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click for make big
i kayaked from stockton, al to mobile, al (from A to B on the map). 30 miles. 7 hours. i set
in at the lower bryant landing. by the time i reached the csx railroad bridge (about 15 miles
into it) i was completely spent and really wanted to scrap the trip. i even called my ride to
come get me. luckily, i changed my mind. i could see the RSA tower from the time i reached
gravine island. it was nice seeing the tower get larger as i came down the river (which
you can see in the pictures). i almost didnt make it out of the delta before it got dark,
which kinda worried me. while overall it was a great trip, it did have some bad points to
it: exhaustion, the water was very low, the only birds of interest were somecoots. but
it was worth it just to see the city at night over the bay. very beautiful. this trip
really opened my eyes to how far i can go on a river in a day. i thought mabe i could
do 50 miles in a day, which would have put jackson to mobile within my reach (80 miles).
but at a pace of 30 a day i dont think i can do it. especially considering how worn out
i was after this trip. the next trip is chuckfee bay.
sidenote:
what kept me going when i wanted to quit was a quote by track star amy acuff:
"High jumping is an art. I do the same thing over and over, but every time is never quite the
same. I always have this motivating feeling that what is possible, what is untapped, is just
around the corner waiting for me to discover it.' |
i paddled from dauphin island to fort morgan and back. almost 4 miles
each way. the trouble with paddling in the bay is the waves arent
uniform. you dont have a set of predictable troughs and crests to paddle
up and down like you do out in the gulf. instead the water bounces up
and down in random ways. so lots of times, the water will just push up
from underneath you and drop you unexpectedly (like in the picture).
very fun tho...
this one had been on my to do list for a while. i had tried to cross the bay
before and just couldnt do it. i may do one more big paddle this year.
but prob not. the hypothermia list keeps me out of the water when it gets cold.
UPDATE:
to tell the truth, i was terrified at one part of this
trip. most of the bay waters are only 10 ft deep
or so. the ship channel is at least 50 ft, making
the waves act different. so instead of going up
and down, the elephant sized chunks of water
stayed in the up position and slowly started chasing
me. theyd get right behind me and make the
im-about-to-collapse-on-you noise. so after i was
soaked by a few of them, i actually called someone
to tell them to call 911 if i didnt call them back.
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i played around in the katrina cut
with the birds :)
too bad the seasons almost over :( |
i only made it one night before i discovered a problem with my tent. at least i saw the end of dauphin island and crossed the katrina cut. twice. still. its very depressing to be beaten by a tent instead of sharks. trip distance was 20 miles. prob the best part of the trip was while i was lying in my tent around 1am while 20 feet away 3-4 dolphins were feeding
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i went out to go find the largest bald cypress tree in alabama. its out in the middle of the swampy part of the delta. i set in at the rice creek landing and crossed briar lake and the tensaw river. after traveling a mile or so on bayou jessamine i arrived at a a tree with a blue #5 painted on it. the champion cypress tree was supposed to be 100-200 yards due south. i thought itd be a cakewalk, so i didnt bother to bring a compass or gps. after hiking through some pretty thick brush, the vegatation turned into a cypress forest that looked exactly the same in every direction. those strange animal noises (which i had no idea what they were: bird, reptile, mammal. who knows) didnt help my confidence about this trip. so after tramping around not finding it, i started back to the direction i thought my boat was. thats when i saw it. it was huge. 27 feet in circumference. the biggest tree ive ever seen. really. it towered over the other trees. well worth the trip. |
| » meaher state park |
|---|
the gators at this park are entirely too friendly
ive done several small trips this summer
that yielded no special pics:
rattlesnake bayou/dog river
fowl river (sound side)
pelican island
dauphin island
chacalochee bay
hopefully ill complete my two big paddles later this year:
jackson, al to mobile
dauphin island to ocean springs
well see
Jul. 24th, 2006 @ 10:35 pm
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