August 19, 2006

Blackwater NWR Part 2

I closed my eyes in the night to think about my life and when I opened them the light told me it was dawn. The day was fresh and new and by tonight it too would be what I thought about when I closed my eyes.

After a quick breakfast we headed off for the park headquarters. The sign on the gate said they didn't open for another 45 minutes. For some reason they open later on the weekend than during the week. We continued on down the road to a bridge we hoped we could launch from, but finding no good place checked the map for an 'official' launch.

It was only a few minutes more to get to the parking area. A small group was heading out and we asked for advice from the outfitters that were seeing off the small group.

"How experienced are you?"

"Very"

I think this caught him by surprise despite the well worn Romany and Explorer on our cars, but he recovered and told us about the purple trail. We asked about the marsh about 9 miles away and the woman said she preferred the area near where we were for its variety so we decided to take her advice and head East into the guts of Blackwater. To our West is the Green trail -a destination for tomorrow.

The purple trail is marked with signs on Osprey stands and orange floating markers. Although well marked, the trail often zig-zagged in an attempt to stay in a channel. After following this trail a bit we caught on and began to plot more direct courses between distant markers. We occasionally ran aground but easily picked our way through to more interesting sites by being careful. A darkened but friendly sky kept the sun off us for most of the day.

The water was a deep tannin color and gave no visual warning when running aground. On one such grounding I reached over the side and pulled up a handful of the boggy material on the bottom to have a closer look.

The map came out numerous times as the orange markers seemed to lead in several different directions at once. We finally poked in some GPS coordinates and paddled directly to Harpers Marsh before turning North to find a spot we hoped would give us the opportunity for lunch.

At the mouth of Little Blackwater River we found an overlook and a place to haul out the kayaks for a bite to eat. After lunch we lounged on the deck over the water not wanting to move, but finally we did, heading only a short distance into the river before turning about.

We headed straight across the refuge near Cattail pond and then up the shoreline past Sunken island and the mouth of Meekins Creek. Both this creek and Little Blackwater River appears worthy of further explorations on repeat trips.

From Bull Point we started taking a more direct route back to the launch, trying to second guess our route to keep us in water and off the bottom. Most of the time we succeeded. By the time we returned we had paddled a bit over 12 miles - a respectable distance over such shallow water.

A shower to remove the brackish water back at the campground and dinner at a cafe on Taylors island finished the day off well prepared to be filed away in my thoughts.

Again at dawn we broke camp and headed for the previous day's launch site. We paddled west this time on the Green trail. The beginning was good exercise in finding our way into Blackwater River. The expansive mouth did not give immediate clues.

We saw more eagles as we made our way along. But the more I paddled the more I saw to explore. This would be a short paddle day so exploring off the trail would have to wait for future trips. In fact the area all around Taylors Island left me wanting to come back to explore more of it. At about 4 miles we hit the end. Not the end of the river, but the end of the trail marked well by a green sign that simply said 'End". We paddled to the next bend I believe before turning.

Although the GPS showed us cruising along about 4MPH, Patty mentioned that something was slowing us down. I tried to pick up the pace but found I just couldn't go above 4MPH without exerting significantly more effort. Eventually whatever it was holding us back released us, and we were back in less time than it took us to paddle out.

A pleasant trip I hope to repeat next year!

Pictures

Woody