Week long kayak trip on the Suwannee River

In late September my family of four plus some other family will be traveling the Suwannee River from White Springs, FL to Branford, FL.

We are going to be out for 7 nights total (average about 12 miles/day). The four of us have Mirage drives but the others are in canoes. (They are already concerned how much faster we are going to be than them. ) We are going to stay at state parks (cabins) and the state River Camps (free shelters and hot showers!) as well.

My major concern boat wise are the Hobie drives. We purchased all of these used in the last 9 months. My question is going to be what parts do I need for the Hobie drives? I see a spare part set that would probably be the most likely route for me. I will need 2 though since we have (3) V2 drives and (1) V1 drive setup. Is there anything else that I should bring? I surely wouldn't want to paddle these kayaks since they will have extra gear in them.

I was also planning on getting the rudders serviced since 3 out of the 4 that I have seem to be a little temperamental.

I am planning to have a GoPro setup on my kayak as well and hope to make a video of our trip since there doesn't seem to be a lot of current information on this stretch we are doing.

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

I have 4 Hobies with Mirage Drives. Parts that have broken thus far on mine and therefore make up my spare parts kit:
- Drum
- sprocket
- lost fin/shaft

Keep a pair of pliers, flathead and phillips head screwdriver, crescent wrench and blue thread locker on board to replace above parts.

If anything else breaks, I'll add to my kit.

Have fun on your trip.

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Mark
Magnolia Springs, AL
2014 Hobie PA12, 2015 Hobie PA 12, 2013 Outback and 2012 Revo11

gaKayakandSail:
As long as you put in below the Big Shoal rapids at White springs you should be ok, as long as the river isn't too low. Though we haven't done the Suwanee, we have done the Sante Fe river and most of the spring fed rivers in the area, and the weeds easily foul up the mirage drives, and we often have to pull the drives and paddle over the many weeds in late summer. I've heard it gets shallow in some areas especially when the water is low with shoals, and also that when the water is low the huge Sturgeon fish can get quite dangerous (many kayakers have been injured or killed by sturgeon jumping on their kayaks on the Suwannee I've been told, this is the main reason we don't do the Suwanee) ( http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2015/07/ ... 436047764/). I'm sure this is all wives tales and wild rumors, but if you do see a 8 foot sturgeon flying at you,,,, duck.
The water levels are very low right now, hopefully they will be higher when you make your trip.

Just from our experience on all kinds of similar rivers in the area, you will be using your double ended paddles much more than you are thinking right now. Just FYI you may want to practice paddling with the mirage drives out and the rudders up a few times, before the trip.

I think there are around 200 springs on the Suwannee, and most of them are 72 degrees, so even though it is very hot with pretty still air in that area, cooling off in the springs is welcome relief.
Sounds like a really fun trip.
Good luck, please post pics and videos
Bob

I would also have at least 2 of each cable and 7/16 wrench. I've broken at least a dozen cables in 5 years of owning Hobies. A right and left pedal arm wouldn't be a bad idea those are known to break to.

Sadly, just had a kid killed by a jumping sturgeon. Wife pointed that out to me. Ouch.

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

Okay, I will make sure I have those parts with the exception of the drum. I will need to check into that.

Thank you.

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

I was thinking about making the rudder adjustments myself but chickened out. I will poke around for those manuals and see what I can break/fix. That kind of knowledge would be handy too.

Didn't know about the GoPro alternative. Found it online and will investigate further. That should save me some money. Thank you.

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

How far do you go with this is the main question.

Chain & Cable assemblies - at least one of each (and bear in mind that they are probably different for the different versions of drive so you may end up needing to take 2 assemblies in total - I think they are the same for front & rear - if not you will need 4)
Idler cables (as above - you probably need 2)
Pedal shaft/pedal shaft assemblies (if you take just the shaft all you get is the pedal on the shaft - to actually install that on a drive you need to transfer the leg-length adjustment mechanism to the new shaft for which you need a very small allen key (to remove the retaining pin) so add that to your toolbox. Or you could make up full pedal shaft assemblies before you go... but you can bet that you will still need that allen key even if you do... e.g. to transfer an adjuster to a different pedal shaft). In extremis the pedal assemblies can be used on either side but on the 'wrong' side your foot will be pressing on the back of the pedal which is not terribly comfortable but better than paddling.
Fin-masts or mast sprocket assemblies. In my experience you are unlikely to break a fin mast if you are using the shorter fins (either sort) but if you are using the ST Turbo fins a fin-mast breakage or 2 (across your 4 boats) should be anticipated in your planning.
Spare Fins (one at least - just in case).
Rudder pins - usually these are clipped into the twistlock hatch covers: best make sure they are present.)
Tools to enable you to service the drives.
Knowledge to enable you to troubleshoot, service and adjust the drives.
Some strong line, epoxy glue, swiss-army penknife and some No. 9 fencing wire.

