Alabama and Florida

Quiet night anchored in DeLeon Springs. Got up this morning and motored back over to the dock, and headed over to the Old SugarMill Pancake restaurant. A fun place, as you can make your own pancakes on a griddle in the table. You can have buttermilk, buck wheat and multi-grain pancakes. You can also order bacon or other meat that is already cooked, or eggs, which you also cook yourself. It’s kind of a unique and favorite place to go before or after the C-Brat gathering at Hontoon. Several ways to get there, but of course we took the shortest through the shallower waterways that I talked about in yesterday’s post. I did talk with one of the DeLeon Springs Tour Boat captains about the best way to get through Spring Garden Lake. The track I had learned and been using wasn’t the best way to go. She showed me on the charts where the deeper water was, and then I also followed her tour boat out this morning. Still kicked up some mud, but other than a short distance, I did have a bit deeper water for most of the path. Temperatures right now are in the upper 40’s lower 50’s at night, and low 80’s during the day, with plenty of sunshine. We saw several manatees while in DeLeon Springs. After breakfast, and following the tour boat out, we continued on our way through Spring Garden Creek, across the north end of Lake Woodruff, and then through Lake Dexter back into the St. John’s River. Finally back into deeper water! (Lakes Woodruff and Dexter are also both shallow.) Between Astor, FL and Lake George, I detoured into Blue Creek. Very scenic creek where manatees also hang out. There use to be a lot of bird houses hung along the creek, but many are gone now. We only saw a few, but didn’t get any photos. Coming out of Blue Creek, back on the St. John’s for a short distance, then through some old barge fender rails marking the entrance into Lake George. Cut across the SW corner and crossed the shallow bar into Silver Glen Springs. There is a Rosborough gathering going on, (another trailerable trawler) and Rosanne counted 16 of those brand boats in here. Two of our gathering C-Dory’s were also here, C-Otter and Lake Effect. There are at least a couple dozen manatees in here as well. With the clear water, they are easy to see and fun to watch. We kayaked all around them, taking more photos than necessary! I noticed some Pleco’s (Plecostomus Cat Fish. When I had fish aquariums, the Pleco was one of my favorite fish to have, as they kept the tank clean.) I watched one Pleco sucking on a manatee’s back, likely cleaning off the algae and other bacteria and growth. We may spend two nights in here. The water stays around 72 degrees with the spring head here. Oh, also we noticed some areas with lots of pipe fencing. A sign said these areas are underwater grass restoration sites, likely for the manatees. In fact, Silver Glen Springs may soon close to all boat traffic. We’ve seen many sings in the area advertising meetings in regards to this.Read more