My Backyard: Destinations
REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS: The Best of H2O in the Southeast
By Hannah Nordhaus
Aug 1, 2005, 12:32

Best Water Town
New Smyrna Beach, Florida

This surf haven offers the most consistent waves in Florida, if you’re willing to brave a few underwater hazards.

At New Smyrna, everyone’s on vacation, except the sharks. Photo courtesy of www.newsmyrnabeachonline.com

New Smyrna Beach is just 15 miles south of Daytona, but the resemblance stops there. Route A1A—Florida’s main coastal drag—dips inland just north of New Smyrna to avoid Ponce de Leon Inlet and the 57,000-acre Canaveral National Seashore, making the town a small island of lowrise tranquility in Florida’s disheartening seaside strip of tacky motels and mini-malls. But Ponce Inlet does more than divert the beach sprawl inland. It also dumps Indian River silt into the Atlantic, creating sandbars that make for the most consistent surfing wave in Florida.

The place attracts more than surfers—the Indian River Intracoastal Waterway is one of the richest, most diverse estuary systems in North America. That means manatees, flying tarpon (like the one that recently knocked a surfer unconscious), leaping dolphins (like the ones that have been known to collide with paddling surfers midbreach), a preposterous bounty of redfish and, um, did we mention the sharks? Yup, Volusia County is the sharkbite capital of the world. In 2001, “the year of the shark,” the area reported an all-time-high 22 documented attacks, 15 along the 1-mile stretch just south of Ponce Inlet. In other words, if you want to enjoy the sea in New Smyrna, get used to having sea creatures enjoy it along with you. If you go: 386-428-2449; www.sevchamber.com .

Wildest Water:Gauley River, West Virginia
A southeastern whitewater legend, the Gauley drops more than 650 feet over 28 miles, with big water, technical runs and huge waves, featuring more than 50 Class III- Class V+ rapids. 304-465-0508; www.nps.gov/gari/gauleywhitewater.htm.

Newest Whitewater: Tallulah Falls, Georgia
A hydroelectric dam silenced the mighty Tallulah Falls in 1912, but in the mid-1990s whitewater enthusiasts won recreational releases of water from the dam five weekends per year. “Tallulah” means “terrible water” in Cherokee, and on the first two weekends in April and the first three in November, expect solid Class IV and V boating, and one of the most radical whitewater rides in the Southeast. 706-754-7970;
http://gastateparks.org/info/tallulah/ .

Best Beach: Cumberland Island, Georgia
This barrier island off the coast of Georgia is designated a national seashore. It’s also a natural treasure, with wild horses, sea turtles, armadillos, alligators, deer, turkey and boar galore, white sand beaches, and not much else. The Carnegies own part of the island; for the rest of us, it’s tent-camping by reservation only. 877-860-6787; www.nps.gov/cuis/ .

REEL FUN: Islamorada fishing Photo by Bruce Hyer

Best Sportfishing: Islamorada, Florida
A group of four small islands located halfway down the Florida Keys, Islamorada offers the best backcountry, reef and deep-sea fishing in the South. There’s wahoo, tuna, sailfish, blue marlin, cobia, kingfish, barracuda, snapper, tarpon, redfish, sea trout, ladyfish and snook, to name just a few. www.fla-keys.com/islamorada.

Tallest Waterfall: Crabtree Falls, Virginia
Well, that depends on how you define “waterfall,” but for our money, it’s Crabtree Falls in Nelson County, Virginia. This series of five waterfalls drop 1,200 feet within a half-mile. One of them, the “Grand Cataract,” features a 500-foot vertical drop.

Best Floating Bachelor Party: Adventure Bachelor Party, West Virginia
Spend the day on a guided run of the Gauley’s classic whitewater before you settle in at a riverside camp for a raucous night of grilled steak, cold beers and a good ol’ fashioned roasting of the groom. 248-910-8152;
www.adventurebachelorparty.com .

Biggest Waves: Cape Hatteras, North Carolina
This popular sliver of sand—once dubbed the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” because of its treacherous shoals, currents and storms—juts far out into the Atlantic, catching waves from every possible direction. An abrupt drop off in the Continental Shelf means that waves hit the beach with serious power. 252-473-2111; www.nps.gov/caha/capehatteras.htm .

Best Underwater Attraction: John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, Key Largo, Florida
The first undersea park in the US and one of the best living reefs in Florida, this spectacular spot, combined with the adjacent Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, encompasses 2,800 nautical square miles of coral reefs, mangrove swamps and seagrass beds. Don’t miss the submerged 4,000-pound Jesus statue. 850-245-2157; www.floridastateparks.org/pennekamp .

Biggest Water Issue: Coral Bleaching
The only living reef in the continental United States is dying. Coral reefs need clean, clear water, and the combination of increased sea temperatures and agricultural runoff in and around the Florida Everglades is leaving huge patches of bleached reef that are truly heartbreaking to those who grew up diving there. www.reefrescue.org.

Biggest Water Issue, Part II: The Clean Water Act
The landmark legislation that has done so much to protect and clean up our nation’s waterways is under assault. Congress has allowed regulators to declaw and defund the law through back-door deregulatory processes such as rewriting of rules and lax interpretation and enforcement of existing protections for the many wetlands, lakes, rivers and streams in the Southeast—and across the rest of the nation. 510-550-6700;
www.earthjustice.org/program/water .

NOC guide Photo courtesy of NOC

Best Whitewater Guides: Nantahala Outdoor Center, Bryson City, North Carolina
The original southeastern whitewater outfitter and the gold standard in whitewater instruction, NOC offers rafting trips on the Nantahala, Pigeon, French Broad, Ocoee, Chattooga and Nolichucky, along with kayak and canoe instruction and a top-notch outfitter’s store. 888-905-7238; www.noc.com .

Best Hot Springs: Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas
In 1832, when Yellowstone was just a glimmer in the nation’s eye, President Andrew Jackson set aside Hot Springs, nestled in the picturesque Ouachita Mountain Valley, as the first Federal Reservation. Waters hover around 143 degrees Fahrenheit. Yow.
501-624-2701; www.nps.gov/hosp/ .

Dumbest (Illegal) Water Sport: Noodling
If ’rastlin a catfish with bare hands is your bag, you’d best head to one of the 12 states—most of them Southern—where noodling is legal. But beware: Hand-trolling for catfish is not for the faint of heart—those dark underwater holes tend to hide snakes and snapping turtles, too.