By Peter Clayton

Four years is a long time to wait between paddles but Six Mile made it worthwhile. As noted earlier, the improvements to the dock and ramp were amazing – while narrow, the ramp is perfect for kayaks and having clear water makes it much easier to launch safely. We had the place to ourselves and were all in the water shortly after 9:30am. The group pre-launch photo with 12 boats was quite a sight – regrettably I was the only one imbibing the usual beer – Bud even was empty-handed.

Heading upstream, the creek goes under the SR 13 bridge almost immediately where swallows gave us a fly-by, we passed one small dock on the south side before reaching the second one at 1.2 miles where you can pull out – we didn’t. Another 1 mile or so and the creek narrowed appreciably so we turned around. Wildlife included some small gators, a barred owl with which Theo exchanged calls and several pileated woodpeckers which we heard but didn’t see. An unused agricultural irrigation pump station at about 1.6 miles in was the only other development we saw.

On the return leg, the quiet was broken by what sounded like a train but was actually a couple of airboats with a group of about ten passengers – the boats are from Paccetti’s Marina on Trout Creek and fortunately throttled down to an outboard motor on their return trip. It was a real shock nonetheless to have this pastoral scene shattered by their noise.

We were out of the water around 11;15 and at Woodpeckers by 11:30, where a great day was capped off in style. Steve brought a new neighbor along, Bill May, who’s signed on – welcome, Bill. All were home just after 1:00 – another advantage of this superb destination.

Photos by Theo Helms