Garden Cart into Willow Branch Creek
July 30 at dawn Dr. Pepper ( actual name) and I slide our sit aboard kayaks off my gray garden cart into Willow Branch Creek. The water is blood warm and not moving very fast. Two Sprite cans bob by while we are launching. A young heron moves awkwardly across the creek.
Willowbranch is polluted but still beautiful. The fat, concrete balustrades that edge the creek make us feel as if we have made a wrong turn on St. Johns Ave.and tumbled through a time warp into Venice. We hum a few lines of a gondola melody that sounds suspiciously like an old Bob Dylan song.
Reaching the creek's end, we take a right turn onto the big river just as the morning sun peeps over the Fuller Warren. The river is glass smooth with just a few algae flakes stirring in the tannic brown. Our goal is the Ortega Bridge and the park just beyond it.
Less than an hour later, we paddle under the venerable bridge , take a right turn and pull up on the granite rocks at the park. Two men are walking dogs and cleaning debris left by picknickers. One man mentions the Riverkeeper boat patrol and asks about joining it. I give him the office number.
Back in the kayaks, pulling hard, we make it back to the creek before the summer sun broils us. The old garden cart is waiting patiently for its load of boats. We piled them in and make it back to the condo before 10:30. Waving goodbye to Dr. P, I trudge off toward home pulling the garden cart and smiling.
- by Victoria Freeman
