By Peter Clayton

Six of us enjoyed one of the best days ever on the water – sunshine, blue skies, crisp temps and very light wind – no leaves on the trees enabling us to easily see birds including a bald eagle, a beautiful osprey nest and resident, kingfisher, limpkins, dozens of great blue herons, great egrets and snowy egrets and close to a thousand white ibis – it was like being in an Audubon movie. Plus a handful of gators, most 3′-5′ and a dozen or so turtles. We saw three or four power boats, most fishing, but no other kayakers.

Lunch on the deck at Corky Bell’s was in similarly perfect conditions – the water flat, the view superb and the food and service spot on. Sorry you couldn’t be there to share the experience.

No kayaking next week but our overnight to High Springs will be the 23rd thru 25th – five have signed on to date – let me know if you want to join us.

See Below for a Florida Times Union Editorial on Preserving the Oklawaha.

Florida Times-Union opinion

Mark Woods: Is this the year Florida commits to breaching dam and restoring Ocklawaha?

WELAKA — Erika Ritter guided her pontoon boat, the Anhinga Spirit, out of the St. Johns River and up the cross-state canal that never was completed, toward the dam that remains standing more than 50 years later.

She stopped at the locks so those on board could look at the Kirkpatrick Dam.

Some dams generate hydroelectric power. Some provide a water supply. Some offer flood protection.

This dam does none of that.

In fact, now past its life expectancy, it creates a flood risk.

More:Mark Woods: If we want a great riverfront in Jacksonville, we can’t forget importance of a great river

More:Green groups start drive to remove dam at Rodman Reservoir, opening Ocklawaha River

A dam failure here could unleash the water held in the Rodman Reservoir in a way that’s much different from one of the controlled drawdowns. It could flood hundreds of homes and businesses in Welaka, adding the name of this Old Florida town on the banks of the St. Johns to the list of the state’s man-made environmental disasters.

The state is expected to release a dam safety report any day now.

This much already is clear: It has been more than 50 years since President Nixon signed an executive order halting the Cross Florida Barge Canal project. And after decades of debate, it is time to stop kicking the can down the canal.

It’s time to either repair a dam that was mandated to be breached years ago — or to finally breach it and restore a river that, before the dam, was considered one of the most fascinating and beautiful waterways in America.

Between the dam safety, ample federal and state funding available for restoration, and signs of a shift in public opinion in Putnam and Marion counties, this could be the year — this should be the year — that the governor and state legislature finally commit to breach the dam and restore the Ocklawaha.

It’s time to reunite three rivers, uncover about 20 springs, revive some historic pieces of Florida’s past and create opportunities for the future.

Captain Erika and some of those on her boat on this day — including Margaret Spontak, chair of the Free the Ocklawaha River Coalition for Everyone — have been saying this for quite a while.

While they might be preaching to the choir on this particular trip, in recent years the choir seems to have grown.

Kirkpatrick Dam and Rodman Reservoir follow familiar trajectory

It’s not just that more than 60 nonprofit organizations from across the state have joined forces to try to push for the restoration of what they’re calling “The Great Florida Riverway” — a 217-mile system flowing from Central Florida to the Atlantic Ocean, connecting Silver Springs, the Ocklawaha and the St. Johns.

It’s also that a recent poll of likely voters in Putnam and Marion counties showed strong bipartisan support, with 77 percent saying they were in favor of restoring the flow of the Ocklawaha.

“It’s a huge shift,” St. Johns Riverkeeper Lisa Rinaman said.

More:Mark Woods: If only Florida had existing funding for land and water issues. Wait, we do.

More:With deadline nearing, Jacksonville short on results from plan to clean up St. Johns River

In the past, this issue often has pitted Putnam versus outsiders, anglers versus conservationists. This time those trying to push it across the goal line are emphasizing why it will be good for fishermen from Putnam to Duval, and how it will create a host of recreational, environmental and economic benefits.

While there certainly still are die-hard supporters of the dam, that shift gives hope that this might be the year local and state leaders finally agree to methodically and permanently breach a section of the earthen dam.

For the entirety of its existence, this dam has been known mainly for doing one thing: creating the Rodman Reservoir.

When the dam was built — against the wishes of many locals who saw the canal as a giant boondoggle for Texas oilmen — it flooded 7,500 acres of forested wetlands, creating a reservoir that quickly became renowned for bass fishing.

Fifty years later, the Rodman Reservoir certainly remains known for its fishing — and many anglers understandably feel a strong connection to it — but it also isn’t what it used to be.

It has followed a familiar trajectory for dams and reservoirs. The overnight birth of a great fishing spot, followed by a gradual decline.

There is plenty of science to illustrate not only this decline with the Rodman, but also the ripple effects on both sides of the dam. But there’s another statistic that is damning for this dam. Use of the Rodman Reservoir has been on a downward trend since 2010 — a time when many Florida spots have seen an increase in usage.

It’s telling that in tournaments there, some boaters make their way through the locks to fish an area ranked ahead of the reservoir in the 2019 Bassmaster Southeastern United States rankings — a 50-mile radius of the St. Johns River near Palatka.

‘The crookedest river in America’

Before the boat tour begins, Rinaman notes that this area was “the bass fishing capital” long before the Rodman Reservoir existed — and that it could be that long after the dam is gone. A healthier, more sustainable capital, with far-reaching environmental and economic impacts.

That is the message delivered on what turns out to be a glorious February day — the kind of day that on its own delivers a message about appreciating this part of Florida.

After departing from the Welaka Lodge & Resort, Captain Erika steers her pontoon boat to the confluence of the St. Johns and the Ocklawaha.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, people came here from near and far. Travel literature said, “Silver Springs flows into the beautiful Ocklawaha, called the crookedest river in America” and described it as “one of the most picturesque motor boat trips in the country.”

This part of the river still is beautiful and crooked. But as some of us on board took pictures with our cell phones, Captain Erika guided her motor boat around the river’s bends and explained that it isn’t what it used to be — how it has lost trees, birds and historic migratory fish

She also imagined what it could be again.

For her, this is just some hypothetical exercise. She has family albums that tell the story of this river’s past. She has spent most of her 64 years on property in Eureka, about 15 miles on the other side of the dam — as the osprey flies, not as the crooked Ocklawaha flowed for eons B.C (Before Canal).

As Ritter pointed her boat out of the Ocklawaha, back into the St. Johns and toward that canal, Spontak sat in the front of the boat, talking about how breaching the dam and restoring the flow could affect everywhere from Ocala, where she grew up and lives now, to the Atlantic Ocean.

She’s 65 and can recall what Silver Springs used to be like. How the glass-bottomed boats in Silver Springs were famous for giving visitors views of striped bass, channel catfish and green eel grass. She also can dream about what scientists predict will happen if the waterway is opened back up — how hundreds of manatees would make their way to Silver Springs, which in turn would add to its lure for humans.

And that’s just one piece of the Great Florida Riverway.

There are so many benefits to restoration. And there are so many issues with the status quo.

Spontak quotes something that Ed Lowe — who served as the chief scientist at the St. Johns Water Management District for years — has said about the dam.

It’s like putting a tourniquet on one of the major arteries of the St. Johns. And if you leave a tourniquet on too long, it can have serious repercussions.

This tourniquet has been on the Ocklawaha for more than 50 years. It is creating serious repercussions all along a 217-mile riverway. It is time to remove it.

mwoods@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4212