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| Kayaking the Okefenokee Swamp |
Sometimes, but rarely, we plan an adventure that seems cool
and fun in planning and turns out to be a unique and special experience. Kayaking in the Okefenokee Swamp was one of
these unexpected and glorious adventures.
As we walked from the outfitters’ office to the kayaks, a flock of about
40 Sandhill Cranes flew overhead, gobbling their hoarse calls. A perfect start.
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| Suwanee Canal |
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A cold and sleepy gator |
South Georgia was experiencing unusually cold and grey weather. We arrived ready to kayak, bundled up against 55
degree temperatures (that feel even colder on the water) with wool shirts, heavy
pants, layers of jackets, and multiple pairs of socks. Okefenokee Adventures also provided us with
fleece bags to stick our legs into as temps dropped at the end of the day. Many of the cold-blooded creatures in the
swamp had burrowed into the mud at the bottom or holed up in leaf litter. Alligators go in to a kind of torpor when temps
drop below 60. We saw the snouts and
eyes of a few who had propped their heads on the shoreline, and only one in
motion when the sun poked through the clouds and lit the swamp with brilliant
warmth.
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| Slow moving water gives great reflections |
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| With our guide Jennifer |
The Okefenokee Swamp is a shallow peat-filled wetland. It is called a “blackwater” swamp because the tannin in the decaying leaves stains the water the color of tea. It is the source of the St. Mary’s River the serves
as part of the border between Georgia and Florida before it reaches the
Atlantic Ocean, and the Suwanee River that empties into the Gulf of Mexico.
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| Dense vegetation and black water |
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| Heading to the wet prairie |
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| Tickseed Sunflower "island" |
The swamp has sections of trees anchored in dry land, and
vast areas of “wet prairie”. Peat
composed of millennia of decaying plant matter layered on the swamp floor traps
pockets of methane. The methane will bubble
to the surface, bringing up a section of peat with it. Seeds from small plants and wildflowers will
colonize this floating island. The
islands can be moved by the wind, or your paddle as you happen by. If you try to step on it, the island will
sink. Hence the translation for
Okefenokee as “Land of Trembling Earth.”
Exposed peat will dry in times of drought, turning it into fuel ready
for a chance lightening strike on a nearby tree to make it ignite. Vast acreages of fire are very common in the
Okefenokee, and for many plants are an important part of the survival and continuation
of the species.
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| Prairie |
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| A late blooming water lily |
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| This scrawny cypress tree is 20 years old. We know because it has cones on it. |
We started our paddle down the Suwanee Canal, an incongruous
but lovely canal cut through the swamp in a failed attempt in the early 1900’s
to drain the swamp. It is lined with
cypress trees. In areas that had not
been affected by recent fire, the trees were draped with Spanish Moss. In other places, the trees were bare. The Cypress tree drops its needles each Fall,
and we were able to witness Autumn in the swamp, as the trees turned to a golden
brown.
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| This tiny, colorful Sundew traps insects in the tiny hairs and eats them |
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| Pitcher plants are also carnivorous, they can grow very tall in the Oke |
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| A brief moment of sun illuminates Cypress in Fall colors |
We left the canal to paddle through prairies loaded with
lily pads and floating islands of tickseed sunflowers, sundew carniverous plants, redroot, and
pitcher (also carniverous) plants. At this point the water
trail was narrow and we paddled in single file past one extraordinary vista
after another.
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| Sunset in the Swamp |
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| Heading home |
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| The setting sun lights the way |
You don’t have to kayak to enjoy the Swamp, Okefenokee Adventures
will also give you a shorter motorboat tour. We arranged for a guided “Sunset” tour that
started at 2 and ended at 6. An evening
out on the water would give us the chance to see the birds as they flew to
their evening roosts. Before evening
fell, we heard Owls calling in the distance, and Sand Cranes gobbling as they
flew low over the prairie. We saw White Ibis
feeding, and startled Great Egrets out of the brush in dignified flights of
white. With the onset of darkness, three
Anhinga’s playfully escorted us down the canal toward home, and then abandoned
us to fly to roost. Huge flocks of Ibis
flapped overhead.
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| Night falls on the Swamp |
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| Looking back as the sun sets |
We arrived back to the dock well after dark, paddling the
last half hour in the total quiet of a sleeping swamp, guided by a weak light
from the half moon.
This was not the
sinister, buzzing swamp that you might imagine as full of toothy or venomous
inhabitants.
This was a lovely, quiet, serene
place, with beauty to be found in broad vistas and tiny plants and
animals.
It is unique and special.
The world is a better place for it, and we
are so happy that it is protected as a National Wildlife Refuge, and has been
since 1937.
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| Paddling home by the light of the moon |
Here are pictures that our guide, Jenn, took.
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