kayaking – Page 4 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Out the door and down the road, another day on the water, Odessa Creek Launch

Current Location: Rocky Point Oregon 59F with a predicted high of 83 and sunny

When we returned from our gorgeous paddle the other day, I thought, “Let’s keep the kayaks on the truck and then we can go out again without reloading!” It isn’t that much trouble loading up our lightweight boats, but it is still nice to put on the hats, grab the sunscreen and simply jump into the truck on a sunny morning for another day on the water.

Mo suggested that we drive down the road a piece to a launch site that we haven’t been to for some time. Odessa Creek Campground is about 6 miles east on Highway 140. It is a quiet little camp with no fees and a small launch site to the wide creek that meanders out to Klamath Lake proper.

It is a pretty place, with lots of cover and shade, but it as usual, for this time of year, the mosquitoes are horrendous. There was someone camping in a big tent and I didn’t envy them in the least. We made quick work of the launch knowing that once we were out on the water, we would escape the nasty little critters.

We were on the water by ten, a bit later than originally planned because we waited for the temperature to rise a bit. The weather was perfect, and the lake was calm and glassy for most of our 7 mile paddle.

We love paddling meandering streams, but being on the lake near the shoreline has meandering ins and outs as well that provide interest. Paddling around the hills west of Bell Bay, we found the little cabin that was one of our first paddle destinations when we got our first kayaks back in 2005.

This time, with the glassy water and good weather, we decided to strike out across the bay toward another peninsula, marking the entrance into Shoalwater Bay. We camped on the east side of this bay back in 2011.

Being on the lake, even as close to the shoreline as we were traveling, was surprising. The perspectives change and shift so much when traveling at lake level. Klamath Lake seems huge! It is a magnificent lake, in spite of its quirks. A shallow lake formed in volcanic sediments, the lake is naturally high in phosphorus, and thus home to lots of algae during the summer months. The algae is actually harvested and sold as a food supplement.

Paddling through some of the green stuff yesterday, I thought how great it would be if we could eventually figure out a way to create fuel from algae. Then again, the empty solitude of Klamath Lake on a sunny warm early summer day is quite a treasure. So many places we have traveled, and many waters we have kayaked, don’t offer that great empty silent solitude.

The only noises we heard were the birds and from 20 miles away across the lake we could sometimes hear the trains that follow along Highway 97 north from Klamath Falls.

The most fun to watch were the grebes, both Western Grebes and possibly Clark Grebe, and either a pair or rednecked grebes or eared grebes. They dove too fast for me to get close enough to them to be sure. The best part was watching the grebes do their amazing water dance, again too far away to photograph, and too sudden to catch them in the act. It is really something to see, however, and worth just sitting around in the water waiting for the pair to do its thing. Of course, I was delighted to find several of my white pelican friends soaring over the water. Such amazing birds.

I did steal this photo from the internet with kudos to whomever managed to catch these birds doing their mating dance, running along the surface of the water. Before they start the run, the pair will paddle beside each other with their heads going up and down, extending their necks and retracting them, and then suddenly they take off in perfect unison. Odessa kayak_044 As we approached the shoreline on the east side of Ball Bay, I was surprised to see eagles in the trees. There were two adults and a very large youngster with the brown and white colors typical of juvenile bald eagles.

By afternoon, as we meandered back to our launch site at Odessa, the sun was high and hot and we were glad we were ready to get off the water. We even had enough time to get back home, unload the kayaks, and fill up the truck for a load to the dump. Our rural dump is now only only open one day a week, and we were surprised that there wasn’t a line of waiting folks. With the price raised to $13. for a small load, I am glad we don’t have to go very often.

Evening was a treat with wine and snacks at Wes and Gayle’s place next door. It is always fun when they come back from Arizona to spend a few months here in Rocky Point. We have some fun plans in the works for the summer with them, including an evening at the Britt in Ashland for Lyle Lovett and His Large Band. Looking forward to sharing our favorite little camping spot with them as well, with a trip to Medicine Lake in the works for late July.

