Florida Panhandle

I am still struggling to get caught up on my posting. These are some pics from our Thanksgiving trip last year. We went down the Florida panhandle and camped in Panacea right on the water. We now have a TV and DVD player hooked up in the camper. It rained every night so we would hang out in the camper and watch movies at night and drink our coffe and watch the news in the morning 'till it cleared up then we could go paddle. It was pretty windy wo we struggled to find protected waters. The first place we paddled was the St. Marks north of natural bridge(the place where the river runs underground then reamerges agin to the south). It was perfect. Very sheltered and the water was very clear.
We also went to the Ochlockonee which was protected and had beautiful scenery but the water was not clear and not much wildlife. Jason did some fishing but didn't catch anything.

Above is an otter feeding at the Wacissa. The Wacissa is beautiful, full of wildlife but not as protected as we would have liked. Below is Big Blue Hole. This spring is about 45 feet deep and the water here is crystal clear and bright blue. While we were there, some folks came in a canoe and dove the spring. Now Jason is hankering to get back there with some dive gear and check it out. The spring is off the river a little bit and protected from the wind so we sat here and ate our lunch.
Thanksgiving dinner in "The Pearl"

Update

Ok, so I am not a very good blogger. I have taken a break from posting but lately I have been thinking that I need to get motivated to start again. I just got home from my family's crawfish party and Gregory Brown played(and was fabulous). I told him I'd send a link to the blog so that was the motivation I needed to get back online. So anyway here are some pics from the last couple of months. First my sister and I went to San Fransisco with her friends. They were going out for a dog show so we got to tag along and hang out in the city. We went shopping and sightseeing, ran across the golden gate bridge, rode the trolley, went to Sonoma valley for some wine tasings and of course checked out the waterfront. One of the coolest things was the sea lions. They were sooo cute and sooo loud. We had a fabulous time!

Here are the rest if the pics http://www.flickr.com/photos/gillikin/sets/72157605420485448/

Next Jason and I went to Summerland Key for my sister's birthday. They rented a house and we stayed for a week(I am doing a great job of attaching myself to other people's trips). We took our kayaks and they rented a boat for the week but the wind was blowing like crazy so we tried to kayak, tried to fish, tried to dive but were only mildly sucesful. But we had a good time. We went to Key West twice and spent a lot of time in the hot tub. http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=224146301/a=72173436_72173436/t_=72173436

For our first trip of 2008 we went to north Alabama and went camping/caving with Joey, Aimee and their friend James. We went to Fricks cave which is closed due to a population of grey bats but once a year they open it up and cavers come from all over to cave, cookout and fellowship. It was a sweet cave. First it was dry and we saw some pretty nice formations. We saw some bats and lots of guano. Then we got to the stream. This was our first wet cave and it was pretty intense. The water was sooo cold and you had to crawl on your belly through the stream and the roof was so low that you had to hold your head sideways to get through. It was crazy and I can't wait to do it again. We also hit Stephan's Gap. I reppelled with a rack for the first time(I miss my figure 8 but I guess I will get used to it). I wish we lived closer so we could go caving more:-(

On the next trip Jason went without me. He went to Texas to fight wildfire for three weeks and left me at home. I went kayaking three times with my friends, twice from 5 rivers and once on Hurricane Bayou. My friend Kristen found a cool little canal off Justin's Bay. I found one mention of it Brint's Blog but he didn't know what it was. My to do list for kayaking includes Little River from Co RD1 to Hwy 59, McVoy Lake, crcumnavigate Gravine, Lizzard Creek and I want to check out the platforms on the Bartram canoe trail. My other goal is to get a smaller kayak that I can load by myself so I can paddle even when Jason is busy and not have to rent one or take the whitewater kayak.

Ok so I know that those are some pretty broad highlights but I will try to do better in the future.

Summerland Key

Summerland Key Pics: http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=224146301/a=72173436_72173436/t_=72173436 We stayed in a house with my sister, her husband and our friends Buck, Lisa, Alec and Karen. We had planned a week of diving, fishing and kayaking but the wind was blowing 25-30 all week. We still managed to have a great time!

Fairhope Pier to Fly Creek

October 8

Today is a double holiday. It is both Jason's birthday and Columbus Day. Everyone at work knows I take all state holidays to be with Jason. So we decided to go paddling. I have been wanting to go Fairhope to paddle so we went and stopped by the Fairhope Boat Co to see Harriet and get some stuff for the anchor system Jason is rigging up. We put in at the pier and made the crossing to the Fairhope Yacht Club. It was a beautiful day and a good paddle. We saw a lot of pelicans and found a little sandbar with chairs already set up for our picnic lunch. The creek became small and overhung with branches after it went under Hwy 98(just the way we like it) unfortunately it was blocked by a logjam shortly thereafter. So overall we had a good paddle and by putting in at the pier we were able to stretch it to 5 miles.

Smith Lake

September 7-10

We took a long weekend and went up to Smith Lake in north Alabama with our friends Joey and Kelsie. Smith Lake is a 21,200 acre lake north of Birmingham that was formed when Alabama Power dammed the Sipsey River. It is 200 feet deep in places. At the base of the dam the water comes out of the bottom of the lake into the Sipsey Fork and because it comes out of the bottom of the lake it is very cold. They stock this creek with rainbow trout every 60 days and this is the only place in Alabama where you can fish for rainbow trout.

We stayed at the Clear Creek campgrounds. We got there at about 7:30 Friday night. After checking in we started to set up the camper. The first that happened was that we locked the keys in the camper. Jason took the door off the hinges and we got the keys out. Then Jason started to brush off the grill and start dinner. As soon as he touched the grill it fell over. Now we had to go back to the office, get a new site, pack up our stuff and move. This however did not hurt my feelings as I did not like our first site. It was a pull-through so we were right on the road. I liked our second spot much better. It was big and secluded and right on the lake. We finally get set up and ate dinner. Joey and Kelsie got there at about midnight and set up their tent behind the camper.

