St. Johns River, FL

At just over 300 miles from its headwaters in the Upper Basin marsh to its mouth northeast of Jacksonville, the St. Johns is Florida’s longest river entirely within its borders. It is an amazing river that literally defies description for depending on where one encounters this serpentine waterway, it may be accurately characterized as an elongated estuary, a vast inland sea, an intimate blackwater creek, a braided puzzle-like marsh or an engineered drainage canal. Of all its myriad characteristics, it is this diversity that makes the St. Johns a paddling destination that, in a more reasonable world, would certainly eclipse Orlando’s Walt Disney World as a Florida attraction.

The St. Johns River originates in the Upper Basin Marsh in Indian River County. The marsh drains northward via sheet flow and through numerous man-made channels constructed for flood control purposes and maintained by the St. Johns River Water Management District. The river flows through a number of lakes along its entire course, and the Upper Basin reach is no exception. Once the river forms a channel, the lakes are connected by this well-defined riverbed. The river channel is typically shallow and meandering, and the banks are heavily vegetated with marsh grasses, often too high to see over from the seat of a paddle craft. North of Lake Poinsett, where the river forms the boundary between Brevard County to the east and Orange County to the west, the river divides into a braided channel that changes with stage and flow, and while it can be navigationally challenging, this portion of the river provides paddlers with some of the most interesting and rewarding paddling available on the St. Johns. The floodplain in this area is used for grazing cattle and horses, and it is not unusual to paddle through herds of both standing knee-deep in the river channel or grazing the low shoreline vegetation. The pasture-like floodplain vegetation and low elevation provide the paddler with open uninterrupted vistas with outstanding viewing of wildlife and seasonal wildflowers. The low floodplain soil provides solid footing and paddlers can often save time and distance or remedy a wrong turn by portaging a short distance across the open marsh from one channel to another before continuing to navigate the winding river.

Source: Florida Department of Evnironmental Protection

For More Information Visit:

Florida's Designated Paddling Trails - Florida DEP

St. Johns River Paddling Trail Data Book (PDF)- Florida DEP