The flowers are blooming, the iris and peonies are opening at last, the lupines are reaching their full height. Ahh…June. Probably the best flower time here at Rocky Point.

Out the Back Door Kayaking Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge

Current location: Rocky Point, Oregon Sunny and 50F at 6am, predicted high today 79F

Ah yes, finally. We managed to walk away from yard and house chores for a day and loaded up the kayaks. I was appalled when I realized that the last time we had the boats in the water was back in Florida in March. Sheesh. As I wrote in the title, some of the very best kayaking in the country is right out our back door. The Rocky Point boat launch is just a mile from our house, but yesterday we decided to travel a few miles north on Westside Road to launch at Malone Springs.

Yes, some of you know my last name is Malone, but no, the springs were named long before I arrived in the Klamath Basin in 2002.

We were on the water by 9:40 AM, and a big surprise was the lack of mosquitoes at Malone Springs. The Forest Service boat launch site has two free campsites, but the mosquitoes can often be daunting during the early summer. In fact, most of the east side of the Cascade range in Oregon is plagued with a heavy mosquito population, including some of the more lovely lakeside campgrounds. Maybe not as bad as Minnesota or Alaska, but definitely something that requires planning. Don’t forget the mosquito spray for shoreline activities! However, once out on the water, mosquitoes and bugs are almost never a problem.

Skies were perfect and the temperature was cool enough that we wouldn’t get overheated out on the water. Winds were light, coming from the north, so we had a bit of a breeze and a very little bit of current to paddle against on our way north to Crystal Spring.

One of the great pleasures of working soil survey in the Klamath Basin was the opportunity to map the soils in the Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. With more than 14,000 acres of organic soils supporting wetland plants, the marsh is directly adjacent to the forested lands of the Cascades. The complex vegetation patterns provided endless riddles of soil and vegetation patterns to decipher. Crystal Spring_032

Looking north as we paddle along the creek, we are treated to a view of the Crater Lake Caldera, still covered in snow.

Unlike the spring runs in Florida, the waterway we travel here is fed by hundreds of springs that come from the pumice soils all along the eastern slope of the Cascades. The water is cold, and there are a few large springs that are named, but many others feed the creek that flows through the marsh, as well as the thousands of acres of natural wetlands that are on the northern side of Klamath Lake.

The refuge canoe trail is famous for fly fishing. These 3 guys were the only folks we saw on this day on the refuge.

Different kinds of soils support different kinds of vegetation, and this is true of subaqueous organic soils as well. One of my major accomplishments mapping these wetlands was figuring out the complex relationships between different types of organic soil and vegetation patterns.

Remember that old saying, “out in the toolies”? These are the real tules, bigstem bulrush, that dominate the marsh.

They provide amazing cover for the many birds that we heard but did not see as we paddled along, When the tules get tall, they hide the sandhill cranes, great egrets, and blue herons that we heard calling throughout our paddle.

sedges Other major native plants that occur in the marsh are several species of sedge (carex).

The sedges seem to like the organic soils that are less weathered, more fibrous, and the willows occur in areas where the fibers are the least weathered, soils that are peaty rather than mucky. You have no idea how many holes I bored in this marsh to finally figure this out. As they say “What difference does it make?” Maybe none to the casual kayaker, but for the refuge managers it is helpful to know how to manage the refuge, and soil information has a big influence on refuge management decisions.

Other plants have colonized in some parts of the refuge, such as cattails and Canary Reedgrass, beautiful to look at, but not natural to the environment and detrimental to the existing plant communities.

Beaver dams are plentiful along the route.

No houses along the route except for this vacation property where our fishermen were staying.

Just a bit more than 4 miles of paddling brings us to beautiful Crystal Springs.

Traveling along Westside Road by car will lead to a roadside rest area with a trail down to the spring, but launching from this spot would be a bit of a pain.

