Bob, One of my favorite paddling "loops" in the Orlando area is to start from Blue Springs State Park (a first-magnitude spring, near Deland, which is home to plenty of Manatees in Winter and flows into the St. John's river), circumnavigate Hontoon Island (state park, island has a wonderful hammock trail leading to an extensive Timucuan midden and first-growth live oak) and return through one of several canals cut in the Huntoon Dead River, for logging, many years ago. I usually see gators, bald eagles, deer, and other wildlife. Another nice aspect of this trip is that much of the travel on the St. John's in this area is speed controlled (manatee zone), so you can sprint past the idling powerboats as you go. This is in contrast to most parts of the St. John's which have powerboats buzzing past you at 50mph+. Greg Stamer Orlando, Florida _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Oct 11 2001 - 06:55:13 PDT
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