The water gage continued to drop over night. It is said that 8? I'm assuming 8 feet, is very high and treacherous for paddling. We hung around Thursday morning waiting to see if the rain wasn't going to return, and took a walk near the Saluda and Broad River. Which at their confluences becomes the Congaree River.
We arrived at the Cedar Creek landing
there was a swift current under the wooden pedestrian bridge that spanned the 12 foot width of the creek channel. Sorry I didn't get a picture of it. Here's a stock photo
the water gage was 5.5 when we got there, so it would've been about 4 in that stock picture. The water was up to the 2nd step on the right side. That's where we put the canoe in. We had to stroke hard to get under the bridge and head upstream.
cypress and tupelo trees. The tupelo trees look like a cross between our tulip poplar, that we have in TN, and the cypress trees there. This creek channel meanders for miles in both directions. We figured we would go upstream then drift back when it was getting late and we may be tired. I'm glad the water wasn't higher, it would've flooded more in the swamp but would've also had more current and more hazardous. I don't like swimming.
we did veer out of the main channel into the cypress knees. Eeooh that was a mistake! It took some backward navigation to get out of that. It was to tight to turn around and the current would sweep us against and up on top of shallow cypress knees. We resigned ourselves to staying in the main channel.
This one was funny. We had to navigate and work around fallen trees every so often. While going under this one, my wife picked a piece of bark off... Ahhh!! She screamed, and then threw it out and away. She grabbed her paddle and started poking it into the bow of the canoe. "What are doing?" I had to ask. She replied, " there was a wolf spider on the backside of that bark, and now it's in the canoe!" "Oh well, I hope it stays up there with you".
She would like to return again when the flowers are blooming. We were a couple of weeks to early. We had no problems with mosquitos, snakes or gators. I'm pretty sure we did spook a small gator in one spot. It was submerged and swirled the water as we got close. On the drift back we did recognize the spot where it was because the water was still muddied up. Oh well it won't let me post any more pictures. I'm done. I hope you enjoyed.
Roy
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It doesn't ride as nice, but it is a good canoe. Hopefully the weather cooperates. I might take a few pictures[emoji6]
