December 5, 1999

Eagle Watching

Trip #69

8.5 miles

MAP

Some pictures are priceless. If I had a camera with me, I could have snapped one of those pictures today.

Bill and Phil put together a trip for today out of Ft Belvoir. This was an eagle sight seeing trip as they have had good luck seeing eagles in this area.

I was first one at the launch site and I was just debating on whether or not to do some rolling practice when the others started showing up. Let me see if I can get the names right: Alice, Trevor, Greg, Jenny, Mark, Phil, Bill, and myself. I think I got them correct. Greg suited up and got on the water first and started rolling and sculling. This of course caused me to have to go out too.

While giving me some pointers I saw Jenny lean ALL the way back on her rear deck. I told Greg if I could do that it would be much easier to do these rolls. Then Greg did it too. I made up an excuse that my rear coaming was too high and Greg told me to take my butt out of the seat. What? "Brace against your foot pegs and lift your butt out of the seat and lay on the back deck."

Well, it worked, and took away one of my few remaining excuses for poor rolling and Greenland sculling. I need all the excuses I can get. Actually they were working even better today than yesterday. The water also did not cause the ice cream headache like it did yesterday. The water felt warmer, but still pretty cold.

We headed southeast along the shore. As the self proclaimed slowest paddler of the group, I took lead. I have to admit, I was a bit worried about being too slow. The dry suit, spending time rolling before we paddled and a neck seal that allowed me to only turn about 1/3 the way around to look back made me wonder if I'd be able to keep up a pace that everyone could tolerate as not being too slow.

As we paddled, I would veer every once in a while to scoop up some odd shaped debris floating in the water. These were large snail shells. I could have sworn when I picked them up that there was a snail, or at least part of a snail, inside. But when I got home I found them to be empty. Of course, I guess they could be in the cab of my truck. I should know in just a day or two...

We paused only to look at eagles and to get a drink. At first I stayed near shore, inside a long debris line a few hundred yards off shore. But the debris field got closer and closer to shore so I swerved out to take an outside track. This proved to be a good move since I now had a much better view of the high bank along the left side and could see several eagles flying around.

We had looped around and were now headed northwest into Dogue Creek. The creek at its mouth was wide, but also shallow. The channel through the center was narrow. The creek squeezed down to be small, and just when I thought it was becoming unnavigable a small marina popped up on the left. We paddled on crossing under 2 bridges before the creek became blocked right by the replica of Washington's grist mill. As a farmer, George Washington operated this grist mill on Dogue Run. There he ground wheat and corn into flour and meal. After years of use and different owners, the mill fell into ruin. In the 1930s the mill was rebuilt with materials and machinery from a similar mill of the period.

We turned around and headed out. When the creek widened we found a nice juicy muddy spot to pull over and have lunch. After lunch the wind had picked up and was starting to kick up some waves. At one point I notice Alice stopped paddling to get a drink as was getting blown backwards about as fast as we were paddling forward. At some point we passed a bunch of Navy troop transports of some type. Maybe 8 or 10. They made an effective sea wall as the waves reflecting off of them were causing quite a stir. We managed to make it through unscathed, and a few (all?) folks went out and surfed a few waves.

We made it back and I rolled a few times to test my ability after the paddle. When we stopped for lunch I had noticed the GPS had lost track of the satellites. When we beached it read that we had traveled 8.5 miles, but part of the track did not log and after filling in the gaps I found it to be 9.4 miles.

Jenny showed me a balanced brace. That is pretty cool. Maybe I'll eventually work up to that after I get my spine replaced by a double jointed one.

After beaching I tried to give Trevor some rolling instruction. I have to say I'm a better student than a teacher as I just managed to get him wet. Oh well, if nothing else I think I turned him into a pool session convert... Greg sailed off in his kayak just as the wind was dying down.

As we loaded up a lady pulled up in a SUV and pulled her kayak out of the inside. I heard her mention that she was going to be showing some new people the ropes about kayaking. I tried to tell if she was wearing a wet suit or just long biking pants but I never could tell. Her crew showed up - two Swifty kayaks and one kayak a bit larger. The Swifty's were flat on the bottom, and powered by a teenager and grandma, while the larger kayak looked to be a big young adult maybe in his twenties.

There wasn't a sprayskirt among them, and I was concerned since we had just come through some fairly big waves. There was no flotation in the kayaks. The three "newbies" were all wearing cotton, with the big guy wearing shorts. The person there to teach the newbies had paddled off before everyone else got into their kayaks and paddled out a couple hundred yards while the rest hurried to catch up. The two swifty drivers wore PFDs and jumped in their kayak on shore and pushed their way off the sand (didn't want to get their tennis shoes wet). The guy in the larger kayak attempted to put his on, then for some reason gave up and strapped it firmly to his rear hatch. I saw him tug it several times to make sure it wouldn't come loose.

This brings me to the priceless picture. I so much wish I had a camera with me today. I think I would have asked the four kayakers to pose for a picture. Then we could have done a "What's wrong with this photo" contest to see who could find all the things wrong. I found it disconcerting I didn't have the courage to speak up and found it hard to drive away after they had left. Even now as I sit here and type this I wonder if they made it back...