[Paddlewise] Marshes and Dunes

Last week I drove the 570 miles from the Big Apple to the Outer Banks of
North Carolina and the Balogh Kayak Sailing Get-Together.  This was the
10th anniversary of this informal meeting of sailing fanatics.

My weekend at the sailing event was the best of the nine years I
have been attending this event.  I really don't like sailing, I prefer
paddling.  I had learned just enough sailing to write a lengthy,
detailed chapter on kayak sailing in my folding kayak book (the only
such hands-on sailing tips for various rigs that have ever appeared in
any sea kayak manual).  My wife Donna is my designated sailor who takes
the pressure off me from the organizers who want me to sail.

Me?  I just paddle when down there.  My favorite game has been to enter
the extensive salt marshes where I try to follow all the leads to see
how close I can get to the sand dunes separating the marsh from the sea
(really Pamlico Sound).  Two years ago, after many years of unsuccessful
searches to get close enough to the dunes via the marshes, I finally
found a shallow, hull-scraping passage to a minute spit of sand upon
which to land and walk over to the sea.  This year, I found a big
surprise.  A storm sometime in the last year or so had created a massive
beach on the marsh side with water so deep that I could hardly get out
of my boat on to the steep beach.  The beach formed a 50 foot wide semi
bowl that had been carved out by a river of water that had breached the
sand dunes and poured into the marsh.  All that remained of the river
was hard packed sand.

I was delighted at my find.  And with a very light boat (the 22-pound
PakBoats Puffin canoe/kayak foldable), this time I was able to portage
across the dunes, re-launch out through a mild surf and then paddle back
around to a passage leading to my put-in.

This area is really hard to describe.  It is mainly the colors that
strike me.  The very blue waters of the marshes set against the golden
spartina grasses and the tan dunes just beyond with splotches of green
shrubs and ground crawling vines.  It is this colored landscape at the
end of Fall that I try to keep etched in my head for recall throughout
the months of winter.

Of course, a blue sky overhead helps. And the little discoveries.  I
once was paddling through the marshes when I spied a brown boulder that
looked like a cow.  When I got close it indeed WAS a cow lying down with
a stomach full of grazing it was in the process of lazily digesting. 
Other times I have seen nutrias (otter type mammals whose pelts are
highly prized) swimming on their backs hardly expecting man to penetrate
their peace.  And  horses too.

Funny to be paddling in water that is just barely deep enough to float a
kayak while horses gait through or stand still and follow your quiet
paddling strokes and ready to gallop off if you come too close. This
time I came upon a colony of several hundred seagulls standing in half
inch deep water.  As I paddled by, their heads swiveled as one to follow
my movement.  I could see what looked like a passage behind them to
deeper water but I wasn't sure.  Then as my eyes scanned the outer edge
of the colony, I saw a few stray seagulls floating off to one side next
to marsh growth.  That was my path to the passage and its deeper waters
and a way back.  Such is the game of marsh paddling.

This is the quieter side of sea kayaking and illustrates just how large
a universe this sport, really a calling, can be.  As I was paddling the
marshes over the weekend, I thought of my PaddleWise friend Doug Lloyd. 
I wondered what he would make of such sedate paddling that was not as
challenging as the sea kayaking pursuits he follows in rough seas with
many decisions to make in life threatening situations.  My humble
challenge was a simple one...find a lead within the marshes that would
take me to the dunes and the sea.  It means getting lost at times and
trying to remember as you back out whether the way back is to the left
or the right.  But it doesn't matter...part of the fun is the sense of
abandonment of getting lost.

I can't remember who first said that "you make your own adventure."  It
was in answer to someone who was reading longingly about the exploits of
some far off expedition. How true.

ralph diaz


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Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter
PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024
Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com
"Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag."
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