Keep on rollin’ . . . .
Now I’m just confusing you, aren’t I? We’re in SC, not Mississippi. 😊
We had a very late start today. Breakfast of pancakes and sausage – but not until 9am! YIKES! What’s happening to us?!?!?
It was a perfect day for kayaking! High of 75, sunny and no wind today. By the time we got to the water, it was roughly 11am. What ever happened to that couple who hit the trails (or whatever their activity was) by 8am?
The Edisto River is the longest free-flowing blackwater river in America. At more than 250 miles long, it runs through 12 counties in South Carolina, and part of it runs right by Givhans Ferry State Park at 2-4 mph.
Now, what exactly is a ‘blackwater river’?
Blackwater rivers are black due to the tannic acid leached from fallen leaves of trees such as oaks that inhabit the wide floodplains along the river’s edge. As the water rises and falls, it draws nutrients from decaying plant and animal matter, known as detritus. Detritus provides the fuel for the aquatic ecosystems in these rivers. Low-lying branches from plants and fallen snags decorate the rivers, providing habitat for aquatic invertebrates and fish that become an important component of the food chain. ~ copied from dnr.sc.gov/education
Huh? In English please. . .
The waters of a blackwater river are stained from tannins leached from the leaf debris of surrounding trees, giving the river a darkened tint.
Now all I need is a definition of ‘tannins’. . . .
Any of a group of astringent vegetable principles or compounds, chiefly complex glucosides of catechol and pyrogallol, as the reddish compound that gives the tanning properties to oak bark or the whitish compound that occurs in large quantities in nut gals (common tannin, tannic acid) ~ from dictionary.com
That did not help at all!
Right or wrong, I’m gonna paraphrase here. The leaves in the water leak something and turn the water the color of Coco-Cola.
So why this river and not other rivers? They have leaves, too. I don’t think I’ll ever find the answer I’m looking for unless I decide to try for a degree in Environmental Science. That ain’t happenin’ any time soon, so if you figure it out, please let me know – in English.
And then there are these bumps that grow up out of the ground around the trees. Turns out they’re Cypress trees and the bumps are called ‘knees’. OK. I can go with that. What are they for?
Believe it or not, nobody knows! It’s a distinctive structure that forms above the roots of the tree. They are not the roots. Is that weird or what? Not so much the knees, although they are admittedly pretty weird looking, but the fact that after all these centuries of environmental study no one has figured out what they’re for. One of those questions to ask God when we get to Heaven. 😊
You don’t need a degree in anything to enjoy this river.
But first we had to get the boat to the water. There’s this drive down the hill to a boat launch area, but because it’s winter, it’s blocked with post. We were planning on carrying the boat down – inflated or not, we hadn’t decided yet. However, when we got there, a camp host was there and he let us drive down with a promise from us to close it off once we got there so no one else could drive down. Done!
Because it’s smooth and flows slowly, we were able to paddle upstream about 2 miles. Well, able is not quite the right word. We could have gone further, but chose not to because we figured it would be close to supper time before we got back since we wanted to float back most of the way. Along the way up, we made a couple of stops, and a few times we just sat and enjoyed our surroundings until we stopped our forward motion and had to paddle once again.
Away we go!
More evidence we’re in the South. Spanish Moss in the trees.
But not as much here as in Georgia.
There were homes – some summer, some year round on the right side shore. The left side was undeveloped.
Define serene.
A picture is worth a thousand words!
Life on the Edisto.
This is not a house. It’s just a very elaborate screened-in gazebo.
Nice, huh?
Park and rest along the bank.
The roots and reflections fascinated me!
And then I made it black and white.
Which do you like better?
An array of color.
One of our stops.
Isn’t it beautiful?
What’s that?
A tee-pee!
This is on a ‘spur trail’, not the main river.
Ooooo! Look at that!!
Does that look fun or what!
Where’s Blaine?
There’s my little monkey!
Wheeee!
That was soooo much fun!
Who says we’re too old??
Men and women do almost everything differently!
This kinda shows the color of the water.
We’re still at the sandy beach.
We stood here and watched fish jumping out of the water!
Fun!
Then Blaine announced he wanted to go find the tee-pee.
Seriously?
“We’re exploring!”
Have you watched “Deliverance?”
Yeah. It felt like that . . .
We’re here.
The site has obviously been abandoned for quite some time.
Wonder what it was?
There was even a chair sitting there waiting just for us to use!
Blaine’s view from his new chair
The view from behind the tee-pee
An old stool
Look at these things – in the middle of the woods.
We’ve been curious about them all along the river edge.
But why are they here?
Back to our waiting ride
Spectacular!
What a wonderful afternoon! We never saw or heard another soul. And we were right about the time. We docked at 3:15pm. No. We didn’t eat at 4, but we had an inflatable kayak to put away and water shoes to wash (they were getting kinda stinky, like a well-used dish rag. Bleck!!) and tacos take time to prep.
Tomorrow we head into Charleston.