North of Crystal Spring is a well known bed and breakfast called Crystalwood Lodge, visible from the channel north of the spring that I am reasonably certain was dredged for spring access.

We turn around for the paddle down the creek, with current in our favor and no southern wind coming toward us from the lake. The winds often come up about 2 in the afternoon and on this day we beat them.

There aren’t many places along the route that are conducive to landing, but back at the area where we saw the teepee, there is a rocky point that provides a place to get out of the boats and give both Abby and Mo and me a bit of a break before we continue back along the meandering route to return to Malone Springs.

The snow is still deep on Pelican Butte. Our home is at the base of that long slope below the mountain at the left side of the photo. The reflections on the return route are always mesmerizing to me, and I can’t tell you how many photos I have from this spot.

I paddle slowly, sometimes simply drifting along with the current, taking time to photograph the beautiful wocus, sacred and important plant to the local tribes for centuries.We slide into Malone Spring once again, still quiet with no other campers or paddlers around on this Wednesday afternoon. It has been a perfect paddle.

With the marsh vegetation providing great cover, the birds that we actually saw were a redtail hawk, redwing and yellow head blackbirds, and as Carol Herr would say, lots of ‘little brown birds”. Later in the day I did have one great blue heron fly gracefully across the creek right in front of me, but the camera was in the dry bag by that time so no photo. I made a sound recording of a bird call I didn’t recognize at all, and hopefully I can get Judy or Carol to tell me what the bird might be. I know the sounds of the herons and the cranes, but this one was completely new to me. No snakes, turtles, or alligators are in these waters, and I found myself missing them a bit.

I mapped our route with the Motion GPX app on my phone, just over 4 miles each way.

Here is another map that is related only peripherally to the kayak trip.

The black line on this map refers to the known wolf activity zone in the Cascades for OR7 or Journey, as he was named by Oregon schoolchildren. If you haven’t read about him yet, here is the story. There are many newspaper articles out there for this event, but I chose to share this one because it was written by the son of a good friend.

I call Journey “my wolf’, not because I have actually seen him, but because one night back in 2011, when he first began his journey to southern Oregon and California, while he was traveling through the Wood River Valley, Mo and I heard his howls during our evening time in the hot tub. Liz Parrish, owner of the Crystalwood Lodge actually saw him near her place, no doubt interested in her pack of sled dogs. Crystalwood is probably the most dog friendly lodge I know of!

“My” wolf is a daddy.

For the first time in nearly a century pups have been born in the Oregon Cascades. I believe we need to live in a world that includes predators for balance. Some of my local Rocky Point friends are all up in arms over this wolf near us. They are cattlemen, and ranchers, concerned for their livestock. Journey and his mate are hidden high in the mountains, and in all his travels he has never approached any domestic animal. I support the right of the wolf to live in Oregon, in this part of Oregon. There are great ranchers who have figured out how to live with wolves, and I pray that here in the Wood River Valley they don’t ever lose an animal to a wolf. I pray for Journey’s safety and I celebrate his new family.

3-05-2014 Manatee Morning and Snake Creek Afternoon

Blue Springs State Park Currently 56 degrees F High today 76

I have been thinking about what to write about yesterday for hours. The day all just blends together in my mind and words seem useless. Yesterday was a experiential visual delight, so much so that my senses are almost overwhelmed with the magic of it all and I am at a complete loss for words. I may just give up and resort to a string of photos to try to catch the magic.

We are at Blue Springs State Park, arrived Monday afternoon to sunny skies and a nice campsite. Of course, the big surprise of the day was that we were right next to Sherry and David, with no clue that they were even still here, much less in the site next to us. What a delight, especially since Sherry has so much knowledge to share about the local treats, including manatees, secret kayak places, and ice cream.

