Family kayaking trip, June 7 - 11, 2002
(The links are to pictures which have now been compressed! The 4Mg total of pictures is now a much more manageable not quite 1Mg. Enjoy!) Introduction:
For those who don’t know what this is about, I have two brothers who live in North Carolina. My oldest brother was planning a kayaking trip up the inside of the Core Banks National Seashore. It ended up being a family affair. There were 7 of us; my oldest brother Glen, his daughters Sarah and Anna, my next oldest brother Paul, his wife MAK (her initials, but everyone calls her that), my nephew Jeaux (his real name is Joe, but he lived in New Orleans for a couple of years and started signing it with the cajun spelling, and it stuck!), and myself. The following is an edited version of the notes I took during our trip.Day One:
I was planning to pick up Jeaux at 7:00am Bowling Green time(CDT) on Friday June the 8th. However, with this and that, as usual we didn't actually get out of town until nearly 9:45pm(EDT). Even so, we still arrived at Glen’s by 7:30pm eastern time. That's only 10 hours total, and we stopped at Cracker Barrel for an hour for brunch! Got to Glen’s with no trouble. Jeaux is a great travel companion. We chatted the whole time, and were surprised when we got to Glen’s that we were there so soon!We took I-65 to TN-109 to I-40 to US-64, and had absolutely no trouble. Twice, as we passed exits, I commented that I thought we should have turned there, and sure enough, we had to turn around. Fortunately, both times, there were places to turn around right up the street. I was a bit surprised to find that about 30 miles outside of Cary I was almost out of gas, until I realized that I had not stopped for gas the entire trip. I actually could have made it all the way to his house, but I thought that might be pushing it.
Glen’s house is fabulous, of course. Three bathrooms, 5 bedrooms, one of which is made into an entertainment room with the home theatre system in it, and another which appears to be Monica’s (Glen’s wife) hobby room.
Glen had mousaka ready for dinner when we got there, and salad and bread. Monica made it home just after we got there and ate dinner with us.
Glen went and got a movie, Vanilla Sky, and we watched it. Very strange, but good. Then it was bedtime. Jeaux took the couch in the entertainment room, and I got Anna’s bed. Anna bunked with Sarah.
Day Two:
Saturday was packing and planning day. Lots of bag stuffing and rearranging got done, followed by lots of sitting around waiting for Paul and MAK.Once the planning got done, we discovered that a trip to REI was needed. Off we went. I got a ThermaRest sleeping pad and a stuff sack for my bedroll.
Once all the trip packing was done, we had the delightful treat of a concert in the park at a park close to Glen's house. It was Gershwin night.
MAK had prepared a bunch of finger food for an open house at Paul's office the day before, and had thoughtfully brought it, saving us a lot of time in preparing our picnic. Good food, good music, and great company. "It don't git much better'nis!"
Once we were back at Glen's, we put the kayaks on the racks on the vehicles to save some time in the morning.
When we got back in the house, someone discovered that the Stanley Cup finals were on, and the Carolina Hurricanes were playing the Detroit Redwings. We all sat around watching the game until WAY later than we meant to, and still the 'Canes and the 'Wings were tied after two overtimes! I went to bed, and didn't find out who won the game until a week later.
Day Three:
Sunday’s plan was to be up early, pack the trucks and get to the beach. We got there at a reasonable hour and got everything unloaded, but had to wait while Paul and Jeaux moved one of the vehicles up to the take-out point. While they were doing that, Glen, MAK, and I packed the kayaks. Once we got in the water, it was petty kewl! I had the sit-on-top kayak, and was loaded with the biggest dry bag full of food and sleeping bags on the back, and my personal stuff on the front. I rolled it first thing, then again almost right away. Turns out I was overloaded, and top heavy. Once we redistributed the goods, I did fine. The tide was pushing us to our left, and the wind was blowing to our right, but the tide was winning. We fought the tide all the way across the sound. Poor Anna had a bit of trouble - she's so small! But she really put herself into it, and kept up with us without too much trouble. Because she was paddling twice as much as the rest of us due to the wind and tide zigzagging her around, we decided to head for the closest point of land, instead of going a bit further south and west on Shackleford Banks.The struggle against the tide was well worth it, once we got to the beach. Right on the beach were the wild horses waiting for us. Ok, they weren’t waiting for us, but they did allow us to infringe on their beach. Once we got all the ‘yaks up onto the sand, we all went across to the ocean side for a stretch. We had gone over three miles in just 1:10. Not bad for a novice. There was a lot of wind assist in that, but we won’t mention that in public!
