After spending a couple of weeks visiting family and friends in early September I got back on the road towards the end of the month... and ran directly into the monsoons. 36 hours of continuous heavy rains and cold in Maryland. After it warmed up some I had a couple of nice trips on the Choptank, Marshy Hope and Tuckahoe Rivers.
I bypassed some good paddling in the Virginia Beach area because of the expensive campgrounds and soon found myself in North Carolina. The Scuppernong, Goose and Pamlico Rivers provided some good paddling but another cold front moved in with lots of wind while I was at Cape Fear. The wind died down a couple of days later and I finally got out on the river which was just so so.
South Carolina seemed to have a lot to offer in the Francis Marion National Forest north of Charleston and the ACE Basin Estuaries to Charleston's south. Camping is limited in the National Forest and the only real campground was full of vacationing fishermen. I think this is a big area for sailfish, etc.
The only campground in the ACE Basin is the Edisto Beach State Park where they want a ridiculous $22 a night so I skipped that too. I did get one nice paddle in on Charleston Harbor. I paddled out to Fort Sumter where the first shots of the American Civil War were fired, then to the Battery which is the historical section of Charleston with about ten large, restored mansions right near the water. Then I paddled over to the Yorktown (namesake) aircraft carrier where they have tours and such plus a large Coast Guard cutter and a submarine.
I stayed a week outside Savannah, GA. The historical section is very pretty with tons of large live oaks draped in Spanish moss. I rank Savannah number two on my list of favorite cities, right behind Charleston, SC. There is no number three. I got a couple of good paddles on the ocean but hurt my shoulder while paddling against the wind and tide with a new, but shorter paddle so I didn't get in any more paddling there.
After taking a couple of weeks of to let the shoulder recover and buying a longer paddle I headed for the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia. This is where Pogo (the old comic strip character) and the green swamp monster live. I didn't see them but got up close and personal with a couple of alligators.
The sections I paddled were nothing like the dark, dismal and creepy image I had swamps, mainly from TV and movies. Lots of open prairies and the creeks and canals were about the same as anywhere else.
The Prairie Lakes water trail narrows to a channel of navigable water about four feet wide. Twice, once with an 8 footer and once with a 6 footer, I came face to face with of one of these toothsome lizards, both times while rounding a bend or clump of grass. Both were lying up on a bank not more than 4-5 feet away and staring right in my eyes. Fortunately (for me) both times they slid into the little bit of water between us and under the kayak, leaving nothing but a stream of bubbles behind and the water was only about three feet deep.
Such a close encounter with one of the oldest predators on earth in such narrow confines is certainly a unique experience. All last year there was a fair distance, usually 50 feet or more, between me and the alligators I paddled with. 10-15 feet is as close as I really want to be to those big bad boys. Here I was paddling over top of them in four foot wide channels that were only a few feet deep and I could see their air bubbles rising to the surface reminding me what was down there. Shudder!.
November is still too early to be fooling around on the southeast coast; just too many noseeums although mosquitoes weren't bad. Last year I came down the coast in December and I don't remember any bugs at all. I did freeze my butt off though. Of course I'm freezing it off in November too when a cold front moves in. The next time I pass this way I think I'll try to make it late November/early December.
I was supposed to meet someone in the Florida Panhandle after Thanksgiving so the plan was just to bum around southern Georgia and northern Florida until then. Several cold fronts in a row moved in and froze me right out of the area. I ended up at Blue Springs in Orange City, 30 miles north of Orlando and got froze out of there too. I awoke in the morning and everything was covered with frost or ice. At least it brought the manatees into the warm spring. I spotted 20-25 of them in 15-20 minutes. Then I decided to tough out the cold spell in Sarasota, thereby ending the east coast trip. Now, on to the Gulf Coast.
Dateline: December 12th, 2000 - Corpus Christi, Texas
The Gulf Coast trip has been pretty much a bust. Cold weather drove me half way down the Florida coast and then drove me west through Mississippi, Louisiana, and eastern Texas. I was upset in missing all the potential great paddling in the Louisiana swamps and bayous but it was not to be, at least not this year. All these cold fronts have been playing havoc with the whole country so I guess I can't complain too much. I'll have to see how the weather plays out. If it improves, I may retrace my steps, otherwise I may go down into Mexico or west of the Rockies.