I was surprised as we arrived in Orange City at how big the area seemed to be, how developed. I somehow imagined Blue Springs to be as remote and quiet as Alexander Springs was, tucked away in the Ocala National Forest. Instead, Blue Springs is an oasis of state land in the midst of a well developed urban zone. Today I saw a sequence of aerial photographs that depicted the change in urbanism around the island of protected state land since the 70’s. Such a gift that this place was saved.

After settling in, we took Abby for a walk down to the boardwalk where dogs are allowed, a nice benefit at this park. Although Abby can’t go on the upper boardwalk to the main spring, we can take here all the way out to the St John River where most of the manatees seems to hang out anyway. On our first walk that afternoon we saw several manatees hanging out, resting and moving quietly.

Yesterday morning, however, I walked through the early dawn light to the boardwalk again, and to my delight found 8 manatees playing near the spring. As I watched they began moving slowly back toward the river, and I had the moments all to myself, with no sound but the gentle “whuff” of manatee breath now and then. As the morning progressed, a few more people showed up to visit the manatees, including Sherry, and we laughed at the serendipity of our chance camping choices and talked about manatees and kayaking.

Kayaking was a priority for us for the two days we had to spend here and Mo and I were on the river by 11, heading south into the St John toward the oxbow and then into the narrow channel of Snake Creek.

This is the point where words just completely fail. Mo and I decided that this paddle was probably our premier paddle of all time, just beyond perfect.

The weather was perfect, the skies were perfect, a bit of cloudiness to dress things up and then brilliant sunshine to illuminate everything.

Can you imagine being led into a wilderness by four great egrets, lifting in front of us, flying a bit farther into the channel, and landing. Waiting till we got close, lifting again to fly further down the river. They did this all the way to Dead Hontoon River, and then did the same thing all the way back to the St John River on our return trip.

We saw baby alligators and big daddy alligators, more turtles than I could possibly count, saw red shouldered hawks, and heard barred owls and saw wild turkeys on the shore.

Big Blue Herons, Little Blue Herons, green heron? night heron? cormorants, anhingas, cardinals, and what Carol Herr called “little brown birds”.

The water was so still, just barely moving, and the forest so silent except for bird calls. Not a single boat marred the perfection of our 3 hour paddle into that primordial place.

It felt exactly as if we were in some kind of prehistoric jungle place, a world only imagined and not even in the vocabulary of our gorgeous Pacific Northwest sojourns. I feel as though I am in a foreign land here in Florida, a magic place full of green and warmth and water and birds.

I am simply out of words.

02-22-2014 to 02-26-2014 Days in Key West

Current temperature at Sigsbee NAS Campground 83F Humidity 74% Partly Cloudy

At the moment, we are holed up in the MoHo with the generator on and the air conditioning running full blast. Being in the dry camping area at the NAS Key West (what used to be called Sigsbee Field) the air conditioner is imperative, even with our lacy shade trees overhead. At the moment Mo is trying to get our CO2 sensor to quit beeping. We don’t have a special stack for the generator as suggested, however even if we did, all the other generators going at the moment in these tight quarters might set that sensor off anyway.

Jeremy decided to add to the humid, quite warm ambience of the MoHo by adding something of his own. Albeit in the cat box, still requiring a nice kitty bath to make it all ok again. Very indignantly, he is trying to lick himself dry now. Nice to be able to not worry about him catching a cold. The last few times I have given him a bath in Mo’s collapsible bucket he seems to enjoy it, at least for the most part. I think his favorite part is getting all swaddled up in the bath towel and cuddled until he is at least partially dry. He doesn’t complain.

This is our second full day in the campground, having arrived in late afternoon on Saturday. The campground office was closed, but after reading several accounts of the procedure, and an emergency call to John (our recent new friends at “Our Trip Around the Sun”, we had an idea where to go and how to proceed.

Within minutes of calling the phone number posted on the office door, a campground host showed up in his little cart and went over the process of signing up officially on Monday morning and led us to what was to be our site for the weekend. We were tucked back in a circular area with several rigs around us, all running their Honda 2000i’s to ward off the heat. I guess one of these generators will power a 30 amp rig, but it takes two to power up the big guys with 50 amps. Only planning on dry camping for 5 nights, we were content to use the generator on board the MoHo.

