Clear Kayaking at Rock Springs

Hi friends! A two weeks ago I came back from trip to Orlando and for the first time ever I skipped the roller coasters (not that I ever go on one, I just like visiting the parks). Instead, I went kayaking at Rock Springs… in a CLEAR kayak!

The launch site was at King’s Landing in Apopka, it was just a 50 minute drive from Orlando. As soon as we (my family and I) arrived, the place was rustic and there were trees everywhere. Our guide was very kind and he explained that the kayaks were double and the paddle was upstream (yikes) but we were just going to drift back to our launch site. It seemed simple and fun, I had kayaked 3 times before: 1) in Mexico, where a crab walked up bathing suit and scared me, 2) at Yasuni, it was difficult because it was a big, big river and 3) at the Galapagos Islands, where I saw sharks! I thought I had enough “experience” to handle this trip, I didn’t.

Since they were double kayaks, I went with my lovely fiancé (whom I wanted to kill mid-kayaking). As soon as we began our adventure, we CRASHED (like 10 meters from the launching point) and everything was downhill from there… Or should I say upstream?

The spring had crystal clear water, leafy trees, it was beautiful. We were able to see small fish and tadpoles swimming across the water. However, we enjoyed the wonderful scenery up-close, we kept crashing and crashing and crashing and crashing into everything. We weren’t able to coordinate, if my fiancé paddled left, I’d paddled right, it was frustrating, nonetheless, we kept going, The next 15 minutes were magical, we didn’t crash or bump into nature, we thought we finally mastered the art of kayaking. We were wrong. Our group stopped to take a little break because the guide wanted to wait for my mom and my sister ( believe it or not, they were doing worse than us). He told us to get going again and we did, huge mistake.

It seemed as if we were aiming to hit every log and tree in the way, it was all fun and games until we had to cross underneath a fallen tree. It sounds super simple, right? Wrong. The spring wasn’t wide and the tree took up most of the space. To our right side, there was the huge tree, to our left side there the leaves and branches. My wonderful fiancé, doesn’t handle stressful situations very well. We were paddling towards the tree, he freaked out, and we crashed into the leaves. It hurt. We were, desperately, trying free ourselves from the branches’ embrace. He freaked out, again. He tried to push us away from the leaves and branches with his paddle, he didn’t calculate the distance properly. He hit me in the head with the paddle. It hurt, but I couldn’t stop laughing, he was worried but I continued laughing. I’m not sure what happened next, but we were free and we arrived to a small beach. We got off the kayak and we swam our troubles away. It was amazing, the warm sun, the sound of the water, the trees, everything was just perfect. We rested for a bit and we continued hopped on the kayak. It was smooth from then on. We had fun and no more accidents, we even saw a turtle, she was pretty and kept looking directly at us!

We then drifted back to the launch site (we only crashed 5 times, NEW PR) and completely enjoyed the rest of the trip.

Overall, it was quite an experience! I would absolutely recommend it. The clear kayaks allow you to enjoy everything in a very different way. Being able to see what’s inside the water, it makes you connect to nature.

What should you bring/wear?