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Clearly, a little slice of heaven

Escaping to the Rainbow River provides a respite from city life. At least for a while.

By JEFF KLINKENBERG
Published October 31, 2006

Nathan Whitt paddles along the Rainbow River near Dunnellon. The pristine nature of the river, which has been designated an "Outstanding Florida Water," is drawing developers.
	[Times photo: Ron Thompson]

Check that. It isn't an alligator, but some kind of floating stick.

The Rainbow brings out the imagination in a paddler. The water is clear like a martini, the cypress trees towering and majestic. The wind rustles the palmetto fronds. An osprey shrieks. King Kong grunts. There I go again. The grunting turns out to be a train in the distance.

Florida is blessed with many scenic rivers. The Rainbow is among the most beautiful. Our state has designated it as an "Outstanding Florida Water" and the U.S. National Park Service has declared it a "natural landmark."

It begins as a first magnitude spring in Rainbow Springs State Park in Marion County and ends only 5.7 miles later when it flows into the Withlacoochee River at Dunnellon. On the weekend, it's a busy waterway. During the week, paddlers often enjoy long stretches of river to themselves.

Smart people pay someone to transport their boat, or their rented boat, to the beginning of the river and drift with the current. That's the easy way. I am not the sharpest cone in the pine tree, which means I paddle up and back, traveling at least half the time against the 473-million-gallon-a-day current.

It helps to have arms like Popeye. Sadly I'm built more like Wimpy. Maybe I'll have a hamburger for lunch.

SQUAAAAWK!

My paddling partner, Nathan Whitt, who rents canoes and kayaks, says a limpkin cry reminds him of a child having a tantrum. Not a bad description. Limpkins are a medium-sized, white-splattered brownish wading bird with a curved bill ideal for grabbing apple snails. Apple snails make the river their home, too.

Ice age animals, mastodons and mammoths, once lived here, judging by the fossilized bones discovered over the years. Timucuans traveled the river, and the Seminoles after them, and the pioneers who shot the plume birds and the alligators and mined for phosphate. The phosphate industry retreated; the river recovered surprisingly well.

When I was a kid, you could count the beer cans on the bottom; now the bottom is sand, weed and fish. A few years ago, the waterway was declared a "no-disposable river," which means you carry beverages and food in permanent containers.

Alligator! A real one, but of modest size, watches intently from an island as I cruise by. Feeling like an appetizer, I am suddenly worried that my kayak is going to buck me into the water like a wild bronc. I keep my cool and the gator goes hungry.

A red-tailed hawk screeches at us from the trees; we make eye contact and it flies away. A decent largemouth bass passes below; the water is so clear we can count the spots.

I wish I'd brought my fishing pole. I'd cast my Rapala, a lure that behaves like a crippled minnow, to the river bank and retrieve it slowly while twitching the rod tip. Bass prey on crippled minnows. Gators and herons and otters prey on the bass. Otters are everywhere on the river, SeaWorld without the $61.95 admission.

As a pileated woodpecker hammers a dead cypress, I hang a right into what looks like a pond. It's actually what the locals call "Blue Cove," an old phosphate pit so deep the bottom is invisible. An enormous gar, a prehistoric fish half the length of my kayak, swims just below. I paddle into the lee of the trees, where a construction crew is preparing the shoreline and the woods beyond for bulldozing.

The river may be considered a state and national treasure, it may feature Florida's third most powerful spring, but developers in our state always seem to get their way. A 350-home project is on the drawing boards despite protests from river lovers all over the South. Recently, a member of the Dunnellon City Council complained about "outside agitators" stirring up problems.

I paddle out of the pond, make the turn and float down the river, glad to have the current finally at my back and glad to have visited before the bulldozers start leveling trees.

Driving home on U.S. 41, thinking about the threatened Rainbow River, I stop at the Front Porch Restaurant and Pie Shop outside of Dunnellon to feed my sorrow. I eat a Wimpy-sized hamburger followed, of course, by a generous slice of banana cream pie.

"You okay, honey?" the waitress asks.

I tell her a lie.

Jeff Klinkenberg can be reached at (727) 893-8727 or klink@sptimes.com.

IF YOU GO

On the river

Rainbow Springs State Park is at 18185 SW 94th St., Dunnellon. For information or directions call 352 465-8555 or go to funandsun.com/parks and click on Park Listings.

- Rainbow River Canoe and Kayak rents watercraft. For information or reservations call (352) 489-7854 or go to www.rainbowrivercanoeandkayak.com.

- Dragonfly Watersports also rents watercraft. For information, call (352) 489-3046.

[Last modified October 31, 2006, 12:19:32]