[Paddlewise] A Promise (Trip Report)

Once again I let my enthusiasm get me in over my head.  You know how it
is when you invite people to come to your area and paddle.  You only talk
about the best weather days, the best scenery, and the most wonderful
wildlife encounters.   It's great fun until someone accepts your
invitation and then you have to deliver on your promises.  Last February
I met a couple from New England at the Sweetwater Kayak Symposium (Tampa
Florida) and spoke eloquently of the great paddling here in South Texas. 
Now they were coming down and I was going to have to deliver on my
promises. Everything was just as you would expect.  It had been raining
for 4 days and the high temp had not gotten above 55 degF and the lows
were in the mid 30's.   That is pretty good for Jan in New England but
its not what they were coming all the way to Texas to see (or what I had
described).  I had not been paddling that much and had not had a chance
to check out  the places I normally take visiting paddlers. Things were
looking a little bleak.  But as they say, "It's always darkest just
before the dawn".   The day before their arrival a dry front arrived and
stopped the rain.  The forecast called for 3-4 days with no rain, lows in
the 50's and highs in the low 70's, and light winds.  At least I was
going to be able to deliver on the weather.   Ken, who was acting as
host,  and I decide to start with a short afternoon paddle around the
downtown area.  Bill and Anne had not paddled in a couple of months so
this seemed a good starter trip.  Bill really liked the idea of paddling
in short sleeves in Jan.  We paddled inside the breakwater toward the
state aquarium.  At the entrance to the port area we passed by one of the
huge military cargo ships loading tanks, hummers and other large
vehicles.  We crossed the ship channel and paddled to the aircraft
carrier Lexington (now a museum).  After the obligatory pictures of
little kayaks at the bow of the big carrier, we paddled along North
Beach.  Its one of our main public beaches with hotels and condo's just
back of the beach.  Anne was having some backband problems so we headed
back after only about 45 min.   Inside the marina we made a little detour
and paddled over to the Nina.  This is a replica of one of the Columbus
ships. It was built in Spain and sailed across the Atlantic to
commemorate the 500th anniversary of the original trip.  The other two
replica ships which made the trip are in dry dock at the museum just
across the ship channel from the State Aquarium.   A picture of kayaks in
front of the Nina and then back to the launch. Not a  spectacular trip
but the weather, the parking 10 feet from the launch, the dry feet due to
the floating dock, and the nearby bathroom at trip's end were all hits
with our visitors.  It was a good start, but tomorrow was the real test. 
I had promised dolphins.  Not just ordinary dolphins seen at a
distance.  I had promised in your face, jump over your bow, talk to you
like Flipper dolphins. Ok, I had not really promised Flipper, but I had
made it sound really exciting.  The day certainly did not start out with
much promise.  Ken's sewer backed up and he had to cancel on the trip. 
Bill and Anne needed to relocate their RV so we did not get to the launch
site until noon.  And once there we found we had to wade across 10 yards
of slippery, ankle deep mud (with hidden waist deep holes) to get the
kayaks to the beach.  Guess how I know there were hidden waist deep
holes.  We launched, paddled about 1/4 mile east down the Aransas Shrimp
Channel, turned north into Corpus Christi Bayou, and headed along Hog
Island.  Only 15 minutes into the trip and "Fin to Starboard".  We had
our first dolphin sighting.  It was about 30 yards out in the channel and
headed in the opposite direction.  I turned around and moved a
little further out in the channel and called for Bill and Anne to
follow.   I was not going to try to get close, but I knew that paddling
parallel to the dolphins, even at a distance, will often get them to swim
over to you.  Sure enough it circled and came up behind me.  Bill and
Anne were slower to turn (Bill was getting the camera out) and the
dolphin ended up swimming back and forth between us.  Evidentially he
liked Bill best because he made several very close passes to his kayak
(less than kayak length away).   I looked ahead to the intersection of
the two channels that we had just left and saw what looked to be 3 more
dolphins.  We moved over to the edge of the channel (to give our single
dolphin more room and to make sure we did not push him toward the
shallows) and headed for the other dolphins.  About 3/4 of the way over
to them, they turned and came out to meet us.  We stopped paddling and
drifted over to shallows right at the intersection of the two channels. 
There were actually 5 or 6 dolphins.  They would swim right towards us
while keeping their eyes above the water for a better view.  They would
come  within less than 10 ft and then turn away.   Sometimes they came
solo and sometimes in groups of 3 or 4.  They would swim away, play with
each other, and then come by for another checkout pass.  Sometimes they
swam close enough into the shallows that they created little bow waves
ahead of their progress.  They even did several jumps.  One was a
spectacular 3 dolphin combo with all 3 in the air at the same time. They
jumped  so close to each other that they appeared to be touching as they
came out of the water.  This went on for 20-30 min.  Bill was running
down his camera battery from all the pictures he was taking.   Finally we
decided  that  we should actually do some paddling and turned back north
along Corpus Christi Bayou.   We may have been finished watching the
dolphins, but they were not finished watching us.  They began to follow
us down the channel.  At least  3 of them followed us for the next  3
miles.  They would generally stay out in the middle of the channel and
slightly behind us but repeatedly they would swim over next to us for a
few minutes and then head off again.   In one section they took great
pleasure in swimming right up behind me just where I could hear them, but
not see them.  Anne, who was a little behind me and more towards the
channel edge,  kept giving me a running commentary on the passes they
were making at me.  We finally lost them just before we came to our beach
rest stop.  After getting hydrated and taking a few pictures we decided
to head back while we still had a following wind and a favorable
current.  It is amazing that you do not notice paddling into the wind and
against the current when you are playing with dolphins, but now
we realized the paddling was much easier.  About a mile back up the
channel we ran into the dolphins again.  They followed us for about
another mile.   Suddenly a pair went into hide speed mode and headed
right  toward the shallow flats (0.5-1.5 ft deep).   As they crossed into
the shallows water sprayed in the air like rooster tails off
hydroplanes.  I thought for sure they were going to get stuck but they
quickly moved 100-200 yards off into the flats.  Then we noticed the
pelicans diving right where the dolphins had gone.  Amazing that the
dolphins could locate fish like that.   As we got up to the point where
the dolphins crossed  into the flats I realized this was the same place
that some of the shallow draft fishing boats use to cross.  It's still
really shallow but its about a foot deeper than any other place.  We
finished the trip back without company.   We did see one other dolphin,
but he was not very interested in us and it was getting late so we just
pressed on.  Besides the dolphins we saw great blue herons, spoonbills,
curlews, and great egrets.  Back at the launch Anne discovered another of
those hidden mud holes as she was carrying the kayak back to the cars. 
She was not pleased, but agreed that it was a small price to pay for such
a dolphin encounter.  I was pleased that I had kept my promise. That
should be the end of the story, but I guess I have to tell the whole
truth.  The next day as we paddled out to an island bird sanctuary Anne
told me how much she had enjoyed the dolphins.  She told me it was just
like one of their trips to Newfoundland.   Of course on that trip they
were not surrounded by dolphins, just humpback whales.  There are some
stories even a Texan can't top.  As always, this is my version of the
story and my not reflect the experiences of other participants or even
the actual events.  However as a great philosopher said,  "That's my
story and I am sticking to it." 
Mark J. Arnold--- mjamja_at_earthlink.net---

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