To complete my Virginia kayaking trifecta, I needed to get in some salt water, one because the ice would be at a minimum there, but mostly because the trip would not be complete without getting into the Chesapeake Bay at least once (the Atlantic Ocean remains a goal). Most of the access points were closed for the snow but I found one on Lynnhaven Bay that worked fine, and the caretaker did not question my sanity for wanting to kayak on a day like today. I paid my fee and he pointed me to a steep, snowy dune to the right of the parking lot.
There was ice here but it was wafer thin and sounded like breaking eggshells as I plowed through it. Out in the channel, the incoming tide made navigation uncertain. The tide seemed to want to steer me into the shoals that piled up next to the channel. I found out later that the current is strongest where Chesapeake Bay flows into Lynnhaven--right where I was. I can attest to that. After I fought my way past the bridge that marks the beginning of Chesapeake Bay, I let myself drift and the current shot me back under the bridge faster than I have ever traveled in my boat.
I can now say this about winter kayaking: one should do more of it. The cold, I have found, isn't even a factor. You warm up as soon as you start paddling, and once you've achieved that sense of balanced that an experienced kayaker has, Bob's yer uncle. The only impediment, if you can even call it that, is the skepticism of those whom you tell about your winter kayaking. I've spent a lifetime of people looking at me funny, so that didn't bother me much.
"What the hell kinda drugs you been smoking?" asked the guy at the marina when I asked if I could put my kayak in at West Neck. There was nothing but ice as far as I could see. But I had tried two other places and I was determined to put in this time. So I paid my three bucks and booked it on down to the ramp. Marina Guy went along to witness what he felt sure was going to be a self-inflicted disaster. I put on my cold gear, threw the machete into the kayak, and slide on into the ice.
On the way back, the trail I blazed funneled me right back to shore. The dilemma with addictive kayaking is finding new places and experiences after the old ones wear out. This was one of the best. I was feeling a bit blah before, but after I felt like a new man. Make that two jaunts in freezing water without falling in.
Yesterday I drove up to Virginia to meet the heaviest snowfall there in a quarter century, kayak atop my new ride. As they say in the theatre, if you bring a cannon onstage, you'd better fire it. So fast forward to today: 30 degrees, 30-mph wind, and me sliding into my kayak seat and paddling down the Hague--a residential tributary that leads to the Elizabeth River, the Chesapeake Bay, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean and, theoretically, to China.
This happened not without protest from my youngest brother, who told me, among other things, "I'd rather hear about your death than see it in person." True, if I'd fallen in, all bets would be off, but I was actually warmer in the kayak than I've been for two days. It was significantly more cold in Colorado. I didn't even attract all that much attention. Apparently, dragging a blue kayak down the middle of Olney Rd. isn't that out of the ordinary.
I steered through a congregation of bewildered seagulls with beautiful, arctic-looking plumage. The water was choppy but quite manageable. I did hit a stiff headwind on the way back, but at no time did I feel out of control. As I've mentioned before, I can get in and out of a kayak like a trained monkey at this point.
This place--where I grew up and learned to paddle--is rife with kayaking options. I plan to hit at least three of them while I'm here. At the very least I want to see how the swamps compare to the ones in Florida. Bring it on.
This is what it feels like when a manatee buzzes you from down under: the boat drops suddenly then pops back up, like a small dip on the water flume. I saw two of them and I'm pretty sure they didn't know what to make of Big Blue encroaching on their territory. I devoted a good bit of time trying to catch them on camera--in vain--and spent the rest of the trip watching schools of fish jump out of my way, weaving their way through the eel grass. I couldn't help but compare the manatee's graceful meanderings with the violent escapes of the alligator, both of which I have now experienced.
Someone pulled the plug on the Santa Fe River. Even the sinks are dry now. High bluffs, downed trees, and new "rapids" abound. I spent the afternoon bushwhacking, portaging, and documenting. I was here back in early October, and the difference between now and then could not be more stark. A sense of winter torpor has seized me of late, so I scheduled this outing like a doctor's appointment (but without the ego-deflating weigh-in). If I had waited a week, I bet I could have walked along the river bed without getting my feet wet.
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| Underwater Leaves |
Standing up in a kayak is a sketchy proposition. I recall one time in particular when I decided it was a good idea to moon my fellow paddlers during a jaunt down the Upper Withlacoochee and fell very quickly--and justly--into the water. But now I can walk up and down the deck like a Wallenda, and that comes in handy, as I've taken to exploring the land that lines the banks of my runs.
They say that any kind of daily practice contributes to spiritual awakening, and quite frankly I could use a bit of that these days. This part of the Santa Fe (between I-75 and O'Leno) is wild and lovely no matter what the water level and my spirit was enriched by moving through it today.
The boat ramp for the Waccasassa River is 38 miles from my house as the crow flies, but it might as well be on the moon. The river is wide and banked with soft, black mud and wasted trees, uprooted and pocked with woodpecker holes. Something came through here, a flood, a hurricane, a bulldozer, and although the parking lot was packed with trucks, trailers, fishermen, and one particularly grouchy old woman (yes, I grouched back), we saw almost no one on the river itself, except for alligator and birds.
It became apparent immediately that this place was tidal, and low ebb at that, because we paddled past the exposed roots of salt marsh grass and the aforementioned mud. At one point, after we turned into Otter Creek, I got out of the boat to see what lay beyond the banks (lots more marsh grass, by the way) and my sandal came off in mud the consistency of thick cake batter, several pounds of which I brought back into my boat with me.
I love this place. It seems endlessly discoverable and is only accessible by boat; the whole place is one big preserve. The gators we encountered, out for one last sunning before the deep freeze, reluctantly entered the water as we approached, no mean feat for a cold-blooded creature as the water numbed my hands in seconds. The stunning tree diversity along the banks adds to the otherworldliness of this place: oaks next to palms next to cypress. The Waccasassa is one of those places that could only be in Florida and it's just down the road.
In my pre-paddling life, I somehow never learned that, as evergreen as they may look to you and me, cypress trees are deciduous. So watching them go from green to rust to dead has been a revelation. Now their needle-leaves either form carpets on the water or hang in black, webby clumps from the branches. At some point they will all drop, rot, and stain the water. Some call it tea-colored. I call it black. I become a bit wistful watching this happen so quickly. Were I listening to, say, Lou Reed's "Berlin" at the same time, it might just do me in.
I came out again to Camp's Canal to find water moccasins. No luck there and a note to anyone paddling this time of year: get on the water by noon or you'll be coming back in the dark. The gators too are nowhere to be seen either, having crawled back down into their hibernation holes for the winter. None of this apparently affects the ibises or Great Blues, most of whom still wonder why I keep coming back to their house uninvited. In the distance, I hear Sandhill Cranes and Barred Owls. The reverb in this place is unparalleled.
