The Sixth Voyage of the
Chick-a-Dees

Segment 05, Day 3 – Tuesday, 04/06/2021

CT Segment 05 Carrabelle, FL to Tates Hell, Sunday Rollaway Camp

The Moorings Marina in Carrabelle, FL

On our CT trips we normally travel out to near the location the day before, meeting up to drop a vehicle at our end location, then driving to our start location and spending the night in a cheap motel or campground. That was the plan this time, but things did not quite work out that way. Dena and I were to meet up at Ochlockonee River State Park between 2:00 and 2:30 pm, be checked into the motel in the marina by 3:30 pm and sitting and eating our dinner in a seafood restaurant before the dinner rush hour. That plan did NOT include Dena destroying a tire on her car on the way and being held up for about 4 hours while she hunted for a store that carried the right sized tire. (She has big tires on her SUV.) I was within 15 minutes of Ochlockonee when she called to let me know all this had happened and that she was just starting out on her way again and would be in Carrabelle in 3-4 hours.

I proceeded to the state park, filed our float plan with the office, paid for 4 days of semi-secured parking for my truck at the boat ramp in the park and was issued my vehicle hang tag for the week. The staff at the park, especially Ms. Brock, went way out of their way to make things easy on me. I wandered around in the picnic area for a while looking for some of the famous white squirrels. I didn’t see any, but I met two nice ladies from Tallahassee who were just packing up their paintings after a little “plein air” session on the river. One of them was a kayaker and I, in a previous life, owned a painting studio and taught oil painting, so we had a nice long chat.

After striking out on the white squirrels, I drove on to Carrabelle and checked into our room for the night around 3 pm. It was clean and spacious with a nice view out over the marina from the back porch and a little kitchenette. I plugged in my VHF radio and camera to top off their charges then wandered between sitting outside in the back looking at the boats and lying on the bed reading. I also called Dena and gave her the room number and told her where to park her car and the trailer so she wouldn’t have to stop at the office.

A rather frazzled Dena finally showed up around 6 pm. We moved my kayak from the bed of my pickup to her trailer and locked them up so it was ready for transport in the morning then we took off in my truck for some seafood. Of course the restaurant was jam packed and we waited over an hour for our food, but we had nowhere else to be and we munched on the salad bar and talked with a local couple at a nearby table while waiting for our shrimp and baked potato. I have to say, in spite of the crowd the food was good and the seafood local and fresh. After that it was back to the motel and to bed so we could be up early to set up our shuttle before launching.

Most of the CT is either on the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico, along the Florida Keys, or along the Intracoastal Waterway. But this one little section of about 35 miles is along the Carrabelle, Crooked and Ochlockonee rivers connecting the St George Sound with Ochlockonee Bay. We found the whole paddle very interesting since it is tidally influenced at both ends with salt marsh grasses yet in the middle it is more upland hardwood and sandhill environments. The Crooked River itself really lives up to it’s name. It’s about 25 miles to paddle but a straight line from start to finish is less than 15 miles. Most of the way we were within the Tate’s Hell State Forest which hosts campsites which can be reserved along several rivers. Each campsite has a picnic table, fire ring, and grill with room for 4-6 backpacking tents and one permit can include up to 8 people. A few places, called “Recreation Areas”, have multiple campsites and more amenities like vault toilets, trash cans and picnic pavilions. There are also (or there are supposed to be) 3 tiny spaces with a picnic table and room for maybe 1 or 2 tents for CT paddlers on a first-come first-get basis, but all the signs for these sites had been removed when we paddled through. Tate’s Hell State Forest is over 202,000 acres. The state of Florida acquired the property in 1994 to restore some of the natural freshwater drainage to Apalachicola Bay and to restore natural communities lost through the development of a pine monoculture by the timber industry.

I should also explain up front that while we could have easily done this section is 2 or 3 days, we decided to give ourselves a treat and do it in 4 days and 3 nights and just enjoy ourselves.

We were up early on Tuesday and dropped my truck at the boat ramp in Ochlockonee River State Park (for a $5 daily fee) right after they opened at 8 am. We drove back to the Carrabelle Marina, unloaded and prepped our boats then parked the car and trailer in a storage area of the marina (for a $5 daily fee). We hit the water almost exactly at 10 am. and headed upstream on the Carrabelle River. We were fortunate to be on a rising tide which not only gave us higher water, but gave us about a 0.5 mph push up the river.

The Carrabelle River is wide and salty with lots of homes along the banks. We had an absolutely gorgeous day to start our paddle. A bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds and calm seas, winds less than 5 mph. The low temp was 48F in the early morning and it got up to 73F in the afternoon. The water temp was 68F. Almost perfect paddling and camping weather.

After an hour we came to the junction of the New, Carrabelle, and Crooked rivers. Except from water level and surrounded by salt marsh grasses over our heads it was hard to determine which was which. Fortunately with our GPS it only took us a couple of minutes to pick the correct route and we entered the Crooked River proper. One of the first landmarks you see along the Crooked River is Oxbow Campsite which we passed at 11:15. We spent the next 2 hours winding around all the bends of the river, enjoying the beautiful weather and scenery, and catching up with each other on life events since the previous month’s paddle together.

We averaged 2.7 mph and reached Sunday Rollaway campsite – our home for the night – a little after 1 pm. There was only room to unload one kayak at a time so I waited and took some pics while Dena unloaded, then she went off to find the campsite while I unloaded. We pulled the kayaks up to the top of the bank after they were empty then schlepped our gear the 1/4 mile down an old logging tramway to the camp area. We set up our tents then sat in our chairs in the shade to eat lunch and relax in the quiet. No traffic noise, no aircraft practicing touch-and-goes, no sound except the sough of the wind in the pines and the twitter of migrating winter warblers in the undergrowth.

Around 6:30, with the sun getting low, we walked back down to the landing to check on the boats and see if we would get any sunset reflection, but the sun was in the wrong direction. Walking back along the tramway the marshes entertained us with a symphony of frog sound. The Bull Frogs providing a throbbing bass, Tree frogs a high soprano, Cricket frogs a high snare drum, and Green frogs giving a tenor harmony with Leopard frogs horning in with a occasional chuckle. After dinner at the picnic table, the bugs came out so we retired to our tents to organize gear, listen to the owls, and read until we fell asleep.