Florida Canoeing

Holy crap... I just got back from the canoeing trip (they didn't have kayaks after all, just canoes) and it was crazy! I'll probably post some photos on facebook after my phone dries out (more on that in a bit.)

It was gorgeous... We went about nine miles down from Kings Landing to the Wekiva Island Marina, past gators and turtles, over giant fish and through black water and red water and beaches... Jeeze. My canoe mate (Chris J.) and I had both never canoed. It was definitely an adventure - the guy who rented us the canoes asked if we'd done it, we told him we'd kayaked, and he kinda paused, suggested we might be biting off more than we could chew, then shrugged and made us just sign a release form.

At first, it was beautiful. Then Chris J. ran me in to a tree full speed. That was less beautiful. Two minutes later, he drove us in to some reeds. Awesome. After about twenty minutes of working on paddling and steering, we were off again - watching turtles sunning on rocks, going under giant spider webs (which my brother and his other friend Chris B. insisted were incredibly poisonous and if we were bitten we'd die,) passing rope swings and going under fallen trees.

Although it was fun the whole way, there were horseflies the size of my fist that bit like they were burning you with a hot poker, and it poured buckets on us for at least two of the nine miles. Still, while it was raining, there were no bugs. Every time my canoe-mate got bitten by a horsefly, he yelled and swatted it and stopped steering, so the canoe would shake, nearly capsize - then we'd crash in to a tree. And then we'd just laugh maniacally, and get started again.

This was four hours of awesome. The only bad thing is that my phone might have bought it - I managed to keep it dry even during the downpours, but it (and my whole purse with it) got soaked when we almost-capsized after Chris J. had one of those banana spiders (which, again, we were all convinced were deadly,) land on his shoulder. His response was to flip out, slap it off him, then throw his oar at it. All I hear from the front is a growl then I'm covered in water and sailing headfirst into a sabal palm. Since my brother and Chris B. were just a turn behind us in the river, we had them grab his paddle and give it to us - but I'm just waiting to see if my phone'll come back from the abyss or not. Here's to hoping!

We also saw a baby alligator asleep on a log... Both cute and scary. :)

Best quotes of the past few days, btw:

"Do not pet the manatee. You will go to jail. Do not attempt to ride the manatee. You will go to jail."

"Why did we pick the double black diamond canoe trip for our first go round?"

"Gah... Why do you suck at canoeing?" "YOU SUCK! This is YOUR fault we're stuck." (This was from my brother and Chris B. after they got wedged between a tree and a log, so that they were blocking the entire river at that point and stuck. About two seconds after this, Chris J. and I slammed in to them (the current was fairly strong, so we got ourselves parallel to them and just hit them sideways, rather than head-on.)

"Wait... So your were so pissed at the spider that you were like, Oh, I don't want this oar any more."

~Gwyn