The beach was amazing. No footprints but ours and the ones from the birds, nutrias, and turtles. Some raccoon prints on the beach itself. Glen and Paul put up the tents while the rest of us played on the beach. We found literally hundreds and hundreds of untouched shells. We had so many we had to cull them out and take only the best.
After Paul and Glen had the tents up, I started to set up my bedding. The sleeping pad which had been lashed to the front of my ‘yak was still in its stuff bag. I opened the bag and turned it upside down to pull the pad out. Several cups of sea water poured out. The stuff sack is water resistant, but without the flap over the top, the water still gets in! DUH. Fortunately, the pad dried very quickly after a wipe down with a dirty shirt.
As Glen prepared our dinner, several of us thought to refill our water bottles. We discovered that the plastic sacks from the boxed wine that Pappa (my Dad) had saved for us, although they LOOK just like the ones you buy at REI, had a drawback. Even though they had been washed out with dish soap and rinsed with Clorox water, the water had a distinctly winy taste! Not terribly savory after several hours in the hot sun. Still, when you’re toting your own water, you drink what you bring, even if it isn’t the most palatable you’ve ever had.
After a dinner of canned chicken chowmein, we went back over to the beach to watch the sunset and the stars come out. Before the sun set, we walked up and down the beach and looked for more shells. I found several very unique shells, but darned if I didn’t leave them on the beach when we went back to camp!
There were more stars than you can imagine. We also watched the satellites zooming across the sky. There were three separate sets of satellites, I suppose each at a different orbiting height. We also saw several shooting stars. One of them left a trail like a comet; it was awesome.
As we were lying on the beach stargazing, we heard an engine. Jeaux saw a light over toward the lighthouse, so we were all sitting up to look. I said, "Maybe it's turtle watch," since it’s breeding season for the loggerhead turtles, and they nest on these beaches. I tried to sit up, and being scooched down into the soft sand, only succeeded in flopping around a bit. Glen said, "don’t worry Laura, it's turtle watch, not whale watch!"
Yar, har har. He's *so* funny.
The horses decided to visit us on the beach while we were stargazing, and let us watch a bit a of a fight amongst three of the stallions. They kept coming right towards us, but each time, we would shine our flashlights at them and they turned aside. At one point we heard noises, and Jeaux said, “The horses are back,” and we all flashed our lights toward the noise. A very surprised MAK quickly finished tucking her shirt back in as she blinked away the “light bugs”.
Once we got cold enough, we made our way back to camp and got to bed. I bunked with Sarah and Anna; Glen and Joe, and Paul and MAK paired off. It was a very cool night, with temps in the lower sixties. I fell asleep fairly quickly, and was kept warm by Anna, who curled up next to me like a cat. I slept until the sunlight hit me in the face about 5:30am.
Day Four:
We all got up pretty early. We had a quick breakfast of granola bars or protien bars, and started breaking camp. I noticed that the horses had visited us; there were three new piles of horse manure right next to the tent I shared with Sarah and Anna. Anna had spent some time the day before untangling a mass of old nylon cord, and had succeeded in getting several feet of straight, nice line. She had made us a clothesline out of it by tying it to three old fence posts that were still standing. I mentioned to her yesterday after she told us that she had done it, that we needed to be sure we took it down so the horses wouldn’t get tangled in it. I think she took it down while the rest of us were loading the boats.As soon as we were ready, we took off toward the lighthouse southeast of our position. We went 4 miles in only an hour and 18 minutes. We had the tide and the wind with us. Thank goodness, or I’d be dead! I only turned over once, when Glen told me that I could steer by leaning. NOT! Not when your center of gravity is 12 inches above the water. When we got to the inlet between Shackleford Banks and Cape Lookout, the current was really running hard, and there was a lot of boat traffic. So we really hustled across the channel. Anna lost it over the waves, but Glen got her right back up. I saw two really big sand dollars that were whole on top of one of the sandbars. Glen said, “Why don’t you get them?” I replied “If I’m gonna do that, I might as well just get out of the boat and get them, ‘cause I’m gonna tip over anyway!” Glen stopped and got one of them.
We stopped at the Cape Lookout lighthouse to eat a bit of lunch and explore. Lunch was a no-frills deal, protein bars and trail mix. Some dried pineapple and pretzels topped it off. Along with LOTS of water.
The lighthouse is pretty kewl. Very tall, 180’ or so, and painted in a distinctive diamond pattern. Each lighthouse on the outer banks has its own pattern. That way the sailors can tell by sight where they are. The keeper’s house is near the foot of the lighthouse. It has BATHROOMS! Everyone but me took advantage. The National Seashore, which is comprised of Shackleford Banks, Cape Lookout, and Core Banks, is a “no facilities” park. You have to go au natural – dig a hole above the high tide line and hope no one is looking! At least we didn’t have to go in a pot and carry it out with us, as you do in some places.
