#168 - Kayaking 315 Miles Down Florida’s St. Johns River with Daniel Robison

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Welcome to Paddling the Blue. With each episode, we talk with guests from the

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Great Lakes and around the globe who are doing cool things related to sea kayaking.

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I'm your host, my name is John Chase, and let's get started paddling the blue.

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Welcome to today's episode of the Paddling the Blue podcast.

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Daniel Robison started a fascination with Florida's St. John's River at age 15.

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So join us today as we talk about Daniel's journey of discovery to paddle all

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315 miles of a river where the local wildlife is trying to eat you as you experience

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areas of great biodiversity.

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Before we get to today's conversation with Daniel, James Stevenson and Simon

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Enjoy today's interview with Daniel Robison.

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Hey Daniel, welcome to Paddling the Blue.

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John, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, so thanks for reaching out.

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You reach out to me, and we're here to talk a little bit about the St.

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John's River and your attempt on the St. John's River and how that went for

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you. But first, let's start with a little bit about how did you get your start as a paddler?

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So my love with paddling started when I was 15 years old.

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Before that, I'd really never even been out on the water period.

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And for my 15th birthday, an old family friend, she had a house out on the Little

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Wekiva River. It's a river down here by us that flows into the St. John's River.

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And she had just a ton of kayaks and canoes she was just kind of like a river

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rat and i got in a canoe and it was just kind of over for me i mean it just something clicked,

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and just that feeling of being in the water especially just like paddle powered

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craft not just you know a motorboat but but actually a kayak canoe i just fell in love with it just.

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That day and ever since then have just absolutely loved being on the water.

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So after that point, um, I was going over to her house all the time.

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I made a, made a bunch of friends with, with people who love kayaking and we've

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just been out on the water ever since. Well, that's cool. Now curiosity. So you live in Florida.

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Yes. All right. And, uh, what's the farthest one can be from the ocean in Florida?

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Oh man, not, not far, Yeah. Maybe an hour and a half?

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Yeah. Yeah, probably. So an hour and a half from any place in Florida,

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you can get to the ocean. Yet you'd hardly ever been on the water until age 15.

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Right. Well, I mean, you know, I, I'd gone, you know, body surfing and stuff

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and I pulled out a surfboard every once in a while when we go to the beach,

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but, but being a kayak, a canoe, that was just something I, my family just didn't do that. Okay.

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All right. So just a different type, different way of getting into the water

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that is. Yes, definitely. Yeah. I definitely had been in the water before,

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but, but kayaking, canoeing just had not been exposed to it. Okay.

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All right. So now where did that lead you, uh, between 15 and your St. John's river trip?

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Yep. So, like I said, I made a bunch of friends with guys who were interested

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in kayaking, canoeing, and I started thinking, man, let's go on some big trips.

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Let's try to go for 30 miles.

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Let's go for 40 miles. Let's go for 60 miles. And I know some of the people

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on your show, I mean, they're like circumnavigating continents.

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So a few hundred miles is not even really that big of a deal in the broad scheme of things.

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But for us, starting as teenagers and then into my early 20s.

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It was just this magical experience.

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The St. John's River is such a gem of Florida. It goes through pretty much,

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every environment that Florida has, you go from swamp to oak hammocks,

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then eventually up to, you know, coastal brackish stuff. So you just see all

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of Florida's environments as you go through it.

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And there's so much of it that's still, even to this day, undeveloped.

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And so we just started exploring. There's just so many places to go.

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And so after that time, when I was 15, we just kept going for longer and longer trips.

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We would just go into the pantry, grab cans of chili and throw in maybe an extra

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pair of clothes in a dry bag.

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And we'd just be out for two days, three days, four days, just exploring.

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We'd print out some old satellite maps and say, maybe about here and just go and check it out.

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So for years, we were just kind of going all over the place,

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all right and was a lot of this on the saint john's river and then it's a lot

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of this was on the saint john's river and and other rivers that flow into it

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okay so just kind of exploring all those different places,

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right all right so tell us you started getting into some of the the biodiversity

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so tell us a little bit about what makes this river unique.

