Joe Cook
Joe Cook is the coordinator for Paddle Georgia.
Paddle Georgia
This 7 day paddling trip for 300 people in canoes and kayaks allows paddlers to experience a different Georgia river each year. Each night, participants are shuttled to campsites at local schools and other facilities where educational programs, games, entertainment and meals are provided. Gear is transported from campsite to campsite in a gear truck. Meals are catered for those that wish to purchase the meal plan. To learn more, visit http://www.garivers.org/paddle_georgia/pghome.html.
Georgia River Network
Paddle Georgia is a project of Georgia River Network. Georgia River Network is working to ensure a clean water legacy by engaging and empowering Georgians to protect and restore our rivers from the mountains to the coast. To learn more, visit http://www.garivers.org.
Paddle Georgia, A Project of Georgia River Network - Weblog 
Joe, I manage a dental practice and I’m currently redecorating one of our offices. I saw your photography on Deserving Design. Do you have a website or someplace to view your work. I would love to have some of your pieces in our new office. What I saw on HGTV was just beautiful. Please let me know. Thank you.
Joe:
Very nice shot of the Anthony Shoals channel on the blog. It’s striking to see on Google Earth or Google maps. The shoal lilies peak the third weekend in May. The Broad River Watershed Association does a shoal lily float that Saturday from Hwy 17 to the ACE Broad River Campground boat ramp off Hwy 77.
I tried to comment on the Scouting the Broad blog, but couldn’t get to a comment page.
Vic Johnson, BRWA
Joe, didn’t see you mention the ‘canals’ that make it [ always] possible to run Anthony Shoals even at very low water. I’ve got some great pic’s of them and the shoal lilies if you’re ever interested.
Also, let me know if I can help with the exploring part of the Savannah system [ including the Broad River of course].
Victor mentioned above the Shoal Lily float the BRWA puts on in May of every year. The BRO helps out with the shuttles / guiding on those trips so I noticed that there was a mistake on the SR numbers. The trip starts at the [ only] boat ramp on the Broad River at SR 17 and ends at the US Corp of Engineer [ misnamed] Broad River Campground located on SR 79 [and not 77].
Also, you described the shoals at 1/4 mile in length. I think it’s nearly a mile long with three sections shaped like a double dog leg.
The upper leg has a canal [visible and very useful at low water], the middle leg has no canal, and the lower leg has a class II run on a canal [ calling it that for lack of a better word] that’s always visible and always runnable.
The middle and lower legs have the shoal lilies.
Last year, the river ended not at the shoals but a half mile below the 79 bridge. The lake levels dropping due to the drought added another mile of river. I find it much nicer to paddle a river than a lake.
The boat ramp at the US Corp’s campground was a couple hundred feet from any water. So, for a short time, the corp campground was more or less accurately named, Broad River Campground.
We offer a growing directory of 850 lakes – http://www.Lakelubbers.com –
that may interest your visitors. Each month, we host 70,000-80,000 visits
and add about 100 lakes.
If you offer reciprocal links to content-related websites like ours, please
reply with your link address and anchor text. We’ll add your link to
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Lakelubbers.com
Hi Joe,
Hope all is well and you are planning a Christmas with family and/or firiends. While at the Watershed Conference on water trails my wife , Joy, mentioned that we might be able to help with instruction for your paddle Georgia in 2010. We are certified with both United States Canoe Association (USCA) and ACA and I also train instructors for USCA. Anyway, we are looking at our calendar for next year and just wated to know what you had in mind for the instruction and what day would that be.
Also, We will be at my caboin in Ellijay for the first three weeks in January and if the weather is permitting we plan to paddle some. Are you planning any river runs in January?
Last, I had Larry Castillo’s phone number and wanted to talk to him abou the race in Rome in April (I think), can you give me a phone number?
than ks,
Bob
Hi, I read with interest the portion of your blog about visiting Stalling’s Island and untangling the nanny goat from the vines. I am Southeast Regional Director for The Archaeological Conservancy and am responsible for the “security” and management of this preserve. The island was donated to us several years ago and we have always had a problem with trespassing and unauthroized digging, aka looting. We have goats on the island in an attempt to keep the growth under some control in the area of the archaeological site so it doesn’t provide as much cover for looters. Since it’s an island, we can’t get heavy equipment over there, nor can we do a whole lot of spraying of chemicals, so we’re trying goats. We’ve had a lot of trouble keeping them alive but we aren’t exactly sure if it’s predators, disease or accidents that keeps killing them- possibly all three. Anyway, we have the donkeys there to protect the goats. As you observed, for some reason, they “look after” the goats. Still, with the donkeys there, we lost nearly a whole herd (13) of goats last year. They have since been replaced & we are hearing differing reports on how they are doing. Because I am headquartered in Mississippi, I’m only able to visit the island 3 or 4 times a year. We rely a great deal on the staff at the dam to get us over to the island when we visit and also to keep an eye on things when we’re not around. We’ve also gotten a lot of help from the local chapter of the Georgia Archaeological Society. They make visits as often as they can, but they too have to ask the staff at the dam to take them over. Thanks for saving the nanny goat. I worry about them & hate when I hear something has happened to any of them. Although the island is posted as private property and we take trespassing seriously (we are having the looting problem again also) I hope that any time you are in the area, that you would let me know if you see the goats and/or donkeys on the island and how many. I found your blog when I did a google search for “canoe to Stallings Island”. I’ll be visiting the site in a few weeks and although the guys at the dam are great about helping us. I sometimes hate to ask them to stop what they’re doing and take us over, so I was wondering if it’s possible to rent a canoe somewhere close by and canoe to the island. I’m also thinking we may camp on the island. Anyway, it’s difficult to protect and maintain an island, and we need all the help we can get with from honest people who care about the preservation of this National Historic Landmark.
Where is Stallling’s Island? I’ve not heard of it on the Broad River or on the coast near Darien?
Feb. 2010 entry: “Lord willing and the Creeks don’t rise” refers to the 18th c. settlers’ hopes that the Creek Indians wouldn’t rise again, according to local lore in the area of NE Georgia that was near the boundary between the Creek and Cherokee tribal lands.