Three Nights in The Okefenokee

We got an early start from Jekyll Island and after a pleasant drive on all secondary roads got to our reserved campsite at Stephen Foster Georgia State Park in the Okefenokee before noon. We picked the same site 16 that we stayed in in the past since it is the shortest walk to the boat launch. We dropped off the canoe first and just locked it to a post. The weather was sunny in mid 60’s and a little breezy.

We paddled toward the Suwannee River source since that is where we saw a lot of gators last year. We saw about 10 small ones and one really big one. Peggy pointed them out to me. It was a short 1-1/2 hr., 5 mile paddle, our first canoeing of our trip.

We hoped to paddle again Friday but it was very overcast and windy and threatened to rain. So we didn’t do much and hope to paddle again on Saturday.

There is on-off cell phone service and no internet service in this park which is 17 miles off the highway. But they do have cable TV hookup to get a few stations and the weather report. At this time of year there are no mosquitos which is why we prefer this park to the Everglades, which is always buggy. Beside the gators & turtles, there are lots of birds, deer and they say bear.

On Saturday it finally warmed up to the low 70’s, We paddled 8 miles to Minnie Lake Landing and back. This is  where we caught up to a big group of friendly kayakers.

Like last year the slow current allowed us to paddle back in 20% less time then we paddled up to the Landing. When we got to the main channel we were thinking of going to Billy’s Island but the clouds rolled in and the wind picked up so we just headed back. We saw lots of small alligators and turtles.

Our next planned camp is Ocean Pond campground in the Osceola National Forest about 60 miles South of here near Lake City, FL. They do not take reservations and it is very popular. So our plan is to shop for groceries in Lake City, FL and then drive to the campground and hope to get there about 10 AM Sunday morning. This is when the weekend campers start to leave. There have three types of sites here; Electric/Water, Water and Primitive. They have nice bathrooms and showers and are right on a small round Lake about two miles in diameter. We hope to get an Electric site and stay here for about 10 days.