Saturday morning we should have gotten up early to get to the river but that did not happen. Jason caught a bass in the lake while we were eating breakfast. We went to the river and stopped at the bait store to find out what the trout were biting. We got to the river at about 10:00. It was really pretty, the weather was great and the fish were there, they just weren't biting.

We gave up at 12:00 and went to the dam. After fixing sandwiches for lunch we tried fishing the dam. Same story there. The fish would swim up to the bait then turn around and leave. We waited till 2:00 to see them turn on the dam then headed back to camp.

We fished and swam in the river at our campsite and Jason caught a catfish.

There was a flock? of ducks that came up and were obviously used to being feed. They ate out of our hands and I got to pet them.

That night we cooked steaks and the played spoons. If you have never played spoons you don't know what you are missing. It is a card game but as soon as someone gets four of a kind they grab a spoon and then everyone tries to grab a spoon and like musical chairs there is one less spoon than there are people. There were a few injuries and my cards got pretty beat up but we had a blast.

The next morning we tried to find a place to paddle but they are in the middle of a drought and all the creeks were too low to paddle. So we went out to eat lunch and the Joey and Kelsie headed back home. Jason and I went to a creek and the water was so low that we were able to walk/wade upstream and fish in the deep holes for bass. We each caught a fish but didn't keep them. Then we went back to the dam after a nap but did not have any better luck.

Monday morning we packed up and came on home. We did not catch any trout or kayak but we had a good time!

New camera

Jason got me a new camera for my birthday. It is an Olympus 1000. It is weather proof but not waterproof so I hope I don't edver drop it in the creek! Anyway on our trip to the Indian mounds I was playing with the macro function:

Back to the Indian Mounds

September 2, 2007

It has been a very busy summer. Jason went out west to fight fires for 2 weeks and I have had Taekwondo summer camp and 3 tournaments. Even if we had not been so busy it has been to hot to do anything. It's not really any cooler now but since it is officially September it seems cooler...maybe.

So anyway, for labor Day we went back to the Indian Mounds with Jason's brother Chip and his friend from New York, Anne. This was a long trip for new paddles but Jason wanted to take Chip to see the mounds. There were two things we did not take into account. First Anne has never paddled before and second the kayaks that Chip borrowed from his friend were short, fat barges. So it was a tough trip but Anne was a trooper and did a great job. She did fall in once but we won't talk about that here because we already gave her a such a hard time:-) . The round trip was about ten miles and in one section there were a lot of low limbs and long jams so it was constant steering back and forth from bank to bank.

June 16, 2007

We are now the proud owners of a 1990 13' Casita "The Pearl". It had a lot of work done to it before we bought it but Jason has already started adding more stuff. He has already replaced the ice box with a refrigerator and some other small stuff. We decided to take it for a test drive so we loaded up and headed out to Meaher State Park on the causeway. There is a new fishing pier and boardwalk. We saw 5 aligators and a scavaging racoon while walking on the boardwalk Friday night. The camper worked pretty good and we would have slept good if we had remembered to bring pillows.(We always forget pillows) We also discoverred that the curtains the came with the camper are very thin. There was a light just outside the camper and we kept waking up and thinking it was morning and getting up. We were up at the butt crack of dawn, we have got to get new curtains. It was so nice to sleep in air conditioning, eat dinner without flashlights and brush our teet inside. The next morning we did some fishing off the pier and I caught a catfish.

As you can see we brought the kayaks. I have been wanting to check out the Five Rivers Center that just opened on the causeway. We put in at the floating kayak dock which was an adventure. The did a good job of making a dock that was environmentally friendly but it is a pain in the you-know-what to get in and out of a kayak. I didn't think I was going to be able to get out and Jason had to help me. Anyway, we went under the causeway, through some grass pathways and down to the bayway. We went under the bayway and followed it to Daphne and went under Hwy 98 up D'Olive creek. We saw a bunch of alligators, tons of birds ( I can identify seagulls and pelicans but that's about it), Giant flying grasshoppers(lubber grasshoppers), snails, and fish. This is the most animal life I have seen on a kayak trip since we got back from the Everglades. I took pictures but they did not come out:-(

May 5, 2007

This weekend we went to the Pirate's Cove Wood Boat Festival in Josephine. This is the first time we have ever been and this year was the 10th annual show. They had stuff going on Friday and Sunday but we just went down for Saturday. We launched the kayaks at Josephine and paddled to Pirate's Cove which was just across the harbor. I don't know how many boats they usually have but I know there were a bunch this year. There were boats on the dock, on the beach and in a roped off area in the parking lot. There is a contest and you can see the results at their website http://www.perdidowoodboat.org/. They had some booths set up with food and crafts so we got some jerk chicken that was very good and spicy. While we were eating we saw Charles and Lucia Parton with their family and talked to them for a while. Then Jason's friend Taylor Wilkins met us down their with his boat. We helped him launch at Josephine and took it out for a test drive. This was it's maiden voyage since Taylor had it re-done. Of course Taylor did not have new plugs, life jackets, chairs, fire extinguisher...but hey whatever. We also saw Dr. Luke Adams and talked to him for a while. He had a boat that was being judged. After we had had all the fun we could stand we headed back across the harbor. When we hit the bank Jason grabbed the front of my boat and pulled it up on the bank but did not realize that just the tip was on the bank so when I tried to get out it tipped over and dumped me into the water, so thanks Jason.

There's me:

These little girls were so cute in their tugboat

Taylor Wilkins: