AMC Blog

September 21-23,2007

Several members of the Appalachian Mt. Club leaving after work on Friday were caught in a traffic jam on the Parkway that was made worse by an accident. As a result some people arrived after dark and had to be transported by boat to Sedge in the dark. This did nothing to dampen the spirits of the group as they joined the others for a late (and as usual delicious) dinner.

A few of the group are part of the “regular crew” of paddlers but there are always a substantial group of members who are new to the area and in this case, new to touring kayaks. This did not present a problem, as the experienced kayakers gave plenty of assistance and encouragement to those less familiar with the sport. Combined with an intimate tour of the salt marsh in the Sedge Island Marine Conservation Zone this provided plenty to do during the day light hours on Saturday even though it was too windy to do much open water paddling.

Saturday night the wind dropped and we went for a night paddle. Seven people took out the big canoe and one person paddled his kayak. After a quick circumnavigation of Sedge Island the group decided to paddle straight east into the reflected light of the moon on the tranquil water. We paddled among the Buster Islands in water that was so still that we could see the rings left on the water surface from fish feeding in the shallow water. We were on the water for more than an hour.

Sunday remained calm so we headed west out on to more open water. We circled Gull Island where there are still some pelicans hanging out on the sand bars. We continued west to the newest dredge island where we frequently see kite boarders launching and then skimming across the shallows on the south side of the island. No one was around when we got there so we took a hike into the center of the island. We wondered how many gulls must use this island based on the number of bird bones bleaching in the sun. Several people actually got sunburned as the air temperature was in the 80’s allowed us to paddle in t-shirts and shorts.