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The St. John's River, with the biodiversity, being able to start in basically,

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at the southern part, it's basically jungle.

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I mean, it's, you know, vines, trees overhanging, you know, you've got these

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tropical birds flying around.

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Obviously, tons of alligators, that's always really intriguing to people that

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there's alligators down here. Very big alligators.

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So so you start in in almost like a jungle and the first part of the saint john's

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has actually been directed through these different man-made canals now,

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it's it's not natural in the first part and so it's this very surreal experience you start in this

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you know kind of misty swamp and but it's these perfectly straight canals kind

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of going on as far as you can see and then it eventually gets into you know

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marshland then you're up into higher ground pine and oak hammock.

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And, like I said, eventually into brackish water so you get more of a coastal,

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so you can smell the salt.

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And so it's such a unique river in that because it flows that north to south

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direction, you're going a very large swath of Florida is cutting through.

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And so if you go any amount of time on the St. John's, you're going to see a

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huge diversity in the landscape.

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And so it's really hard to get bored going on the St. John's.

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Every place is going to look very different. And you said, does it flow from

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the south to the north? It flows north, yes.

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Only a few rivers in the world that do that. Okay. And so we're talking 310 miles long.

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And I hear it's been referred to as the world's laziest river.

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That's correct. Yeah, I mean, Florida, you only got but a few feet in elevation

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from the southern tip to the northern tip.

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So there's very little grade for it to flow. So it's very slow.

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Usually on some of our trips, the current wise, it's very slow.

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But then during certain storms, just because of the way that the it's very narrow for a lot of the way.

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Maybe two-thirds of the way it's very narrow i mean a lot of high trees on the

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side so the wind can really funnel through it and so if you get in storms current

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wise it's very slow but but the wind can really funnel through and either,

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i mean i guess that could be a good thing if it's at your back but if it's in your face it could be

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pretty pretty tough paddling sure sure now you the way you described it you

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have some really narrow and the canals and you know jungle like at the start

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but it it ends up widening out right yes yes there's a really big,

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lake well it's big for us in florida lake lake george and it's,

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a rough a rough halfway point and after that it it gradually starts to get bigger

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and bigger until i think up by jacksonville it's close to two or three miles

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across so it's it's pretty wide but before that.

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It's, I mean, there were some places when we went, when we did our entire trip,

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the water was extremely low, but there were some points when you could almost

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straddle both banks, just put one

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foot on each bank and you're just barely squeezing through way down south.

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So there's a huge variation and very shallow down south.

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So yeah, not only are you moving through different environments of the landscape,

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but the water itself you go from from very small winding,

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river to this gargantuan thing closer up to jacksonville and also very uh lots

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of houses lots of boat traffic as you get closer up to jacksonville whereas

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down south i mean you could go all day and not see anybody okay,

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so world's laziest river drops 27 feet over 310 miles so about an inch per mile yep uh.

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Wide in some spots very narrow You can straddle it in other spots,

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anywhere from straddling to two miles wide.

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And the depth, I guess, is not very deep on average as well,

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like 11 feet, something like that. Yeah.

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Yeah, a lot of it's very shallow. Okay. Even a lot of the lakes are very shallow. Okay.

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And then you mentioned wildlife. Alligators.

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Let's talk alligators. I hear a lot of alligators. A lot of alligators.

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It doesn't bother us too much. I'm a Florida native, so I've grown up with alligators.

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People from other parts of the country freak out about the alligators.

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They are very big down south. Some of the ones that we saw on our trip,

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they'll get 17, 18 feet, gigantic alligators.

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Generally, they don't bother you.

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The biggest danger is an accident. Not that they're coming to get you,

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but sometimes they'll almost be sunning themselves in the water,

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but just slightly under the surface and just kind of hanging out there.

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And you cannot even see them and your boat can go right across them,

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sort of rub against them and spook them.

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And just the sheer power of them. I actually knew a guy who did that.

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And just in a split second, the gator flailed up the tail on one side of his

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kayak, the head on the other.

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And within a split second, his boat just snapped right down the middle.

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And he just found himself sitting in the water and the alligator took off.

