In short: The plan was to spend the night on the Okefenokee platform at Miles Hammock. We got about three miles in, found ourselves dragging through six inches of water, and made the pivotal decision to turn around before it got worse. That call is how we ended up on a St. Marys sandbar eating corn beef hash the next morning with a good day of fishing behind us. Knowing when to turn back is a skill, and it is the one this trip is really about.
We rolled off a St. Marys night with a plan to move over and paddle into the Okefenokee for a night on the platform at Miles Hammock. We got about three miles in and the water was down to roughly six inches. Now you can grind through shallow water for a while, but you have to think about what is ahead, not just what is under you. Push deep into a route like that and keep getting shallower and you can end up stuck miles from the truck with the light fading. So we made the pivotal decision to turn around before things got worse. That is not abandoning the trip. That is abandoning one bad route and keeping the trip.
We backed out and set up on a St. Marys sandbar, a river we know holds plenty of water. Next morning it was 52 degrees, warm in the sleeping bag and cold the second you stepped out. I got the fire going and cooked up my favorite, corn beef hash with three eggs cracked right in. Those were frozen eggs from the summer before. If you keep chickens and get more eggs than you can use, you crack and freeze them, then thaw and fry them on the trail. We said our blessing and ate breakfast on the bank with turkeys gobbling in the timber and every kind of bird singing. That is the part that does not always make the film, just sitting there enjoying the peace.
With no schedule to keep, we spent the day lazing around and catching fish. Bluegill, redbreast, and a couple of blue cats that put up a real fight, one so strong I could not turn him for a minute. We came out fishing Tina against me and she caught more, but I got the biggest, which I will take. We wound up with seven fish, and that is not a bad morning on the river. A loaded canoe moves about three to four miles an hour, so we cruised the couple of bends back to the landing and made it in 28 minutes. The Okefenokee will still be there when the rain fills it back up. This trip turned out good because we were willing to change the plan.
When to turn around, how to pivot to a backup river, and reading water levels before they trap you. It is all in the Canoe Camping Playbook.
Read the Canoe Camping PlaybookTurn back before it gets worse, not after. When the water was down to about six inches only three miles in, the rest of the route no longer added up, so we pivoted while we still had daylight and options. Turning around is not quitting the trip, it is quitting the bad route.
It was a low-water stretch during a dry spell, part of a plan that started with a night on the St. Marys before we moved over toward the Okefenokee for a night on the platform at Miles Hammock. About three miles into that route we were dragging the canoe through roughly six inches of water, which is workable for a little while but tells you something about what is coming. Go much deeper into water that shallow and keeps getting shallower, and you risk ending up stuck miles from the truck as the light fades, with no good way to fix it out there. So instead of pushing on and hoping it got better, we backed out and pivoted to the St. Marys, a river we know holds plenty of water even in a dry season. That decision turned a stalled plan into a good sandbar breakfast and a full day of fishing, so the shallow water actually worked out in our favor once we respected it.
About three to four miles an hour is a realistic travel speed for a loaded canoe, and that number matters more than people think when you are planning a route. A stretch that looks short on a map can eat a whole day once you factor in current, wind, and obstacles, the way our Okefenokee plan did before we turned back. On the other end of this same trip, once we were done fishing and ready to head in, we cruised the last couple of bends back to the landing in about 28 minutes, which gives you a feel for how quickly distance covers when the water is good and you are not fighting anything. Knowing your real average speed, not just what you hope for, is part of doing the trip math right before you commit to a route, and it is exactly the kind of number that would have told us the Okefenokee plan was in trouble sooner.
Yes, and we do it every summer. If you keep chickens like we do, you end up with more eggs than you can use once the hens get going, so you crack them, freeze them, and pull them out later to thaw and cook on the trail. On this trip, the morning after we turned back from the Okefenokee and set up on a St. Marys sandbar instead, it was 52 degrees, the kind of morning that is warm in the sleeping bag and cold the second you step out. I got the fire going and cooked up corn beef hash with three frozen eggs cracked right in, saved from the summer before. They fried up fine right there on the sandbar while turkeys gobbled in the timber and birds sang all around, and we said our blessing before eating breakfast on the bank. It is a simple way to stretch a good laying season into meals later in the year.
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