We all looked around on the first floor of the keeper’s house, which is a museum and information center. Neat stuff. We learned the names of some of the shells we found. MAK and I walked out to the beach on the boardwalk. I took my shoes off to give my feet a rest from the aqua socks, which were rubbing a blister on my arch. The board walk felt comfortably warm for a few minutes, then started to get hot. Then it got HOT! I trotted about half of the way back down the boardwalk to the keeper’s house, until I found some shade to rest my feets in.
We rested for an hour or so in a picnic shelter that was conveniently situated above the high tide line of the beach, and just a very short walk to the lighthouse, before we got back into the boats. We were waiting for the tide to turn, which was fortunately after the worst heat of the day.
Once we left Cape Lookout, the tide was still going against us. We only got a little ways down the beach before pulling out onto a convenient tiny beach on one of the marsh grass islands. We waited for nearly thirty minutes before setting out again, but even so, the channel buoys were still leaning a bit the wrong way. We went a total of 9.7 miles, - four of it from Shackleford Banks to Cape Lookout. The rest was thru salt marshes, that were mostly under water. These were barely under water, shallow enough that the canoe wouldn't paddle. Paul had to get out and tow the canoe with Sarah in it - the marsh was sloppy and goopy, and would pull your shoes off, as Sarah found out, much to her dismay! We slogged and poled our way through the marshes for a long time.
At one point, we were on a huge sand bar with no grass on it, which made walking easier. I was out pulling my ‘yak, when I saw a dark patch in the water that was moving. I stood still, and as I watched, the dark patch turned into a school of stingrays, each about 18” from wingtip to wingtip! I shouted, “Stingrays, stingrays!” and pointed to the school moving away from me. Everyone came wading over and we stood in a large circle while several more schools swam in and around us. It was SO cool. I stuck my camera in the water (a waterproof single use type) and took a couple of pictures. They didn’t come out very well, but you can sort of see a tail in one, and the shape of the ray in another.
Shortly after seeing the rays, Anna just gave out. She had been paddling the whole time. She only drafted about 3 inches, so she was able to paddle her way through the marsh instead of walking. She might have been better off walking, since her arms could have rested. She could hardly pick up her paddle any more. Glen and MAK found a way through the grassy area of the marsh to the Core Bank island, where we could get the boats up into the grass and find our way up onto the actual dunes. All the marsh islands are not on solid ground; they go under when the tide comes in. Core Banks is very marshy and scrubby on the sound side, until you break thru the scrub, then it's dunes all the way to the beach. we elected to carry the gear all the way across the island and camp on the beach rather than struggle with the bugs in the scrub. Blech. Our beach camp was great. Right on the ocean, but up on the high dunes where the tide wouldn’t reach us. Our tents are on nice flat powdery sand, so no sand burrs tonight. (or horse poop either!) Unfortunately, the green bottle flies found us to be tasty, and we spent some time swatting and dancing to avoid painful, bloody bites. Paul got a big bite on his calf which bled profusely for several minutes. You’ll be happy to know that the guilty bug was put to death.
We had a nice and much needed dinner of chick peas in some kind of spicy Indian sauce, with couscous. My burned leg (we thought I had washed off the sunscreen during my rollovers and gotten a weird mottled sunburn, but now, several days later, it’s still red and irritated. I think I got stung by something living in the sand) was doing ok, since I wore pants the whole day.
After our dinner, we sat on the beach and watched the sunset. It was really beautiful. By full dark, almost everyone had bedded down except me. Anna sat with me for a few minutes while I was writing my notes, but the bugs got to her, and she gave up pretty quickly. I had liberally coated myself with bug spray, and they were keeping their distance.
When I finished my note taking, I decided to actually wash my face with fresh water, since the skin was starting to feel crunch from all the salt. I had one of those one-use cloths you moisten with water and lather up. It felt so good to wash! Then I discovered my mistake. Those cloths have to be rinsed, and so does the face! So I walked down to the water and rinsed the cloth out. As I did, the water sparkled – and there was no moon! I swished the cloth in the water again, and there were more green sparkles. One got caught in the cloth, and when I squeezed it, it glowed. I still don’t know what little critters they were, but they were beautiful in the darkness. I did finally get the soap off my face and get rinsed with clear (but winey) water.
The breeze was chilly, and I was only able to sky watch for a few minutes before fatigue forced me into my tent.
