Hi, P'Wise. The following is an pseudo trip report from Easter Sunday thru Tuesday. I can be very, very long-winded, so even though I call this "short", it's still long by some folks standards. So, read it or delete it, its your choice. :-) Following my solo Florida trip from a month ago, my wife (after several years of prodding) decided that she was ready to try camping. So, we planned a short, local trip during the kids Spring Break. The destination was 66 miles away, just over the North Carolina border at a State Park called Merchants Millpond, where we could camp and canoe as a family. The idea was to arrive early on Easter Sunday and leave late Tuesday - just enough time to give everyone a taste for modern camping, and not too far away to make it painful if we wanted to pack up and go home. With that said, the following is an abbreviated trip report, focusing on just a portion of Monday's Paddle. We did it in a canoe so that the whole family could go, but kayaks would have been just as appropriate. Merchants Millpond in North Carolina is really the combination of a 760 acre "pond" and about an 8 mile stretch of Lassiter Swamp which feeds the pond. The area is a very unique ecosystem within North Carolina, consisting of towering bald cypress and tupelo gum tress, with huge growths of Spanish moss and resurrection ferns which shade the dark acidic waters below. Dispersed among the waters grow patches of floating yellow cow lily and submerged coontail, both competing with red and green layers of floating duckweed, creating a constantly changing mosaic of colors and patterns. Lassiter swamp has been called "an eerie enchanted forest", and contains cypress estimated to be 1,000 years old. Mistletoe has twisted and gnarled the trunks of tupelo gum trees into fantastic shapes, and from within this wonderland, one can easily allow the mind to concoct any number of fairy tales or sci-fi adventures. The day promised to be mild, with temperatures only in the low 70's, and just a hint of a light breeze. At the put-in, we were pleased to see just one other car, creating the anticipation that we'd have the day, and the Millpond, virtually to ourselves. We slipped the canoe into the water, and began our journey. Within the first 100 yards, we had seen countless turtles scurrying off of partially submerged deadfall and cypress trunks. Some of the larger turtles were undaunted by our presence and watched us pass within feet of their perches. This pattern would be present the entire day, with some logs or stumps so cluttered with turtles that they appeared to be stacked one on top of the other. My youngest daughter draped her hand overboard, watching the water part and ripple as we gently slide over the smooth surface. Though more open water was present, I wound our way through the labyrinth of cypress, picking a route that would provide anything but a straight line of advance. We sat in silence, each basking in our own thoughts, until the serenity was interrupted by the sighting of a river Otter 20 yards off our port side, swimming parallel to us and seemingly unconcerned with our intrusion into his home. We drifted, absorbing the moment as best we could, with the understanding that we were the visitor and that the encounter would end at any moment. As expected, the otter soon dove beneath the surface, leaving us with nothing more than the memory and the anticipation of more to come. We'd been on the water only 10 minutes, and my wife commented that we should have done this years ago. I only responded with a nod and a smile, but inwardly, I felt that I had scored a major victory in showing my wife the wonderful world of paddling. All this, in only 10 minutes - what wondrous things must await us before the day grows old! I continued to paddle at a pace as gentle as the soft and mellow songs of the many birds among the trees. It seemed as though we were being serenaded. In my minds eye, I pictured a "Victorian" couple in a small canoe, he with a jacket, tie, bowler and handlebar mustache, and she with a lace trimmed gown, bonnet and gloves, gently holding a parasol to shade her lilly white complexion. In the background, a barbershop quartet was singing "Way Down upon the Sawanee River"..... A bit corny, but the millpond was an ideal setting for such as scene, and I'm sure at some point in the past, the scene must have been a reality for some of the "locals" - except for the barbershop quartet part, of course. As some time passed, my wife whispered to me that there was an alligator about 50 yards in front of the boat, swimming from starboard to port. My kids immediately sprang to life, each trying to get a glimpse of the creature. After a brief but panicked effort to stabalize the canoe as the kids rocked us in their attempt to get a better perch for the coming "show", I simply continued to paddle, telling her that there were no gators this far north, and that it must be another Otter. She insisted that it was too long to be an Otter, so I suggested perhaps a water snake of some sort. "But, it's too thick to be a snake" she insisted. Fine, then it's some sort of animal, like a beaver, dragging some debris to it's dam. "No", she said, "I really think it's an alligator". The "thing" came to a rest beside a clump of brush, allowing us to close the distance between us. As we gently glided by at a pace slower than one would reasonably take an evening stroll, I realized that I'd have to eat my words. It was in fact a 5-6 foot alligator. I couldn't believe it! We were no more than 22 miles from the North Carolina and Virginia border, and we were looking at an alligator! After a brief moment of the kids scrambling to get their cameras, the gator disappeared beneath the surface. We sat silent in the canoe, our eyes glued to the waters around us, hoping to get another glimpse as it resurfaced. Luck was with us that day. The gator came up no more than 30 yards away. I turned the canoe, committed to a few gentle forward strokes, and let the boat drift back towards him. The kids were beside themselves with excitement, but my wife suddenly became concerned about getting too close to a wild alligator. I reassured her that it would only be a problem if we capsized, since as long as we were in the boat she'd clearly have time to smack it in the snout when and if it struggled to climb into her lap. For some reason, she didn't find that statement as humorous as I did! After a couple more pictures, we turned away, and continued our journey. Later, I talked to the Park Ranger who confirmed that there was a small population of Alligator inhabiting the water, but sightings were very rare. Not too long afterwards, we were caught off guard when we paddled to within 15 feet of another Otter up on a tiny dry patch of space between several trees. We tried to slow the boat to avoid startling it but failed in the attempt and watched it dart into the water. We sat quietly for several minutes, but never saw it again. That's the excerpt to give you a flavor for the trip. I'm still working on scanning the Florida pictures, and will add the pictures from the trip above as well. Hopefully, I'll have them within a couple weeks. I've been having "technology difficulties" - I don't personally own the technology and it's been difficult to make arrangements to borrow other peoples stuff. Rick - Poquoson, VA *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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