North Route to Lane Bay

[Terry]

There are two creeks that would make a good, more direct, alternate route from Pearl Bay
to Lane Bay, if they are passable. Both look good on the aerials but I have not ground-truthed
either. The first is the creek centered at 25 degrees 15 minutes 36 seconds north and
80 degrees 51 minutes 35 seconds west on the north side of Pearl Bay that goes into
the bay between Pearl and Hells. The second creek and more important is centered
at 25 degrees 15 minutes 42 seconds north and 80 degrees 52 minutes 26 seconds west
and connects Hells Bay with the bay between Pearl and Hells.
If these creeks are paddleable they would create a Hells Bay Chickee by-pass route,
"cut-the-corner" off the usual Pearl Bay/Lane Bay route, semi-round trip for day paddlers
and/or just provide some variety to the routine pipe marked route. Call it the North Route
to Lane Bay. Can any body give us the status of those creeks?

[Keith W]

I paddled both of those short creeks at the end of my through trip in Dec 2004. They were both open then. The mangroves are low and scrubby back in there and aren't likely to fall and block the channels in a storm, so it's possible they're still open. One thing though, there was a lot of hydrilla growth in the shallow bays and I had to push through a bunch of it.

[Terry]

Thanks, I may take those creeks at the start of my next through trip.
I have noticed the hydrilla grow over the decades, last year I thought it was an island in north
Hells Bay and didn't figure it out until I got up to it. It stuck up a few inches from the surface,
bleached white by the sun it looked like a sandbar in the distance.