Stow this stuff towards the end, after you have stowed everything else apart from your baler, radio and epirb (then it will be closer to hand should you need it). And don't forget that Murphy's law will apply i.e. that if you don't take it you will end up needing it and if you do take it you will end up not needing it

Yes, there is a point where I will could be hauling a lot more parts than I would like. We have had a good experience so far but losing a drive could be really bad.

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

What is an epirb? Is this like propwash?

Edit: okay found out what it is.

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

Sounds like a lot of extra stuff to me, if it were me I would forego the Epirb and the FM offshore radio, unless you plan to use them in the future offshore ( I would put them in the nice to have list). As long as you have cellphones and some means to charge them I think you will be ok, after all your way inland and it's only 6ft to shore at any given time, the FM marine radio only has at best two mile range in the trees inland and nobody is monitoring that far inland, unless you want to talk to each other (just sayin). If you feel in danger, just stand up (humor).
As far as mirage drives go, maybe a few extra parts (fin related) would be nice. We have been hobie kayaking since 2007 and are out every weekend and do a minimum of 15 miles every week (this is my main exercise program), and some weekends 50-60 miles. We have never broken a mirage drive ever, I consider them to be extremely reliable as long as you don't kayak via the brail method, if you do touch something (like the bottom) just make sure you are light footed and stop and reverse, It's only when you keep pedaling and try to pedal thru when the damage occurs. It's important to become good at shallow pedaling (very short strokes with the fins near the hull (you will do that a lot). Like I said before your main tool on rivers is your double ended paddle you need to get good at using them (practice practice, with the rudder up and the mirage drives either locked against the hull or removed (remember the weeds.....). On rivers a small piece of aluminum folded and glued over the end of the fin helps save the fins from ripping on the ends, all of our drives that we use in rivers have that mod (yea we even run rapids sometimes with the mirage drives in and locked with the bungy up against the hull, usually not on purpose though (bad things come on you fast at times)). However we are mostly day trippers and have never done anything multi-day like this (I'm sure there is a huge difference prep wise), the other guys are probably correct, and you probably need to prepared for anything. Then again maybe we have just been incredibly lucky all these years with our mirage drives.
With my wife and I, our physical abilities differ greatly and when we used to do single kayaks she would get too tired to pedal some days, or strain a leg muscle and I would need to tow her back to launch sometimes so It's probably not a bad idea to bring rope along for towing if needed, this is mostly why we only tandem kayak anymore (I end up doing 90% of the pedaling, but I don't mind at all, I enjoy the company). I often tow other kayaks with our TI kayak, the best way is tail to nose directly behind about 10 to 15 ft (so you can still steer), side by side is not so good (like bumper cars going down the river (lol).
I'm a long time canoe person, and suspect the canoes will fair better than you think vs your kayaks. Canoes actually do pretty well when all loaded with expedition gear on these kinds of trips (ie... Lewis an Clark). I don't think you mentioned what model Hobies you have. I'm just sayin our preferred kayak on such a trip would be Oasis or Tandem Island (in kayak mode) if tandem, or the Adventure (in kayak mode) if single. We have had several revo 13's and they are nice, but don't fair as well when all loaded down with a weeks worth of gear. We have never used the outback, but it looks to be quite capable. Sleek and long is usually better in my opinion. I would think the trip would be brutal on a sport or Revo 11, I consider those to be recreational kayaks, where some of the bigger (longer) models are quite good expedition boats as well, but those are all just my opinions. I don't think any version of the PA would be a good choice either, but thats all still just my opinion.
Then again I'm probably over thinking everything, 12 miles a day is nothing on any of Hobies Mirage kayaks. It might not be a bad idea to locate and jot down the numbers and locations of any Hobie or kayak dealers in the area (just in case).

Yeah, look, my comments about radio and epirb were merely based on my approach to safety here in maritime NZ - they weren't meant to be taken literally as a recommendation that "this is the list of things you need to take on a trip down the Suwannee river"... I would not presume... I don't know the Suwannee river from a bar of soap (well maybe...) but here, inland and offshore, you can be a long way from contact with others and out of cellphone range; there are plenty of examples of people who go missing for days/permanently very close to Auckland where I live, so for us more than one means of communication is a sensible precaution.

