Saturday, February 27, 2021
We are staying at Otter Springs Campground. Since it’s a weekend, it is pretty full, but the spring is flooded. Apparently all the rains in Georgia have brought the levels of the Suwannee River way up, and it has flooded into these low-lying areas. Usually the springs are crystal clear, but today you can’t even tell where the spring is, or where the stream flows out of it.
We decided to explore the area and other springs, first going into Fanning Springs State Park, but it was closed due to flooding. Several times we crossed the beautiful Santa Fe River that Martha and I have floated before. We went into Manatee Springs and walked around. It was flooded a bit, but the waters were still clear. Many were swimming and snorkeling.
I decided to go ahead and float Otter Springs. Although it was murky and flooded, what the heck. Martha decided to come along. I was a little worried about snakes, namely cotton mouths, but we didn’t see any. Martha led the way down the stream as two barred owls called to each other in their classic “who cooks for you” call.
In another two weeks, this will be gorgeous. The trees didn’t have leaves yet and the millions of bromeliads were sprouting red buds. It is only a mile float to the Suwannee River, and we managed to find our way. With floded waters going everywhere, we thought it would be difficult to find the channel, but it wasn’t. It was still very pretty and we had it all to ourselves.
