Alafia River

We are still here at Lithia Springs. The campground never seems to get over 30% full but the weather has been a little cool. It’s been going down to the mid-40’s at night and barely reaching the low 60’s during the day. It varies between sunny days to cloudy days but the only rain we got was the 1” rainfall that came last week end. It raised the Alafia (AL-AH-FIA) River from 100 cfs to 450 cfs. It was time to paddle it but the local canoe livery was not running any shuttles and I didn’t feel like loading the canoe back on to our motorhome and driving to the put-in at Alderman’s Ford and biking the 7 miles back at the end to pick up the motorhome..

Finally on late Monday I asked the campground host for help. He said we could put my long 17’ canoe into his short 6’ bed pickup truck that also contained his 5th wheel mount.

After figuring out how to tie it down, by 11 AM Tuesday morning we were on our way. It worked fine, luckily the local roads were smooth and not much traffic. Joe helped us unload and we got on our way. The sign says that it is a 6 hour paddle to do the 11 miles back to our river front campsite.

The flow had dropped to 320 cfs which provided a really nice fast current. Most of the shallow Class I rapids were washed out but for novices there could be lots of problems maneuvering through the fallen and low hanging trees in the first 4 miles of the trip.

It was sunny and about 62^o F, plenty warm for a paddling trip. The cool weather eliminated all the alligator sightings but we did see lots of turtles and birds. We were the only ones on the river which gave us a real wilderness experience. About halfway down there are some houses on the left and as you near the campground there are houses on the right. Other than that you are alone on the river.

We didn’t paddle hard and with the fast current we got back to camp in 2-1/2 hours. We are happy that we got to paddle this beautiful river again. Most of these FL rivers are very clean and scenic.

The remaining days at camp have been spent doing short bike rides on the trails at Fish Hawk Ranch. Our plans are to visit the huge RV show in Tampa on Saturday and then see if we can get a campsite at the popular E.G. Simmons County Park on Tampa Bay. It is 100% full but each day a few people leave. No reservations are accepted at this park.