Boatyard Lake and Pinelog Creek October 31, 2006
by Bruce Zimmerman

To get there from Spanish Fort, drive north on Alabama highway 225 then highway 59 north past the town of Tensaw to Montgomery Hill. Turn left on highway 80 and drive towards Ft. Mimms County Park.

The put in at Boathouse landing is a commercial ramp with both hard ramps and soft shoulder ( gravel and sand) put ins on Boatyard Lake near Ft. Mimms county park in Baldwin County. The ramp owner charges $4.00 to launch. Sanitary facilities with flush plumbing are behind the store in a separate building.

The Lake is a banana shaped body of water that starts up near Holley Creek to the north. The lake extends southward bending towards the south west and then west. Dry ground surrounds the lake with mature hardwoods all around.

Heading south on the lake, Laraway and I paddled easily listening for bird calls and boat traffic. Up ahead on the left bank we spotted a house boat tied to shore. We cut left through an opening and found ourselves in Pinelog Creek. The water quality changed abruptly from gray-green turbid water to clear deep water.

Pinelog Creek was wide near the mouth. Higher ground than we saw from the lake rises away from shore. The understory is sparse so the view into the forest was pretty good. I used a topo map, Tensaw Quadrangle, to keep track of our location in the river by turns and compass heading. The creek gradually narrowed down to 20 feet or so as it split around islands. The land looks uninhabited, but signs on the trees warn No Trespassing, no hunting, no fun. Shiny beer cans dot the bank and shoreline until you get to The Swamp.

We followed the creek until we were heading due north and the banks became less well defined. We slid to a stop in amongst some cypress knees and had lunch afloat.

After lunch we cut through the trees to the east to find the creek again. About this time we saw the only pines on Pinelog Creek and these were young, about 6 feet tall, at the crest of a ridge on the right. Laraway took the lead into The Swamp because he really likes that kind of exploring. We just followed the current into the swamp because the map was pretty useless once we left the bank of the creek. We continued upstream to the first deadfall across our path. The water was rather shallow on our side and it looked more shallow on the other side of the deadfall so we did a lot of back and fill maneuvers to turn around and try to find our way out. I'm pretty sure we did not leave The Swamp the same way we came in; what fun is that?

We left the creek behind and returned to the lake. The topo map showed some waterways entering the map, but they may have filled in with forest. Way down near the end of the lake, the map shows a significant waterway, a cut through, that heads down to Pierce Landing, but this way was blocked at the first turn with two substantial logs. The water beyond the deadfall seemed stagnant and uninviting.

We returned to the lake and paddled against a little current for a while and dodged two motorboats. The paddle back to the take out sure seemed to take a long time. As the day was getting late, we left exploring north of the landing for another day.

A Paddle to the Big Tree
October 10, 2006

Frank Laraway has wanted to see the big cypress tree for some years. So we watched the weather and the calendar for an opening and we went. I looked in the club archives for some information about the cypress and I found the directions I needed from Gary and Tom's paddle of March 5, 2005.

We planned a late start, 11 a.m. just because Frank had stuff to do. We launched at Rice Creek Landing about 12:15 p.m. The water was low. The wind was calm. The air was getting warm, into the 80's. Some things I noticed were exposed bases of long gone cypresses that made jagged islands about 10 feet in diameter. We heard few birds and no insect sounds. And best of all we heard very few motorboats all day.

As we crossed Briars Lake, we saw a wire cage style trap, half exposed with something in it. We headed into the passage to the river against a light current. The water was clear enough to see the length of a paddle blade easily. The water color was light gray-green, not the usual brown. Ageratum is blooming. Cardinal flower and white asters also peek out of the swamp, but not very many plants.

We headed downriver beside Larry Island, noting exposed river bank, which Frank was examining for shell middens. We reached the end of Larry Island and looked across the Tensaw River for the entrance to Jessamine Bayou. It is a straight line approach, just adjust your track for the current coming across from right to left in the Tensaw River.

In Jessamine Bayou, guess what? More current! We paddled against the flow and went around snags and stobs as we looked for the big 5 painted on a tree that the paddle report indicated was the mark for the trail to the big cypress. Because Tom had made mention at the kayak meeting he chaired, we took a magnetic compass and a topo map into the woods on this trip.

We found a big blue 5 on a tree and we tied up to some roots on the left bank and we had a snack before disembarking. It may be our last meal. The bank looks less steep today than 2 years ago when I paddled here last. Stepping out onto roots and sticks helped give a lot of traction, even when they break. On top we followed a path that had been bush hogged parallel to the water. The path curved south almost inline with the trail to the big cypress. We followed surveyor's tape flagging tied to trees. From the tree with the big 5, I took a compass bearing on the first two flags and used that to bridge the gap where some trees have fallen leaving a gap in the blazed trail. The mosquitos were pretty bad, and some of the vines we tripped over were poison ivy, but we made our way south-southwest through a patch of wild rice into an area that had almost no undergrowth, just trees including the big cypress.

Check that off the list of things to do.

The return trip to the water was challenging because the blaze marks are hidden by the trees. We had the compass to give us a reciprocal heading, and we looked behind us for the marks we followed into the forest. Once in a while we spotted a tree or bush we had stood by so we felt confident we had the right track. Perhaps taking some surveyor's tape along to retag trees would be a good idea.

We made a quick visit to Jug Lake so Frank could see the floating platform for the first time. The current out of Jug Lake wasn't so bad; I just hoped the lake would not get much lower before we left. The water depth had us scuffing bottom near the exit of the lake. We were a bit late to include this extra tasking to our trip so we had to put on some speed to get back to the take out before dark. We passed the wire trap in the cut through to Briar's Lake. With a lower water level now, the trap was exposed and the thing inside was a decomposed alligator.

In Rice Creek on our return, I noticed a doll's head ornamenting a cypress knee. Have you seen it?