Pellicer Creek

As in space travel, paddling for me is measured in time, not distance. For instance, five miles downstream may be an hour, but the same distance upstream may be three hours. The five miles itself is essentially meaningless. Such was the case with the strange, perplexing, counter-intuitive Pellicer Creek. Creeks, even tidal creeks, are supposed to flow to the sea, right? Near as I can tell, Pellicer (a creek wider than the Oklawaha and Santa Fe Rivers combined in places) does not--or so I found out when I decided to turn around after 1.5 hours of relatively easy downstream paddling.

The return was brutal, an against-the-current workout with a stiff 25-mile-per-hour headwind the whole way. I realized there are circumstances where I could be paddling with all my might and gain no progress whatsoever. Suffice to say I was done paddling an hour before I actually made it back to the put in. When I got back, a fisherman asked me what it was like to paddle against the current. I told him I hadn't realized an upstream return was in the cards until I had turned around.


The creek is salt marsh the entire way. I know because I tasted the water. Marsh grasses lined both sides, with only the occasional isolated forest on the south side to break up the landscape. My familiar paddling companion, the kingfisher, was there to berate me most of the way. Other than that, and one Great Blue Heron and one bald eagle, I saw no wildlife--unless you include the shirtless, portly gent who spoke to me from his deck.

Pellicer runs under I-95 and Route 1, which in itself was strange. As soon as I thought I had broken through to some wilderness, a major interstate and a stand of billboards crosses my path. I wanted to continue past Route 1 (and I am really glad I didn't) because it looked like things were about to get a little more interesting. I did have a bit of a revelation, though. I wonder if it may be possible to carry a makeshift sail with me on my boat. With the wind as it was, I believe I could have reach hull speed very quickly. 


Nevertheless, a day paddling to exhaustion is a good day. I find myself, however, increasingly addicted to the wilder aspects of it. I want to get lost. I want to go where there is no easy route back to a state park parking lot. I want to go where I see no evidence of human presence, not even a floating beer can. My favorite nature writers begin at such places and I crave going where they have and have not.