Earl, That's exactly what I thought, the St. John River in New Brunswick. I'm curious, that's where the falls get flooded over and run backwards with the 40 foot tides, isn't it? How do they arrange crossing the falls? Bad timing would be fatal, good timing would be uneventful... Fred Tug 44 ---------------------------------------- From: "Earl Beard" <beard@maine.edu> Sent: Friday, December 30, 2011 8:51 PM To: "Bob McLeran" <rmcleran@ix.netcom.com> Subject: Re: GL: Spring on the St Johns Until Ted provided the alternative, I thought that tey intended to do the St. John river in New Brunswick, Canada. That is a great trip (I have done it at least 6 times) but spring is a bit early. Early summer would be better. Earl

Well, you've gotta be able to distinguish between the St. Johns River in Florida, and the St. John River (notice, it's not plural) in New Brunswick! That's why I asked if the original poster was indeed talking about the St. Johns River (the one in Florida). We've done both. Both are beautiful cruises. The "falls" in the St. John River is called the "Reversing Falls" (there are several "reversing falls" on rivers in the Bay of Fundy and the northern Atlantic) because as the 30 foot plus tide changes, the direction of the water flow changes. In fact, it's not a falls in the Niagra Falls sense, but rather an elevated area in the river channel about 1 mile off the Bay of Fundy at St. John (the city) New Brunswick. At low tide the water is a minimum of about 16 feet deep, if I recall correctly; at high tide it's about 40 feet deep. It's located in a narrow cut with high, steep banks and a huge bolder strewn bottom. The current never really stops, it just goes almost slack at both high and low "slack" tide. You time your travel over the reversing falls as best you can to coincide with slack; the Royal Kennebecasis Yacht Club (located a couple miles above the falls on the back side of St. John) is able to provide a spotter to help determine slack. Even at slack there are whirlpools that will spin your boat 90 degrees (or more) in a couple of seconds. No question that it's exciting, particularly the 90 degree narrow bend in the river immediately below the falls! Once above the falls at St. John, the river trip is spectacular, but is essentially a river trip. There's nothing comparable to the reversing falls on the St. Johns River, but the trip is straight forward and the scenery is beautiful for much of it's 180 mile navigable length. <><><><><><><><><><><><>Mozilla Thunderbird<><><><><><><><><><> Bob McLeran and Judy Young Manatee Cove Marina MV Sanderling Patrick Air Force Base DeFever 41 Trawler Melbourne, Florida Blog: http://sanderling2011.blogspot.com/ Pics: http://tinyurl.com/yjx2vky& http://tinyurl.com/yhxjvas On 12/30/2011 9:05 PM, fred@tug44.org wrote: > Earl, > > That's exactly what I thought, the St. John River in New Brunswick. I'm > curious, that's where the falls get flooded over and run backwards with the > 40 foot tides, isn't it? How do they arrange crossing the falls? Bad > timing would be fatal, good timing would be uneventful... >