Santa Fe River through O'Leno State Park

At my age, it is a relief to know that I can still make myself available for "life lessons." For instance, I learned this today: no matter how fun, small, and "cute" a rapids appears downriver, it can be an absolute bastard upriver. At current levels, at least, the Santa Fe has two of these between I-75 and where the river goes underground. Performing the back-and-forth, vigorous rocking motion know to all kayakers along with liberal use of the paddle as a lever, I managed to make it up the smaller rapids coming back. But after the second, larger rapids pinned me broadside between two rocks, allowing my cockpit to fill quickly with water, I decided there was no way out but to exit the boat and drag it upriver.

This trip was a whole lot more work than I expected. Downriver, the water is constantly draining through this or that suck hole or fissure and the current is anything but consistent. Couple that with the many felled trees that have dropped like so many Lincoln Logs across the river and you've got a workout. On the other hand, I once again found myself exclaiming, "Okay, this is the most beautiful place I've ever seen." Click on the picture to your right here (go ahead). You cannot paddle through a vista like this and not be changed.

The pre-Rise Santa Fe is famously twisty and this part of it absolutely was. At times I would wind my way through a series of switchbacks only to find that I had merely cirumnavigated an island that put me a mere 25 yards or so downriver. I often wondered on the way back if I would get lost or not--which is a strange thing to wonder on a river that flows in only one direction. For such an isolated place, however, I was never completely out of earshot of I-75.

Down near the suckhole, where I took a few revolutions around the whirlpool, I saw four wild turkeys on the wing crossing the river. They were such a surprise to me that I had to call a friend afterwards to verify that turkeys could really fly that gracefully. By the time I made it back to the truck, I was beat up and exhausted, but that was not a bad thing. It is good to have a river beat you up every once and a while.