saw no animals whatsoever here and only the occasional congregation of water skimmers betrayed that this river supported any life at all.


Yet evidence did exist on the banks and shore in the form of trash. I don't want this to become a refrain in my blog, but if someone is drawn to a river or lake or gulf for whatever reason, why then would this person sully the place that attracted them in the first place? Perhaps I am sensitized to this issue from my years of cleaning up the debris my teenager leaves around my house, but it truly does pollute one's experience in the water. Clearly, a trash bag will now become part of my paddling gear.


Tomorrow: The Santa Fe experiment continues at O'Leno.