Suwannee River Paddle Dec. 20: Day 6: Riverbank Camp (rm 70.5?) to Riverbank Camp (rm 49?)

We slept in a bit this morning. We packed up our campsite and did our best to erase all traces of us being there. We left around 9:15 AM. As we approached the Santa Fe River, we saw a jet skier, a few folks out fishing, and then another jet skier. Luckily, they weren’t around long. Other than these few people, and the guy fishing near SRR, we have had the river completely to ourselves.
We found a really beautiful spring on public Suwannee River Water Management District (public) land. It wasn't in the Paddling Guide, but Google Maps called it Fletcher Spring. Ezi went for a swim. It has been too cold for me to swim at all this trip, which is a shame because the springs all look so inviting!
As we pulled in to Pothole Springs (rm 58.2) around 12:40 PM a manatee swam out. As we came out of the scenic Rock Bluff Spring Run (rm 56.6), a manatee similar to the one we saw earlier, was swimming in. We passed Bob's River Place. It is an interesting, privately owned river park the kids had visited when they were little.
We stopped at 1:55 PM at Gornto Park and Springs (rm 55) and left around 2:45 PM. We really needed a water refill because we were nearly completely out and Gornto Park had spigots at the campsites. When I had called to get information about the campsites I was told that water was ok for cooking with, but not for drinking. We refilled anyway, because we are out of the main section of the Suwannee River Wilderness Trail now, I think, and amenities are fewer and far between. The campsites were empty, except the one we assumed was occupied by the camp host or maybe a random camper. The campsites also had electricity and we plugged in as many devices as the Anker charger could charge.
We paddled hard today, but not too hard, because we had wind at our back most of the day. I think everyone’s bodies are getting used to paddling. Plus, no one had set an alarm in the morning and we all slept in until 7 AM or a little afterwards. Since we were camping in the middle of nowhere, we had all gone to bed very early last night (approx. 8:30), so we were also all pretty rested.
Since no one was really pushing it today we didn’t make it to the campground at Hart Springs (rm 43.3). I hadn’t really planned on making it that far anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal to camp on SRWMD land again. Around 4 PM we discovered that we were only 6 miles from Hart Springs. We explored some potential SRWMD land and called Hart Springs. Camp reservations had to be made via internet, which we didn’t have, or walk-up for primitive camp sites. The walk-up option ends at 5 PM when their office closes, so we decided to definitely riverbank camp again tonight. Hart Springs has hot showers and real bathrooms, but the boys had all enjoyed their off-the-grid camping experience so much last night they were more than ok with doing it again.
We found a good spot nearby and set up camp. We cooked up food and hung out by the fire. John and I stayed up boiling a few quarts of water while Edon and Ezi hung out in the tent listening to podcasts. It was shocking and nerve-wrecking when John and I heard lots of crashing in the woods while we were waiting for the water to boil. John and I were set upon by several armadillos. They ran past us onto wherever they were going. Of all the potential animals that could have come noisily at us through the dark, armadillos are probably the best possible. We were all in bed and ready to sleep by 8:30 PM ish.
21.59 miles paddled.