Alafia Asskicking

The Alafia River -- perfect for canoes and inner tubes. Sea kayaks? Only if you're going downstream. That's important, here, and I want to underline it. Those three sets of unexpected class 1 rapids you encounter along the route? They're fun and harmless, but, once again, only if you're going downstream. Try to fight the current in an effort to return home and you're in for a fight. Try to do it in a 13 foot sea kayak and you'll likely crack a paddle in your attempt. ...which would be exactly what happened to Russ as we fought our way back inland, today.

Carbon fiber paddle. Busted. Destroyed. By the sheer force of water and paddler alone. It was amazing, laughably so at the time. Russ would have to be gentle with it -- it was still barely holding together -- but how, given the river's wish to push us to sea? What other option did we have? What if the paddle gave way and shattered completely in half? Float with the water all the way to the bay and yell for help, we assumed. There would be plenty of Miller-fueld inner tube pilots willing to offer their assistance, if still sober enough.

That, failing, would leave us in the hands of nature. The predators of the Florida wetlands would strip us of our flesh.


Tiny frogs, Florida banded watersnakes, hawks, lizards, and vultures -- all of them eager to feed upon the bloated corpses of dead boaters that didn't have a ride waiting for them at the bottom of the river. People struggling against the flow of the Alafia soon find themselves overtaken, the last image of them being their glassy eyes staring out from the tangled branches of some fallen oak that blocks the stream, their lifeless bodies conscripted into the natural effort to make the river even less navigable to boaters.

Next time, we bring rope. And a pulley. Something to tie to a tree and assist in the haul back when the rocks threaten and refuse to let us pass. At rapid set #2, my kayak got caught by the swift water and turned a sudden 180. I had to exit the boat and walk it upstream, legs wobbling as my feet slipped on mossy rocks and punched deep into sucking muck holes. Just ahead of me, Russ made it past the roiling waters, only to flip his boat as he turned to check on me. We somehow made it back into our vessels, but Russ's lifeline, his Aquafina bottle, had been washed from the cockpit.

The Alafia was trying to stop us in any way it could, including dehydrating us to exhaustion.


Russ unlocked and turned his failing paddle 45 degrees, only to have another crack develop as we battled on. The river seemed endless, the bridge marking our entry point failing to appear as we rounded each bend. Did we somehow miss the turn? Onlookers sunning on the banks called to us, asking why we were going the wrong way. "Because we enjoy nature's punishment", of course. What else could possibly drive us to do this?

We did, thankfully, make it back before Russ lost his paddle and before either of us lost our will to live. With boats dry docked on the grass and hammocks deployed between the palms at the canoe launch in the summer heat, we raised imaginary cocktails in a toast to another river survived with zero near drownings, no snakebites, and successful avoidance of lurking alligators. Life could not be better. Our conversation drifted to war stories involving the treacherous Junpier Springs run of '04, but not before we agreed the Alafia run deserved a return visit.

Perhaps, even, with a waiting car at the bottom.