Camping here is an experience at what is most definitely an inside culture of folks who know how to do it, how it works, and those who don’t. Lucky for us, most of the folks know how to do it, and we have communicated enough with blog friends who have camped here that we had a basic understanding of the rotation system and didn’t give our host too much trouble. He wasn’t so lucky with some folks arriving just before we did, with a lady waving her arms and looking disgusted trying to wangle a better site on their first night here. We did know better than that, and Walter, the host, told us that the rotation at the moment is about 4 weeks with more than 200 rigs signed up on the rotation list.

Trumbo Annex, at the Coast Guard facility down the road, is completely full with long time sites that have been filled since Christmas. We were told there is no chance of getting into that part of the family camp. Dry camp in this part of camp is mandatory rotation, but with only five nights here, that isn’t an issue for us. Tired from our journey across the keys, and the traffic and surprising heat and humidity, we settled in with the air conditioner and the generator going full blast.

We had a bit of a hiccup with the generator, being set for high elevation, and no doubt a bit moist from all the humidity, it coughed a bit and died. Unsure what the problem was and with darkness falling, Mo decided to wait until morning to check the oil and the altitude adjustment. All was fine after that, but our first night here was a bit of an adjustment for us as well. With normally balmy temperatures in Key West, we weren’t expecting mid 80’s and little breeze. From what I have learned, it happens sometimes, but not usually this time of year.

During our evening walk around the campground, we ran into the camp host and asked what exactly you had to do to draw one of those primo waterfront sites. He said, “Well, I have one coming in tomorrow that is too big for the site, so you could move in there after ten AM”. OK then!

We went to sleep pretty tickled, got up early to go explore town and get our bearings in the car before our scheduled move. Back at ten sharp, we checked the site as instructed, and with it empty, we made our move. No sooner had we dropped the jacks and opened the slide that another camp host arrived to tell us, “Sorry to tell you this, but you have to move. This site has come up in rotation and you can’t be here.”

Instead of staying in our very hot, very fume filled site however, Buzz led me to a shady site that was a bit smaller and was right by the garbage cans. Oh thank you for a small rig. Garbage cans or not, this site is shaded with two lovely, lacy trees that are actually nasty invasive species that are overtaking the Keys. At the moment, with the shade from those trees, we can sit outside in our site and enjoy the cooling breezes, and the MoHo doesn’t get all that hot during the day with just the Fantastic Fan running and the windows open.

There are several hundred RVs on site at this moment, and as I said 200 or so are waiting to rotate into a full hookup site. Generators are allowed to run between 7am and 11pm, and there is a dump and water station. We learned that if you try to dump during the dark there is a $15,000. fine. Yup, you read that right.

With all the complexity, it might seem easier to just go to a regular RV park, but at the current rate of $147 per night at the local KOA, and no other parks around, we decided that paying $13.00 per night to camp here was worth it. Thus far, after about half our five day stay, we have used about 1/4 tank of gasoline to run the generator. Pretty inexpensive digs to stay in Key West.

Next post: Some of the more delightful aspects of staying and visiting in Key West and why we decided it was worth it.

02-17-2014 Florida Magic Morning

Fort De Soto Campground; Clear sunshine 70 degrees F

It is the morning magic thing. Florida brilliant sunshine, balmy air, light and shadow through the oaks and cedars and palms. Birds singing, a few voices here and there as folks leave the campground. Actually Mo and I snagged a waterfront site this morning for our anticipated move. Mo just said, “This is privacy without privacy!” What she meant was that we are in our private campsite watching the activity beyond the little bayou as people pull out of the park

Most entertaining was this huge rig pulling a huge trailer that hauls a huge Escalade. The rig was in site 137, trailer and all. It took them at least an hour to get set up to pull out, and then watching them pull out was incredibly entertaining. I think there must have been more than a million bucks tied up in that get-up and you couldn’t give it to me for free! And according to a park volunteer watching their late exit, they were only there one night!