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I mean, he didn't want anything to do with them, but just the sheer power of

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these guys, that's where the real danger is. And we really had to be careful.

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Yeah. I'm not sure that I want to paddle with anything 17 to 19 foot long that,

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It looks like a dinosaur and it can eat people.

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Well, so I went, so I did this trip when I was 23 and my buddy David,

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who did the first half with me, he was even younger. I think he was maybe 19 or 20 at the time.

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And so, you know, we're just 23, you're invincible. You don't,

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there's so many things you don't think about.

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Sure. And, and when we ended up going, I mean, we didn't even realize that it's

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kind of getting close to alligator mating season.

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And there was, there was a lot of, I mean, I think we counted over a thousand

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gators and, uh, and most of that was just in the first five days when we were

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down South and you would.

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You know, turn a bend and you'd see 30 alligators sunning themselves on the banks, big ones.

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And when gators get spooked, they run to the water because they're faster in the water.

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But the problem is, you know, you're in a channel that's only,

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you know, 20 feet across, who knows how many feet deep.

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And these 30 alligators just go and plunge in this water that you're just about to go through.

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And so there was a lot of gators in the water. So So our biggest concern wasn't

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that they were going to actively attack, but just with that many of them in

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there, you got to be pretty, pretty cautious. Sure.

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And I like how you qualify it. Generally, they're not a problem.

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Yeah, generally.

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So what other kind of wildlife do you get to encounter in the St. John's?

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We got, I mean, obviously a lot of birds. You got great blue herons,

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snowy egret, tricolor heron, night herons. You got owls, hawks, a lot of manatees.

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Every once in a while you see some otters or a, and what are those things called?

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A nutrias. Nutrias. Every once in a while we'll see some of those. What's a nutria?

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It's like a, it's the weirdest thing. I didn't see one until I was in my early twenties.

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It looks like a beaver. It's like the size of a beaver with the tail of a rat.

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Very bizarre. Yeah. Yeah. I have to look it up after. It's the,

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it's the weirdest thing.

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It'll make you do a double take you think oh it's it's an otter and then you're

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like no it's not an otter a little too fat for an otter and yeah it's it's really

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weird but it's huge it's just giant huge water rat now do they so they live in the water.

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Okay yeah they're really good swimmers all right i will check that out and i'll

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get a link in the show notes for folks people to check out her nutria,

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So tell me about the manatees. I've never paddled with manatees,

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and people talk about them and how beautiful they are. So let's hear about the manatees.

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Yeah, they're kind of like big underwater cows.

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They're massive, and they're very curious. So there's a big thing in Florida.

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For a while, there were so many manatees that were getting chopped up by speedboat

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propellers and getting very injured.

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And so, you know, there's tons of no wake zones everywhere and they really made a big effort.

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We need to really watch out for these things because they're not exactly fast.

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And fortunately, the numbers have come back a lot.

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They really are. It's hard to stay away from them because they like to come

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to you. They're very curious, especially when it's kayaks or canoes,

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something that's not making a lot of noise.

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They'll come right up to you and just check you out. The little babies want

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to see what's going on, but pretty regular site if you're going on the St.

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John's River and especially in the tributaries of the St. John's.

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Tons of manatees around there.

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I've seen some, sometimes, I mean, these things are hundreds and hundreds of

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pounds, but I've seen them sometimes like halfway out of the water.

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I don't even know how they've gotten up there, but they just sort of flail themselves

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up on the shore to get some kind of tasty plant or something that they see.

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But yeah, just kind of gentle giants. Very cool. We live close to Blue Springs,

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which is kind of known the world over as this manatee congregation spot.

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And so in the winter, when the waters get colder in the St.

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John's River, they go up into Blue Springs, which flows into the St.

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John's and that water stays at a constant, I think it's 73, 72 degrees because

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it's spring fed and you'll get so many manatees, you can't even see the bottom of the riverbed.

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And so people will come from all over the world to see all the manatees,

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just hundreds and hundreds of them that hang out in there for the winter. Oh, that's cool.

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Yeah, very cool. All right. So we've gone from alligators that are trying to

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eat you, or maybe not, generally they're okay, to giant water cows.

