The irony is strong with this one.
It had been wet and rainy for weeks and I was going a bit stir crazy being in the house, doing all this adult stuff like laundry and cooking. BLARG! The moment the sun peaked out and promised a day without thunder and lightning, I loaded a boat, grabbed a friend and headed out for a paddle.
I needed someplace new and exciting but not too much work as I was still struggling with my wrist injury from our open water crossing a few weeks prior. But where to go?
I looked on my paddle list and found the perfect spot. A little lake just beyond the Florida Georgia line. On the map it looked like a turkey track, so it was already looking fun. It was a man-made lake and was just recently opened up to the public. It was stocked with monster fish, as the point of the lake was to make this little Georgia town a fishing capital. It is still in its infancy so there was a good chance there wouldn't be a lot of boat traffic.
It was rightly named as well, Tired Creek. You couldn't make a more perfect connection between the name and the paddling opportunity if you tried. The launch area includes a nice new floating dock and loads of parking. The area was full of grass and would be a great spot for a picnic or to let the pups out to play.
The water was slightly tannic, not the darkest I have seen but certainly not a clear lake. We unloaded and watched a few boaters launch. They were small Jon boat size with small motors so not a big deal but not the ideal situation. The lake was decent in size and gave us a few options to choose from on which way we wanted to go. Of course, I went straight for the trees. Being a newly manmade lake, there were still some trees growing that didn't really belong. This also meant that there were many hidden trees and trunks just beneath the surface. Drastically reducing the chances of one of those motorboats flying by. I definitely would not be traveling this lake at any rate of speed unless I knew exactly where the channel was. At the time of paddling, the lake had no channel markers and only one or two or the hidden obstacles had been marked via a water bottle tied to it.
The trees, remnants of the swamp land that existed before three creeks, the Black Creek, the Sapp Creek and the Tired Creek, were dammed flooding the land to make a lake. This is not not an environmentally friendly way to create a lake, however, no one asked my opinion and not paddling it simply because I don't agree with how it was formed, doesn't make it exist any less. However, seeing it at these early stages definitely makes me wish I could be more involved in seeing the surrounding land conserved and not divided into lots to make way for lake side homes.
Paddling up the stretch that once was Tired Creek, we meandered through the trees, watching as Osprey's parented their chicks in their nests. We listened to the calls of swallows and heard a few bull frogs singing the song of their people. The trees towered over us and had an old and forgotten feel to them, like someone forgot to tell them the creeks were flooding, and they should go elsewhere. Perhaps, they were the only ones not willing to leave their home for the whim of the people making the lake, giving their lives to provide an obstacle for high-speed traffic.
As we neared the top of the lake, the vegetation became thick. The dreaded Hydrilla has already taken hold of this little lake. Paddling through it mean we inadvertently snuck up on fish hiding among it. I couldn't ever get a good look at them, but they certainly were not small fish. A few scared me as much as I scared them. This is one of those situations where fishing from the kayak could land you a lunker because no motorized or peddle craft would be getting up in this area.
The surface of the water was covered in a thick layer of water lilies. Their big green pads out soaking up the sun and the large white flowers in bloom. Some blossoms fully open basking in the sun's rays. Others still tightly closed waiting on the cooler air of the night before bursting open, still some partially open as if they were a little too hesitant to open themselves fully to the heat of the day.
At the far tip of the creek is a bridge which made for a great spot to stop, grab a snack and just take a minute to be out of the sun. It was also a chance to re-up our sunscreen. With a lake like this there is very little shade, and it doesn't take long for the sun to start baking you. At this point we had paddled about 2 miles. It was a very lazy, relaxing and rejuvenating paddle.
We returned to the launch and loaded back up, leaving much of the lake to be explored another day. The total paddle was 4.5 hours and was exactly the kind of adventure we needed.
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