We get to watch another big rig trying to pull into these gorgeous private waterfront sites. Two guys are waving their arms around and Mo is here talking to herself saying, “Why in the world don’t you go around and pull in the right way?!” Unlike folks in our rv-ing life who have no qualms telling us what to do, she won’t go over there and tell them how to do it better. There are two guys waving their arms while another guy drives and three women standing around taking photos. Six people in one rig? No matter how big it is that seems a bit tight for me.

Abby is snoozing on the grass in front of us as we sit in our chairs sipping and reading. Although the entertainment across the pond definitely has superseded reading for the moment. Jeremy is back in the rig after thinking he was spry enough to catch a pesky squirrel that was trying get inside the rig to eat whatever he could find.

When I watch these rigs trying to manuever, I am so grateful for our 26 foot length and especially for our 11.5 foot height! Mo just went to get the binoculars so she could check out the new folks more easily. Tell me where you can find entertainment like this when you don’t have TV. Now THIS is what rv-ing is all about, right?

NOT!

THIS! is why we are in Florida, once again, I know why we are here. After the sun gets a bit less intense we will launch the kayaks nearby for another paddle on Mullet Bayou. We originally planned to go explore a section of the park that we missed before launching the boats, but when we moved the rig we saw a huge line of cars at the entry station just south of the campground. Some kind of biking/running/swimming thing called a Duatholon. Do you bike and run or bike and swim? No clue, but biking is definitely part of the agenda.

We have no need to go anywhere but right here in our perfect spot, with entertainment provided across the way by accommodating big rig folks.

But that sort of entertainment only last so long. With scarcely a breath of wind and those bright sunny skies, the boats were calling us. Instead of leaving the campground to launch, we decided to use one of the unoccupied tent campsites. It was very quiet there, and we parked in the site, launched, and then moved the car to a quiet nearby spot to park.

On this trip, we were again in Mullet Bayou, but on a different shore. Decided to paddle east, and hopefully go under the bridge toward Tampa Bay. Before we were out even ten minutes, suddenly there was a ruckus in the water in front of us and sure enough, it was a pod of dolphins. I think there were at least three and they were cavorting and jumping and playing. I didn’t have the camera…having decided that I didn’t need more photos of herons and egrets. Can you believe it?

Thankfully I did have the iPhone, so grainy as the photos are, you can at least see that the dolphin was right in front of my boat. With all the jumping around they were doing, Mo and I both wondered out loud, “Do you suppose they could dump us over?” I suppose that could happen, in fact I think it did happen to someone with an Orca whale not long ago, but I wasn’t too worried. It was great fun to see them playing so close.

We paddled under the bridge, north into the edge of Tampa Bay, and back around under the Pinellas Bayway making a perfect loop. Passing up our launch site to slide into the bayou by our campground was fun, with another phone photo of the MoHo site on the water from the kayak.

By the time we returned, it was after 4 and we needed to get a few groceries. Google sent us back out of the park to the north and east over the Pinellas Bayway again toward a decent Publix about 7 miles from the campground. Somehow with all that water and all those bridges things seem much more distant than they actually are. We were back home and had the grill started up by 5:30.

To celebrate our great days here at Fort De Soto, we decided to have a campfire. Here in Florida, that seems to be a rather pricey celebration. We put down a $20. deposit for the fire ring which cost $3.50 per night, and bought an orange net bag of firewood for $9. The wood was some kind of cypress or cedar and was stringy and damp and smoked a very long time before it finally caught.

Still was great having a fire and a sunset to accompany us as we enjoyed the balmy evening on the waterfront. Tomorrow we head south toward Fort Myers, and plan to take the slow route along the coast rather than jumping on 75. Who knows who we might see along the way. I guess we will find out tomorrow.