By: Sarah Taylor, GRN Communications Coordinator
“The first river you paddle runs through the rest of your life. It bubbles up in pools and eddies to remind you who you are.” — Lynn Noel
Today we enjoyed a slower morning highlighted by a filling egg, biscuit, sausage and grit breakfast catered by Main St. Cafe before loading up the trailer and setting out on our 18-mile journey down the Flint River. A little ways down the river five scientists from The Jones Center at Ichauway met us at Fourth of July Beach (normally a large sandbar, but today was submerged) to teach us about the flora and fauna all around us. The Jones Center’s mission is to understand, demonstrate and promote excellence in natural resource management and conservation. They “understand” by performing research, they “demonstrate” through conservation work and they “promote” through their education and outreach programs.
Today’s educational offerings included a nature walk with a botanist, catching and identifying fish and watching a water testing demonstration by the Adopt-a-Stream team. On the nature walk, I learned ways to identify plants beyond their flowers/fruits or leaf shape. We stopped at a Mulberry tree, and the expert plucked off a leaf at the base of its stem, squeezed and showed the group its milky sap. Then she held it up to the sun and explained that often, she will use the venation of a leaf, rather than its shape, as an identifier.
When we returned to the beach, folks were gathered around a tub of fish including damsel fly larvae, bream, shiner and wait for it, a very small gar fish. The gar fish sparked the telling of the legend of Bobby Marie, a veteran Paddle Georgia participant. The legend goes like this:
It was Paddle Georgia 2012 on the Altamaha and Bobby Marie was paddling along in his kayak, minding his own business, when a big gar flipped out of the water and into his lap. He wrapped his arms around that fish and tried to hold on for dear life, but that fish whipped its tail and escaped back into the water, leaving behind a mean, scale-shaped burn on Bobby Marie’s arm.
So goes the legend of Bobby Marie. May it live on for eternity.
The group of us who had signed up for the Adopt-a-Stream workshop stayed on the beach a bit longer to enjoy a water testing demonstration. First we tested for dissolved oxygen to see how much is available for fish to use (because they need to breathe too, y’all!). This test required a series of steps and after a list of chemicals I can’t pronounce were added to the water, it was determined that the dissolved oxygen was 5.7 or 5.8 mg per liter (it can range from 0-14.6; below 2 is hard for life to survive, an average of 5 and no less than 4 is the state standard). Next, we tested for conductivity which measures the ions in the water. Pure water will not conduct electricity, but if a water has “things” in it whether it be runoff from limestone or a sewage overflow, you can expect a higher conductivity. Today’s was 100 (the range is 0 – 1500). Last, we tested the pH of the water. This is important because like humans, river plants and animals have evolved to survive in a specific pH range. Today’s pH was 7, neutral, and within the state standard of 6 – 8.5.
After our brains were full of new knowledge, we departed Fourth of July Beach to continue our float past partly submerged islands full of beautiful sycamore trees with limbs spilling up and out over the river. We were were speeding along unsuspectingly when we heard a holler from somewhere on river right. Leslie’s red boat showed through the trees and then we heard the voice again, “Hey Joe, come over here, there are mussels!”
We paddled over and spent the next hour puttering around a small spit of land that offered mussel shells, limestone rock fossils, flint, two hatched turtle nests and, easily our favorite, a rope swing. We each took turns climbing up the knots of a gnarled tree and bracing between a fork in the branches before swinging out over the water to land with a splash in its cool flow.
Reluctantly, we traveled on and after a few more hours of swimming at the couple exposed sandbars to cool off from the June Georgia sun, we arrived at the takeout on private land to be shuttled to our riverside campsite at Covey Rise Plantation.
After part of the group set up tents and the other half checked into the comfortable, air-conditioned rooms of Covey Rise, the group gathered for a delicious, and I mean DELICIOUS, fried quail dinner complimented by dressing, green beans, black-eyed peas, sweet potato sweet pie and pecan pie. State Representative Joe Campbell, who represents the citizens of House District 171, joined the group for dinner, chatting with folks about a shared interest in water conservation.
Roger, the owner of Covey Rise Plantation, which is a commercial quail shooting preserve, generously offered his time to discuss quail, quail hunting and the economic impact of quail hunting while we finished licking our plates clean. He said, “quail hunting is not sitting in a stand and waiting for something to walk by…there’s something about having to take dogs, and going out to the woods to find birds that you shoot and the dogs bring back.” It is clear that the folks here care deeply about the work that they do and the services they provide visitors. If you’re a hunter, be sure to check out Covey Rise Plantation. They’re good people!
Before lights out, folks reclined in the comfy chairs in the lodge, played some poker and rocked out on the porch. Tomorrow, Day 6 of Paddle Georgia 2021 awaits.