The Waccasassa River After The Apocalypse

The boat ramp for the Waccasassa River is 38 miles from my house as the crow flies, but it might as well be on the moon. The river is wide and banked with soft, black mud and wasted trees, uprooted and pocked with woodpecker holes. Something came through here, a flood, a hurricane, a bulldozer, and although the parking lot was packed with trucks, trailers, fishermen, and one particularly grouchy old woman (yes, I grouched back), we saw almost no one on the river itself, except for alligator and birds.

It became apparent immediately that this place was tidal, and low ebb at that, because we paddled past the exposed roots of salt marsh grass and the aforementioned mud. At one point, after we turned into Otter Creek, I got out of the boat to see what lay beyond the banks (lots more marsh grass, by the way) and my sandal came off in mud the consistency of thick cake batter, several pounds of which I brought back into my boat with me.

I love this place. It seems endlessly discoverable and is only accessible by boat; the whole place is one big preserve. The gators we encountered, out for one last sunning before the deep freeze, reluctantly entered the water as we approached, no mean feat for a cold-blooded creature as the water numbed my hands in seconds. The stunning tree diversity along the banks adds to the otherworldliness of this place: oaks next to palms next to cypress. The Waccasassa is one of those places that could only be in Florida and it's just down the road.