> My paddling buddies and I are researching kayak trips of > worth on the east > US coast. Me too. I'd like to have a library of pre-planned trips up and down the right coast that I can draw from over the next few years. > We are Mainers I've been gathering info on Maine for two years. I hope to make that trip in September of 2003. Likely candidate is Acadia - just got my guide book to Mount Desert Island yesterday. > warmer ocean water, sandy beaches, uncrowded > camping spots, and anything else that would make for a memorable trip. > > We don't mind driving 12 to 20 hours to get there, so... I > guess that would > get us as far south as Georgia. Sounds about right. From the lower east corner of Virginia, it's about 14-15 hours to Acadia and about 8 down to Atlanta, so depending on where you are in Maine, you might get to Georgia in 20, barring road construction, congestion, weather, and so forth. > We thought that perhaps the > N.Carolina > Outer Banks might be a bit too crowded, a tad windy, might > have a bit too > much uniformity of landscape, and maybe too much shallow > water. That was > just an impression from reading comments on various web sites. The OBX is only about 2 hours from my home, and I've spent a week there during the summer, since... well, seems like forever. Probably since about 1976. For the last few years, I've taken my kayak (started kayaking in February of 2000) and done a fair amount of exploring. Here's a quick synopsis. Lots and lots of nice sandy beaches with dunes. There are a couple of private campgrounds, and also some National ones. The one that comes to mind first is right at Bodie Inlet and the campground is in the dunes, not more than 100 yards "ish" from the beach. The 20"ish" mile stretch of land that is basically Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head is the main tourist area, so the beaches will be "well occupied", but "crowded" depends on what you are used to. It's far less congested than, say Virginia Beach, but if you cross the Bodie inlet bridge, you'll have the place almost to yourself. As you look up and down the beach, you may see 5-10 other people. There's no development in that area, and it's park property. Regarding water depth - yep, it's shallow. I don't even paddle Pea Island anymore because I got tired of sticking my paddle blade in the mud with every other stroke. But, at other areas, you have a good 5 feet of water, and in places much more. That's all on the sound side - the ocean gets deeper. But, it isn't like Mount Desert Island in Acadia, where I see on the charts that the water can drop to clsoe to 100 feet within 50-100 yards of shore. There are tons of places to paddle down there. I've done 7-8 locations, and haven't even scratched the surface. Lots of it will be around sand dunes or marsh areas, but there are also places that are wooded and so forth - of course, the wooded areas are local rivers and such - not the ocean. If you go to Alligator River, you might get lucky and spot of few gators. There aren't many, but I can atest to the fact that they are there. I spent an hour a couple years ago waiting for one to leave the launch spot. It never did, so I left. The spot was only about 5 feet wide and it was sunning itself right in the middle of it. The wind can get high at times, and dead calm at others. If it's too windy for your tastes, there are plenty of protected areas where you can wind your way through mazes of islands, spending hours exploring. If you go in the summer, it can be hot. Last August, we had numerous days in the high 90's and low 100's , even before the heat index jacked up the temperatures. Take lots of water. Anyway, I've done some trip reports for the past two years, each one addressing three paddling destinations, complete with maps, logistics, some pics, and so forth. If you are interested, I can send them to you as attachments. > If you can suggest places that we should investigate online, > or if you know > about or have had experience with great east coast locations, we'd > appreciate your suggestions. Web site recommendations are > also welcome. My "home" waters are the Chesapeake Bay, which as I'm sure yo know is quite large. I've concentrated my paddling around Poquoson, where I have 3-4 good launch sites within 5 minutes of my home. But, there are lots of great places to paddle. Up in the Maryland, Delaware sections, there is a paddling group called CPA (Chesapeake Paddlers Association) that is quite large, quite active, and have what they call "Pirate" clubs spread out all over the place, so they cover a large geographic area. They have a web-site, and a disccussion forum similar to this one. If you have any interest in paddling the Bay, I'd check them out. There are a number of camp sites (private, state and National) in all types of terrain. This year, I plan on doing a weekend trip to Janes Island (Md State park) at the VA/MD boarder on the Bay side of the Eastern Shore, and I'd like to check out the "Ghost Fleet" at Mallows Bay, on the Potomac River and camp onthe Virginia side at Eastmoreland State Park. I might also do a weekend at Kiptopeake State Park on the southern tip of the Eastern Shore. Here are a few web sites. http://www.cpakayaker.com/ http://www.seakayak.ws/ http://www.baygateways.net/visiting/ There are lots of neat places in NC, SC and GA, but I can't speak about them first hand. I'll leave that to others who claim the areas as their "home waters". By the way, if you get any good info back channel, It would be great if you could forward it to me as well. As I said earlier, I'm building a library of future trips. 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/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Jan 23 2003 - 06:10:32 PST
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