July 17, 2004

Hopping fish and a pile of crabs

An older couple arrived and unloaded a long rowing canoe. After outfitting it the woman paddled off and the man asked me if I was waiting on someone. He told me he puts his wife in the water and then drives down to the park to wait on her while fishing.

Joan arrived and we followed the ebbing current down toward the park. There seemed to me to have been a lot of restorative work in the plants as the channel north of Jug Bay was well defined. Joan recalled the time we had paddled there and poled through thick mud, unable to find open water. But today little fences held in the bulging vegetation and the unfenced area was deep water. At least deep enough to paddle in.

Near the edges, these tiny little fish would start jumping across the water like a skipping stone. Often they would bump into our kayaks before skipping off somewhere else. Once I managed to catch one in my hand as it skipped up to my boat, and I came close a few other times.

When we got to the park I could see the older couple loading up their canoe. Joan suggested we paddle over to the far side of the bay. Neither of us had ever paddled there. We crossed the 1/2 mile to the other side while watching herons, bald eagles, and osprey. The far side was filled with wildlife and more of those little hopping fish.

We headed on south, and on reaching Selbys Landing we decided it was too early for lunch and continued on in to Mataponi Creek. The outgoing current didn't seem to bother us much and we kept ourselves entertained by watching the hopping fish all the way up to the Fenno road bridge.

By the time we got back to Selbys I was pretty hungry. We beached our kayaks and walked out to the end of the dock. Two men were trying to launch their power boat but couldn't get it off the trailer. Two kids were in the boat hanging their heads over the edge watching what was going on as the men discussed the fact that the tide must be too low.

But that wasn't the problem. their boat was still firmly strapped down to their trailer. I pondered if I should tell them and decided that if they couldn't figure that part out, they probably didn't need to be on the water anyway. Eventually they gave up, telling the people next in line to use the ramp that it was to shallow to launch.

As Joan and I ate our lunch, the second boat was backed down the ramp. The water was shallow and they had difficulty getting the boat off the trailer. But at least it wasn't strapped down so I offered to help them out by putting an extra 230 lbs behind the people trying to push the pontoon boat off the trailer. The boat slid in to the water easily and they motored away as Joan and I got back on the water.

We had passed a few skiers on the way down and a few more were playing as we launched. They were pretty courteous as they passed, often swinging as wide as possible away from us or stopping and turning around before they got to us. One entertained us by doing flips in the air and another by skiing backward on his bare feet.

The current had not changed but had slowed to the point we didn't notice it. The wind seemed to be nil at first, but after we rolled to cool off it picked up and gave us a gentle push back to the put in.

On paddling up the small ditch - or I should say - poling our way up the ditch as the tide was low and the grass very thick - we noticed a bunch of dead blue crabs on top of the grass. Just a few at first, but getting thicker as we approached the dock. At the dock were several hundred dead in a pile just beneath the water surface. Bright blue, they couldn't have been dead for long and they weren't there when we left. The water here isn't salty, so I wonder if someone dumped them here and they died from the fresh water? I don't know, but the big concentration was right at the dock as if they had been dumped there and a few of the live ones tried making it down the ditch before they died.

I tried to take a picture of them but the batteries in the camera were dead. We finished putting the kayaks away as a couple were launching. One boat looked familure to me and a few minutes later Joan explained it was Brian's old pintail. Small world...

Woody