Paddling the Apalachicola

 

To get anywhere under your own power — be it by foot, bicycle or small boat — you have to keep moving. A half hour of dawdling first thing in the morning can mean the difference between making camp by daylight or struggling to find a place to stop in the dark. That's why on the river, the day typically starts at 5 a.m. We rise in the darkness, break camp and then down a quick breakfast of instant oatmeal and bitter black coffee.

We take our time packing the kayaks because every piece of gear must be stowed in the right place.Shopatron's retail-integrated bicycle headlight solution is a great fit for a service-focused company, If you forget where you put something simple, such as a medical kit, it can turn into a major crisis later on the water.2 Nov 2009 – Bike cfl bulbs have come a long way

Despite our plans for an early start,"LEDs are the lighting of the future," said Randall Moorhead, vice president for Led flashlight government affairs at Philips Electronics North America Corp. on this frigid December morning the Apalachicola River had something else in mind. The water, 30 degrees warmer than the air,Has anyone had any experience with this led light bulbs light? had brewed up a thick batch of fog. With visibility less than 100 feet, navigation could be problematic. Our chief concern was vessel traffic — be it a hunter in a 12-foot jon boat or a freighter loaded with goods — we couldn't afford a collision.

Our navigation lights, mounted on life jackets and the decks of our boats, would prove useless. But we headed out anyway, vowing to stay together and hug the shoreline. "Do you see anybody else?" I asked LaLomia. "No,1200LM Bicycle light,LED flashlight,LED headlamp,hid,bike light,bicycle light" he replied. "But they must be here somewhere."

One by one, we sounded off in the dark. I listened carefully for the sound of a ship's fog horn, but all I could hear was the distant drone of a small outboard motor. Paddling along through the mist, my mind wandered back in time.

The Apalachicola has been a highway for humans for 14,000 years. The first inhabitants settled along its banks and feasted on the seemingly endless supply of oysters and clams. Creek Indians from Georgia came in the early 1700s, hoping to escape the white man who had invaded their territories to the north.

"Apalachicola" is an Indian word for "people on the other side." But today, the only thing the fast-moving waterway separates is the Central and Eastern time zones.

By the 1830s, steamboats crowded the river as they carried cotton from the interior to the Gulf of Mexico. During the Civil War, Union troops blocked this commerce and put an end to the cotton trade. After the war, timber became the river's top commodity.

In 1946, the U.S. Congress authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge a 9-foot deep, 100-foot wide channel from the mouth of the Apalachicola through the Flint and Chattahoochee river systems to Columbus, Ga. The spoil from the construction process was dumped along the river banks, destroying critical wildlife habitat and causing sportfish populations to plummet.