Yep, I am back. A different trip than what I hoped for when I made the reservations for Poinsett State Park, but it was better than staying at home and I did not have the time to head further south. It was an easy drive to Poinsett, which is a smaller state park and nicely wooded. Be sure to get one of the gravelled sites, or you better like red sand and clay, which puddles nicely in many of the other sites. Nicely clean facilities, and good hiking trails. Very convenient to the put ins at Sparkleberry landing and Packs Landing. First night was a low of 29F, but comfortable for me given my winter choice of equipment snd clothing. I had many nice evenings of kettle brewed Russian Caravan tea over my cone stove running on hardwood charcoal - it adds to the smoky aroma of the tea itself. This week was also an extended first use of the Northern Breeze screen house, which I had been lusting after for several years. I broke down and bought it this year when the nice Eureka sales rep gave me a 50% off coupon good for any four items from Eureka. This is a nice screen house, 12x12, with full weatherproof flaps on all four sides and nicely bug proof, with an add on floor if you feel necessary.I had a couple nice days paddling Sparkleberry swamp. This is a place where a back up gps running a simultaneous track to the primary gps would not be overkill. Maps are useless given the changing water levels and changes wrought by floods and hurricanes. Highlights - a beautiful environmental photo of a wood stork, a nice big 8-10 ft dead gator to examine, plenty of fascinating cypress and moss, and owls. Once away from the ramp I never saw another person, and paddled over 20 miles, poking around in there. Then came three nights and two days of steady rain. Sigh. So it was museum time. Columbus has a very nice art museum, and a reasonably good state history museum, and some good barbecue places. I also checked out a number of other put ins in the area. Did some hiking in Santee National wildlife refuge (which has a canoe trail of a couple miles in among the islands on the lake) and checked out the indian mound. Had one day doing a short paddle on the Black river from Kingstree upriver several miles. Nice white sand bars offset by very dark water, and scooched by a few blowdowns. Worth coming back, but that night the river levels started to rise, and I am not a great paddler in current and they needed to be out and back trips. I hiked some of the Palmetto trail - nice, with interesting views into the swamp. Did not get across the entirety of the swamp on it though. Also visited the Audubon's Beidler forest - nice almost two mile boardwalk through the swamp. Will look to paddle from Givhens Ferry park up into it on a future trip.
My mapbook now has a bunch of notations for "next time" with put ins verified, etc. It was too windy and cold for sailing on Marion but that looks good for future trips.
Though I have made three trips on the Suwanee, and paddled most of the north Florida waterways, I have never really explored South Carolina and the upper half of Georgia, so this was a start.
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