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And then in between, we've got sharks. Yeah.

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You know, I did not see any sharks. There are sharks farther up.

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Some people have said they've seen bull sharks as far down as where I'm at in

00:16:15.667 --> 00:16:20.258
central Florida. So about halfway down the St. John's where it's not even brackish anymore.

00:16:20.827 --> 00:16:22.788
But people have reported bull sharks down here.

00:16:23.402 --> 00:16:27.942
As you get farther north, definitely see some sharks. Some people do. I've never seen one.

00:16:28.272 --> 00:16:31.017
I do see a lot of dolphins when I go up in that area, though.

00:16:31.017 --> 00:16:37.023
Tons of dolphins in the in the river maybe even even lower than jacksonville,

00:16:37.540 --> 00:16:41.809
i've seen them now how far is the the brackish water,

00:16:43.815 --> 00:16:48.532
I think, I think it's around Palatka that it really starts getting,

00:16:48.926 --> 00:16:53.516
that's when I started noticing any, anyway, when I went there on my trip,

00:16:53.655 --> 00:16:57.075
that's when I really started noticing, okay, there's, you got barnacles growing.

00:16:57.075 --> 00:17:01.537
You can kind of get that salty smell when the, when the wind blows over the water.

00:17:01.996 --> 00:17:06.135
So there's some, somewhere around there. So it's a little, little South of Jacksonville.

00:17:06.135 --> 00:17:10.955
And then that even changes with, you know, the tides with, if the tides coming

00:17:10.955 --> 00:17:14.343
in, it can kind of come up the river a little more when it's going out.

00:17:14.818 --> 00:17:19.065
The flow of the river can sort of push that back. So it's a little bit of a hazy line there. Okay.

00:17:19.465 --> 00:17:25.348
And just for our listeners who aren't familiar with the locations about how far up the river is that?

00:17:27.645 --> 00:17:34.495
If I had to guess, I'd probably say maybe 75, 50, 75 miles. Okay.

00:17:34.495 --> 00:17:35.417
That's quite a ways then.

00:17:36.064 --> 00:17:41.425
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I guess maybe because the current is so weak that

00:17:41.425 --> 00:17:45.294
maybe it allows for that intrusion pretty far up. Okay.

00:17:45.747 --> 00:17:49.015
And so you can see dolphins quite a ways inland then. Mm-hmm.

00:17:49.015 --> 00:17:51.006
That's pretty cool. Yeah, it is.

00:17:51.824 --> 00:17:57.045
So then you decide, you know, from age 15, you develop this love affair with

00:17:57.045 --> 00:18:01.925
the water and with the St. John's River. And then you decide someday that you're

00:18:01.925 --> 00:18:05.169
going to paddle the whole thing. So let's tell us a little bit about how you got to that point.

00:18:06.560 --> 00:18:11.736
So, we had done, like I said, kind of longer and longer trips and just seeing,

00:18:11.736 --> 00:18:13.660
you know, how far could we really go?

00:18:14.223 --> 00:18:19.041
And for years, we had kind of, at first, jokingly, but after a while,

00:18:19.279 --> 00:18:24.236
seriously considering, you know, could, is it even possible to do this?

00:18:24.636 --> 00:18:31.145
And you know obviously there was 2009 there was internet but it's not like it was today but it wasn't,

00:18:31.987 --> 00:18:35.736
you know there weren't just any and every kind of group doing you know whatever

00:18:35.736 --> 00:18:39.116
you might want to do online where you can just find this huge group of people

00:18:39.116 --> 00:18:41.054
who love canoeing and who have done this and that

00:18:41.402 --> 00:18:45.246
it just didn't really have the the information for that and so we were just

00:18:45.246 --> 00:18:49.007
kind of speculating on our own is it possible we'd never heard of anyone doing it,

00:18:49.458 --> 00:18:51.711
We didn't know anyone that was considering doing it.

00:18:52.112 --> 00:18:58.497
And so we knew down south that some of the channels were confined to man-made canals.

00:18:58.886 --> 00:19:03.125
And so we're saying, you know, is it even possible to get through those? We knew a lot about...