As to the risk of mirage drives breaking - despite what others have said/are saying; they can and do break. In my experience the occurrence of breakages satisfies Murphy's law closely - in other words the part that you do not have will break; the breakage will occur at the furthest extremity of your trip, etc. and breakages seem to occur in groups - is this disaster theory? - you have no breakages for months/years and then a series of failures all in a row. It should be said, though, that breakages are really not all that common and they do also correlate to how hard you push your drive (which in my case has been 'pretty hard' a lot of the time).

The risk of and fall-out from a breakage will depend on this and that, but the last thing I would want to do is have my trip, that I have presumably planned and prepared for for a long time, wrecked by a breakage that I could have foreseen and overcome. You have 4 drives at your disposal so you will be able to tow out a boat with a broken drive, so a breakage is not likely to be life-threatening... but on the other hand, a breakage is 4 times as probable. Therefore my approach would be to take some spares, tools and know-how and I would pack that kit so that I can get to it should I need it. Experience has taught me and now I ALWAYS do this on EVERY kayaking trip I make and I have regularly had the benefit of being able to repair my drives on the water (In fact I 'downgraded' two of my drives to a common specification to make them easier to maintain on the water and standardise the parts list that I need to carry). I do this because it is common sense regarding general safety at sea (where I play), but I also don't want to have any trip, let alone a week long trip, wrecked by a part failure. And I also don't want to end up in a situation where I need to paddle back 10 miles where, but for the expedient of carrying a few parts and tools, I would have been able to fix my drive up and pedal back. And in the case of a group trip a part failure impacts the group as a whole, not just the individual...

How far each of us wants to go in terms of mitigating these risks is a personal choice. What I describe is what I do and why; no more, no less

I will forgo the radio and such. We are going to have cells and (4) 2 way radios.

When talking to my brother, I thought of another idea: we may tow a Perception Sports Caster to handle the gear. I will play with this as well but encase something happens we could move stuff around and use that as a backup. I will definitely get parts for the drives (mostly fin related).

Thanks for all of the suggestion. They all help me think stuff out.

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)

We tow gear a lot with our kayaks, mostly offshore with our TI with it's massive sails and big ole twin outboards. We usually have way too many people and way too much gear. We tried loading extra kayaks with gear only and tried towing them with not very good results. At least in our experience when you load a SOT kayak down with gear the get top heavy and without a human to keep them stable they tend to capsize easily even in very small waves and boat wakes. You may want to test out that kayak loaded with gear first and get a feel for it, i would think a sit inside kayak if available might fair better. What we have had the best luck with is a $40 dollar 4 person inflatable boat with 650 lbs capacity, we tow it fifteen feet directly behind the centerline of our TI, this way it doesn't affect our steering and is pretty stable, however we are offshore and not exposed to tree branches and rocks that would easily tear a really cheap inflatable, we have used ours quite a bit, and it's suprisingly durable, we always bring along a foot pump and a patch/repair kit. Canoes are known for being able to hold massive amounts of gear, you may try talking your canoe friends to haul a little extra, public things like tents, cooking supplys and coolers. I'm not saying to give up on the kayak mule idea, it might work out fine, I'm just suggesting you try it out first (dry run). Just thinking out loud here, it would be pretty easy to tow the mule kayak with two mirage yaks running side by side with a V rope setup (i've never tried it), but from my experience, towing another kayak behind a mirage kayak is pretty effortless (I used to tow my wife a lot back to launch when we had single kayaks when she got too tired, to be honest I could hardly tell the difference speed and effortwise. Then again we are never trying to break any speed records, we just pedal lightly at a walking like pace around 40 cycles per minute), it gets us where we want to go and we can easily maintain that pace for ten hours with a brief break once in a while, then get up and do it all again the next day, as long as we stay hydrated, and eat properly. One reason we like that area is the spacing of the cool springs, we stop and take a break at each one we find.
Hope this helps
Bob

I have been doing a lot of research and came across these videos. Some young ladies apparently kayaked the entire Suwannee River from where I am starting to almost the Gulf of Mexico (had to pull out early do to a Tropical Storm). They also had a blog with more information. http://www.paddlingadventurers.com/

The water level is low in the videos like it will be for us. It looks like there will be multiple shoals to deal with as well. Also in the videos I found places to restock and maybe a place that we may be able to eat out...

Also, they may start to charge for use of the River Camps. Hopefully that will not happen until after we come through.

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2012 Outback with sail / 2012 Outback / 2013 11' Revo / 2006 16' Adventure (no AKAs)