August 18, 2006

Blackwater NWR Part 1 Taylors Island

I often wonder who reads these trip reports. I love to read trip reports of other people and I hope folks sometimes enjoy reading mine.

Recently Wes Boyd announced to Paddlewise his web site would be going down at the end of August. I can't tell you the number of people I have referred to Wes' site of the years for a solution to paddling leg pain or for reviews of boats for big people. I hated to see that content go away, so I offered to post some of it on kayaktrips.net and was happy when Wes agreed.

So over the next few months you'll see some new (old?) stories by Wes and others as I cut and paste some great content into the kayaktrips format. I'm excited about it.

Oh yeah, this is a trip report about Blackwater NWR...

I arrived early afternoon at Taylors Family Campground and checked in. The woman told me to set up behind the store, so I drove around to find a grass lawn that was really the backyard of the store sandwiched between the building and the water. I uneasily started setting up the tent and a few minutes later Patty arrived. Although there was a nice breeze, there wasn't a lick of shade and I was soon very hot. Patty and I decided to check and see if they had any wooded campsites. They did, and were a bit more buggy but I had a screen canopy along and the shade made it totally worth putting up with the mosquitoes.

After putting up our tents we set up the screen canopy. At 13'x13' it easily went over the picnic table and left plenty of room for coolers and chairs.

First point of order was to paddle from the campground. Dan had mentioned to me to paddle north to 3 islands where there was a nice sandy beach. The water was just a little bumpy, which I know Patty enjoys, but an opposing wind and current had me feeling like I was paddling in mud.

Eagles occasionally took flight as we neared the islands. I wondered out loud why the immature eagles appear larger than their adult counterparts. My imagination? Try looking here and here.

At the third island there was a narrow slot through a thin strip of land to the other side. We paddled through and back though another opening before continuing our trip around this last island.

The tail wind and waves pushed us back toward the campground at a decent pace. The waves weren't big enough to surf even though I tried several times. A light dinner and I was done for the day.

Pictures

Woody