Day Five:
Next morning I was up with the sun again. I was covered with mosquito bites. COVERED. A week later and I still look like I have the chicken pox. Glen was up just a few minutes later. He walked down the beach a mile or so to scout the marsh on the sound side of the island. It turned out to get only worse. As I watched the waves while I tried to wake up, I saw fins break the surface just beyond the breakers. There was a pod of dolphins feeding. Little silver fish were jumping like mad as the dolphin fed. There was a bird Paul said may have been a "coot" floating in the water, diving after something down there too. (After looking it up in my Dad’s bird book, I figured it to be a cormorant, not a coot.)When the rest of the group got up, we decided to stay at the beach camp for the morning during low tide and play in the ocean, then take off for Harker's Island (our putting-in point) as the tide was coming in rather than try to go further up the Banks. None of us were keen to wade through the swampy mess again. The next beaching point was going to be 8.8 miles up the marsh. A bit far for a group including 2 complete novices to go in one stretch. So, though the plan was to stay another two nights on the beach and get out several miles to the north, we decided that getting out early and partying at Glen’s house sounded like more fun than slogging through the swamp for two more days.
I think I played in the waves for nearly two hours straight while we waited for the tide to start coming in on the sound side. Glen and Paul came out and played for a while, "bathing" Paul said, but they got out to pack up camp. Paul claims that the difference between men and women is that men consider swimming a bath, but women consider swimming to be a reason for a bath! Then Jeaux and Sarah came out, and finally Anna came to play too. It was a lot of fun! Once I got so wrinkled I was afraid my skin would split, I got out. The long pants I had been wearing the day before had fallen into the sand over night, and they were not wearable due to the amount of sand covering them. I don’t relish the thought of wearing sandpaper britches, thanks anyway. I took them into the ocean and washed them off, then put them on while I was in the water. It was a lot like the old lifeguarding test where you have to get undressed and get dressed again in the pool, only with 3 foot waves trying to knock you down! I finally made it, and went to help carry everything to the boats. The marsh was just as nasty in the morning as it had been the night before, except the tide was higher so we were able to paddle out instead of walking. We just piled everything into the canoe and pushed the boats out into the water to pack the kayaks. Standing in the arse high saw grass packing boats just didn’t appeal to any of us, for some reason.
The trip across the sound back to Harker's Island was not too bad. The boat channel passed between the islands, and the wakes were bouncing across the sound. We kept getting caught in X wakes and they threatened to swamp us a few times. Somehow I managed to get all the way across without flipping over.
Sarah and Paul saw a 4 foot shark swim under and around their canoe just off the beach at Harker's Island. That was neat. Paul said Sarah was speechless for a few seconds. She said, “Pah…sha…sha…sha… SHARK!” They watched it for a minute or two, and then Sarah said, “Uncle Paul, let’s try really hard to NOT tip over, OK?” Paul wasn’t sure of the type of shark, but said the body type was more like a tiger than a sand shark. YeeEEEee.
Before we got very far off of the camp island, Anna discovered she just couldn't paddle any more, so Jeaux and Glen towed her most of the way across. Once she got to the jetty just around the corner from where we were getting out, she saw Sarah standing there waiting for her, and decided she could paddle the last bit herself. She was quite a trooper this week.
Once we got to the visitors center, Glen and Paul took the truck down the island to retrieve the van. That took over an hour, so in the meantime, MAK and Jeaux unloaded the boats and MAK separated their stuff from the rest so they could put it in the truck. Sarah and I had gone to change clothes in the restrooms at the visitors center. I had sand everywhere. I did finally get changed, but the pants I had been wearing while paddling were not recoverable. I put them in the big trash can outside the center. We ditched the rest of the winey water, though Sarah used some to rinse the sand out of her hair, and there was a lot of it! Some ducks came over for a drink of the fresh water, and Anna complied. They didn’t seem to mind the winey taste. We snacked on the fiber bars that were left, and rested in the shade. It was good to be dry. Once the guys got back with the van, we loaded the boats up and got the gear on, then took off for Cary. On the way we stopped for gas, and found a Golden Corral to have lunch in. I must have had 8 glasses of tea. I hadn’t realized I was that dehydrated. That was at almost 4 pm. We made it back to Cary without further event. Showering was a decadent pleasure!
I came out of the whole adventure with a sunburn, chaffed armpits and thighs, several bruises I have no idea how I got, ten thousand mosquito bites and more than my share of chiggers, blisters on my thumb and arches, and a lot of great memories. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. What a great experience. Next time maybe we can just do Shackleford Banks, and make sure to leave enough space for tons of shells!
