This is an 'old' photo set when Charlie Bear, his daughter Donna, Chuck Hubbich, Dan Endicott and myself went from Okeefenokee swamp to Moniac on the St. Mary's River. Where it starts in the Okeefenokee Swamp, the St. Mary's River is little more than a very, very small stream. There are numerous obstacles (logs) to deal with and for a lot of the run, bushes overhang the river completely. I've already told Charlie I won't even think about doing this again for at least another 5 years ... if then. This trip was brutal. I didn't take that many photos simply because we were in the bushes so much. Each of us probably scooped out at least 50 spiders from our kayaks.
So for the pictures I did get, on with the show. When we started this run it was drizzling. Here you can see Donna in the rear, Chuck in front of her, Dan in the blue kayak, and Charlie in the lead.

You can see from my 'refreshment' bag, it was indeed raining.

This may 'look' dense, but in reality it really did get a lot worse than this. This is Donna and Chuck 'coming at me'.

That's Chuck on the right and we are waiting for the others to get under this tree. Thinking back on this trip, I find it hard to believe we actually did this.

Dan is up next.

Yeah I know it's fuzzy. And it really did get a lot more dense than this. Where it got REAL dense I didn't even bother taking pictures. It was too dark.

When we stopped for a break, this is how Charlie Bears' boat looked. For the most part, Charlie was the pathfinder. And one time he did go down a 'false' trail that dead-ended. I ended up back-paddling past Donna and Chuck to check out what we 'thought' was the real creek or trail. It was and we all had to back-paddle to get to it.

Another stopper. You can see Charlie up ahead pulling his kayak over a log. And we all had to follow suit. I really can't believe we did this.

This is Dan looking like something the cat drug in. And this was only part way through the trip.

Negotiating another log. We all had to get out of our boats, straddle the log, pull the kayaks over the log and get back into them on the other side of the log.

Dans' turn. Needless to say, we all had a good laugh watching each other.


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Another 'stopper'. We all gave Charlie credit on this one. After getting out of his kayak and pulling it up onto the log, he got back in and 'pushed off' the log into the 'river' on the other side. We all followed suit and it was a cheap thrill to say the least. God, I can't believe we did this.

Chucks' turn. Same log, same process.

It was scenic in places.



A well earned lunch break. Needless to say, we were getting beat up pretty bad.

But like I said, in places, it was scenic. Looking downstream from our lunch break.

Still breaking.

I don't know why, but I stopped taking pictures after lunch. Too tired probably. Like I said this trip really was grueling. This section of the river is definitely at the bottom of our list of 'must-do' sections. Whenever we start feeling masochistic in the future, we know exactly where to go.
Email to Jack Woodward mailto: jackwoodward66@hotmail.com
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