Crane Creek is a 3.3-mile-long stream in Melbourne. It is a tributary of the Indian River, with its mouth in the vicinity of Front Street. Crane Creek greatly influenced the development of the area. Prior to the development of Melbourne, hunters used Crane Creek to gain entrance into the interior. In the mid-1880s, the first pioneers in Melbourne settled in the area around Crane Creek, which became the present day Historic Downtown area on the east end of New Haven Avenue near Front Street. Crane Creek is home to the Melbourne Bone Bed, a paleontological site. This site contains fossils from the late Pleistocene period 20,000 to 10,000 years before present. The fossils include extinct animals such as varieties of camels, giant armadillos, giant beavers, giant bison, giant ground sloths, mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats and tapirs. Crane Creek can be seen flowing thru FIT, Florida Air Academy and the Melbourne Country Club grounds.
We're going to do something a little bit different this time. Well, different for us anyways. We'll meet up at the Claude Edge Front Street Park boat ramp (posted coords) on Saturday, 22 April 2017 at 8 a.m. and splash by 8:15. We'll make our way around Front Street Point, under the bridges and into the heart of Crane Creek. There are plenty of nooks and crannies in which to trap trash and to explore. Around 10:30, start paddling your way back to the boat launch with your haul of trash.
Come prepared to work. Please be prompt, so we can pack away as much trash as possible in our three hour event. At 10:30-ish, we'll work to centralize the trash collected back to cleanup headquarters and snap our "job well done" photos.
Don't have a watercraft? Ask around or post your need. Someone will respond. Still no watercraft? Then you can still help out by cleaning up the park. There is never a shortage of trash along Brevards shorelines.
In case of non-paddeling weather, we'll stay land locked and scour the park.
For those paddling, life vest, whistle, sunscreen, plenty of water are some basic needs. Lets work hard, have fun and be safe.
