Paddling Alexander Spring

After a five-day hiatus (not all of it desired), we finally got out on the water again after paddling Blue Spring.  Today, we put the kayaks into Spring Creek, downstream from Alexander Springs:

The following information is from floridavacationers.com.

Because of the thick, water-filled limestone lying beneath its surface, Florida has more large springs than any other state or even any other country in the world.  Alexander Springs is a first magnitude spring, which is the largest type of natural spring. To be classified as first magnitude, a spring must discharge at least 64.6 million gallons of water a day.  Alexander Springs discharges 80 million gallons of water per day.  This feeds a distinct current into the stream, which is 7 miles long and empties into the St. Johns River.  We could feel that current as we started upstream.  It slowed us, but wasn't too stiff.

The first part of our paddle led us through indistinct gaps in the water lilies:

Those plants were very near blossoming -- but not just yet.  All that was visible of the blossoms was the round, closed flower:

During the first half hour of our paddle, we saw very little wildlife, and were afraid this paddle wouldn't be quite as interesting as that critter-rich paddle we had the other day at Blue Spring.  We were soon proven wrong, and this heron was the first of many!

 

 

Most of Alexander Spring is a hardwood swamp forest, which is a type of deciduous forest wetland. Two hundred years ago, these types of wetlands covered much of the Southeastern United States, spanning close to 30 million acres; today, only about 40% still exist.  We saw hardwoods, including live oak, but also many palm trees, pines and cypress:

Yet another heron let us get close enough to photograph her:

The first of many turtles also appeared, crawling out to sun themselves as noon arrived and the day warmed up.  We were able to photograph at least eight different turtles or groups of turtles, so we've had to choose which ones to show you.  This is one couple that we found fetching:

After a couple miles, we reached the furthest point upstream, which is the spring itself.  Kathy came prepared with snorkeling gear.  The water is so clear (and swimming is permitted) that it is easy to see the bottom from the surface, with all the fish, vegetation, rocks and shells that the water hides.  Kathy went right in!

The three-hundred-foot wide, fresh water spring is crystal clear and has a beautiful sandy bottom. The water there remains a constant temperature of 72F the entire year.  If you look towards the corner of the spring in the upper right of the photo above, you will find the head spring. The headspring is hard to miss because it is a breathtaking, turquoise color. This is where the spring is fed with 56,000 gallons of water bubbling out every second.  The headspring has a rocky entrance with a twenty-five-foot-deep slope, which Kathy could see clearly:

While Kathy was exploring this magic underwater kingdom, David was guarding stuff -- and it was a good thing he did, because this little thief tried its best to steal our lunch:

After this interlude and lunch, and a chance for Kathy to dry off and warm up, we headed back out onto the stream to float back down to where we started:

The angle of the sun had changed over lunch, and, as we paddled downstream, the water was so clear that we saw hundreds of fish of all sizes, feeding, darting about, holding in the grass, running in schools.  We've never seen so many fish on a paddle!

The light also brought out some flora that we had missed on our paddle upstream, such as these delicate, round-leafed plants along the water's edge:

Yet another colorful turtle made his appearance --

-- followed quickly by two of his friends:

This pretty little epiphyte broke the string of turtle sightings --

-- before we spotted this string of three herons as we paddled down the home stretch to our launch site:

This turned out to be another spectacular wildlife paddle, topped off by a stream full of fish and a crystal clear spring.  We couldn't have asked for more!

But we will.  Tomorrow we'll paddle another spring.  See you then.