photos by Peter Swanson

Ever since Huck Finn and Jim took their fictional raft ride down the Mississippi, river voyages have been our national metaphor. Maybe that's why we thought it would be so cool to explore Dunns Creek off Florida's St. Johns River.

Dunns Creek bisects a jungle. It's a hiding place, full of myth, mystery and alligators. Our little ship had become a 7-knot time machine, bearing the runaway child in both of us to a parallel dimension of pirates and those desperate Confederate sailors who scuttled the schooner America there.

Tattooed Timucuan Indians once plied these waters. One of them-a studly fellow covered in body art, was the subject of an illustration in my old middle school history text describing the discovery of America. Herea bouts, too, originated the descriptive "cracker,"referring to Florida cowboys, after the sound of their bullwhips.

On Dunns we obeyed the rule of thumb for creek navigation: Keep to the outside on the turns but stay out of the hyacinths lining the banks. The depth sounder showed 50-feet in some spots, dropping to under five in others. In no time, the clouds had burst releasing a good Florida downpour to temporarily suppress the primal odor of swamp and decay.

To starboard, we spotted the first white bird perched beneath the canopy, then another, then hundreds more. Maybe there were thousands. Their beaks curved downward, and my Audubon bird book said they were white Ibis. When the rain quit, a pair of bald eagles passed above, and great blue herons glided over tea-colored water pterodactyl-like. The creek has its settled parts, too.We passed canal developments and waterfront mobile homes with docks-typical backwater Florida-and the docks were sometimes worth more than the homes. Folks lounging on their moored pontoon boats stared at our broad red hull the way Native Americans may have once beheld the European sailing ships creeping up Dunns on covert missions.

One of the earliest Europeans to do so was a Portuguese born pirate known to his contemporaries as Big Jack the Ugly. It was his story, and the scuttling of the America that inspired our little voyage to Crescent Lake, Florida's third largest. Big Jack was a sailor aboard French, then Spanish ships until one day somewhere off the Florida coast he made a career decision. In 1703, Big Jack led a mutiny, taking command of the Spanish ship on which he served and murdering everyone who stood in his way.

Old Florida treasures like the Three Bananas are one of the many secrets at the end of Dunns Creek.

Big Jack worked the slave trade for another five years until he ran into a British warship off Charleston, South Carolina. His ship was badly damaged by cannon fire, but fog covered its escape. He eased his ship up the St. Johns and into Crescent Lake, where he and his followers rested and made repairs. Over the next several years Big Jack returned to winter at Crescent, where he had made friends among the local Native Americans.

In 1713 Big Jack and his crew captured a frigate called the Black Swan. They brought her up to Crescent to strip her of her guns, stores and hardware before scuttling her about 2,500 yards southeast of the Crescent City dock. She would not be the last vessel scuttled hereabouts.

We all know how in 1851 the schooner America defeated Britain's fastest yachts to establish the world's most famous sailboat race, The America's Cup. Less well known is that her Yankee owners promptly sold America to a Brit, and she ended up serving as a Confederate blockade runner during the Civil War, renamed the Memphis.

In January 1862, the 101-foot vessel's last blockade run took her up the St. Johns to Jacksonville. As rebel forces retreated from Jacksonville in March, her Confederate crew navigated the Memphis up the St. Johns, then up Dunns Creek nearly to Crescent Lake. There they sank her to keep her from falling into Union hands, and possibly to preserve the ship for future Confederate use.

The ploy failed. The Union Navy found the ship, raised and renamed her America, and put her in the blockade line. America captured one rebel blockade-runner and after the war was used as a training ship for Navy cadets. She even sailed in defense of the America's Cup in the 1870 race, finishing fourth. (America later became the personal yacht of retired Union General Ben Butler of Massachusetts before eventually being returned to the Naval Academy in 1921. She was destroyed in 1942 when a blizzard collapsed the shed in which she was stored.)

The chart shows the bends and twists of Dunns.

Crescent is a consistent 10- or 12-feet deep and free of obstructions. Autopilot steered us toward the middle of the lake until we sighted the old fashioned water tower serving Crescent City.We headed for it, and tied up at the public dock for the night. The entire trip was an easy six hours from Reynolds Park Yacht Center at Green Cove Springs on the St. Johns.We ate just footsteps away from the dock at Three Bananas, a cheerful, Caribbean-themed, waterfront restaurant; owner Jerry Moldrik is an old-school raconteur best enjoyed by sitting at the bar.

Renegades leave no lasting monuments, though Moldrik said that a mound on nearby Bear Island marks the gravesite of Big Jack's Indian friends, massacred in his absence by a rival band. Crescent City, like Palatka and Green Cove Springs is a sleepy, undiscovered place and, like the others, offers fine examples of late Victorian architecture in the shade of sprawling Spanishmoss- hung live oaks. Crescent City is on the lake?Ĵs developed western shore; but looking out from the town docks toward the north and east, the lake surely appears like it did to Big Jack?Įwoods and tannic water.

My idea of fun cruising is dead simple. Alternate a night in splendid isolation on the hook with a night of honky-tonk. Age, of course, has amended my definition of honky-tonk to include any restaurant with a wine list that stays open past nine. The St. John?Ĵs River in general and Crescent Lake in particular are fine venues for this cruising style, not to mention for those latter-day pirates among you, a good hideout from inlaws and agents of the IRS.