No Flood Here

We have been at Eastbank campground at the Wooodruff Dam on Lake Seminole for the last three nights, with one more night before heading to Gulf Islands National Seashore. It has been three pleasant days so far and today looks the same. Sunshine and some clouds and some rather good birding We can get about a dozen species just sitting at our campsite.

We are in the second site we reserved here and, although it is not directly on the lake, it is on a short canal with a view over a lawn to the lake. The canal has a little resident alligator (about 2-3 feet long) which hangs out on a floating island every day. The volunteers here have named it Gabby. It doesn’t do much except harass the turtles that want to occupy the same little island.

Time here is a bit strange as the campground is in Georgia and is on Eastern Daylight Time (sunrise is at nearly 8am), but the dam is in Florida and that part of Florida is on Central Daylight Time. Our phones and computers think we are in Florida, so they set themselves to CDT. I gets confusing.

We haven’t done much over the last couple of days except a few local bird walks (that is a good thing). I did get out for my first on road bike ride since I hurt my shoulder the other day. It was a short seven mile trip to Chatahoochee Park, a day use area up the road a bit. Just some rolling road with no traffic…except for the 11% grade from the campground the the entry station. 

I originally intended to take the road that runs along the Apalachicola River from the dam to the town of Chatacoochee, but at the first corner, about 200 yards from the dam road, it was flooded. Since there were geese and comorants swimming in the very muddy water, it didn’t seem to be a route I could just ride through.

Looking at the weather later, it reported a flood warning from the dam downstream. The lake is full and cascading over the top of the spillways and the river below the dam was 3.5 feet above flood stage. The road I wanted to ride is right next to the river.

Ellen and Sally have done at least two birdwalks a day, sometimes with Ben the dog, along for the walk. I’ve joined in a couple of times, but Harry and I have tended to do “stationary birding” at the campsites…more like stationary chatting and coffee drinking.

The weather has been quite moderate with cool nights and days in the high 60s to low 70s. It has been warming up and is supposed get into the 80s this afternoon. It looks like we will be a little cooler on the coast when we get to our next campsite at Fort Pickens. That is just as well as we will not have powered sites there.

Some Lake Seminole Photos