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All That is Sweetness and Light and I have returned, sunburnt and fly-bitten, but generally well-disposed to the past weekend. For what amounts to a comedy of errors, the weekend was really nice. Pictures may one day be available, but there’s a story to that, too. Lessons have been learned about the utility of dry bags.
SATURDAY
We loaded the canoe and launched out in to the sound behind Bear Island (which, it turns out, has no bears, and was originally Bare Island. Not due to any human nudity, but a general denudedness of the landscape). Being in a moderately laden canoe, we cut across the channel that the motor boats were using so as to not be troubled by their stupidly over-compensating wakes, and through the break in the dredged-up dirt opposite the dock. This was the first mistake. On the other side of the dredgings we found ourselves in a sweep of hammocks. Here, perhaps, should be discussed Mistake the Negative First. Hammocks, by my definition, have never been “those muddy grassy shoals behind barrier islands”. Hammocks are a thing for swinging in. I was horribly misled by the name of the place, “Hammocks Beach State Park”. Suffice to say, the hammocks in the sound were the muddy variety.
We wound through the hammocks, and eventually stumbled on a marker for a canoe trail. I looked at it, looked around, and saw another marker a few hundred yards up-wind. “Balls to that,” said I, and ploughed onward among the hammocks. That would be the second mistake. A 2 mile paddle took us the better part of 2 and a half hours as we ran in to dead end after dead end until, finally, we came to a dead end that was separated from a wide open channel by only 10 feet of hammock. We portaged and finished the last half mile, or what we thought was the last half mile, paddling up wind, because apparently there is no “off shore breeze” in that part of the world. When we got to what we thought was the landing (Mistake the Third), we realized that there were another set of those canoe trail markers, and that they wound around the point of land we were at, and that they marked a trail that was indistinguishable from a narrow Floridian creek at low tide. This was low tide. There was no way in hell we were going to maneuver the boat up that (because, it being low tide, water was flowing out of the creek), so I got out and dragged the thing another half mile up this creek, until we reached the ACTUAL landing.
From there, it was a few hundred yards to carry our gear to our camp site, over beach sand, which meant that by the time everything, including the boat, had been moved, we were thoroughly exhausted. However, it was in all ways worth it. Our tent was pitched just behind the dune line, which we could sit on top of or lean against, looking out across the ocean, eating a long-delayed lunch, and drinking restorative liquids. And then the deer flies showed up. To the benefit of my continued marital happiness, they left Jenny alone and focused entirely on me. The sand flies, though, seeing that I had been claimed, set about making sure that Jenny did not feel left out. OFF Deep woods did the trick, though it needed re-applying every hour or two, and shortly after the sun went to bed we did the same.
SUNDAY
Sunday we had nothing to do, which was the goal. We’d brought books (too many, it turned out, but that’s what happens when bookish people pack for vacation. Mistake the Negative Second) and mats to lie on and spent most of the morning alternating between swimming, reading, and collecting shells (which may or may not have been against the rules, we couldn’t quite figure out). After noon, the day got hotter, and we moved inside the tent, until we realized it was ghastly hot in there, too, and we couldn’t keep the deer flies out without turning it into a nylon oven. Eventually we caved and walked down to the bath house (the showers and toilets on the island, being another half mile away from our camp. Mistake the.. what are we on now?). At the bath house were also picnic tables and a concession stand that would have cold water. Unfortunately, it closed shortly before we got there. But we lounged in the shade and the breeze reading until the heat broke, and then went back to camp for dinner.
MONDAY
Monday saw the culmination of the sort of stellar stupidity only smart people can really attain. “We could just launch off the beach,” said Jenny. “Er… okay, how about we take the boat out empty and see if you think it’s really doable.” So we did. She, in the bow, got the rollercoaster ride of crashing over the tops of waves, but thought that it was just fine.
I mention here, briefly, that I love my wife, but that she does not paddle well, spends a lot of time being distracted by the wildlife instead of moving water, and would end up going in very tiny circles if I weren’t steering despite my best efforts at education. This became important when…
We actually launched the fully loaded canoe out through the waves (with the park rangers watching us do this thing that, we later found out, was kind of against the rules). Water came splashing over the bows, and it was about this time that the camera and my cell phone got killed. Saturday, I had argued with Jenny, repeatedly, that they should go in a dry bag. She stubbornly refused until the point where I said “Fine!” Monday I did not even bother raising the point. As a result, I have no cell phone, but I finally heard her admit I was right about something. We bore away from the shore, working towards Bogue inlet at the end of the island while keeping bow-on to the waves (the waves came at an angle, and between the wind and the current we could actually point into the waves and still move towards the inlet). After the initial terror, I subsided to mild panic, while Jenny, in the bow, pulling us off the line we REALLY needed to maintain with every stroke, said “How ya doing? Terrified? Why?” She, too, though, would achieve the same state about the time we hit the inlet, where water pushing off of Bear Island to the south, and Emerald Isle to the north, funneled into each other in cross-currents that kicked up evil standing waves, and put more water over the gunwales. I was mid-calf in water by the time we pushed through into the sound, and we beached, ate lunch, and bailed the canoe before continuing on.
The rest of the paddle was easy: the onshore breeze, the making tide, and the clear and easy to follow and plainly obvious canoe trail markers all made the rest of the trip mild and uneventful. We coasted in to dock, loaded up the car, and headed home, but not before I made one last mistake: not topping up the gas tank. We were two exits from home and the local gas station when we ran out, and spent a spare twenty minutes waiting for our friend or BWC to show up with gas, whoever managed it first.
Jenny asked me if I had fun, and I really, really did, but I told her that I could not think of how to talk about the weekend as anything other than a series of unpleasantnesses strung together. But it was great. It was relaxing. I finished my book, flew my kite, swam, got to see the rare site of Jenny in a bathing suit, and just had a couple of hiccups along the way. And I’d do it again. But I’d take the damn ferry and camp at the site right next to the bath house.
SATURDAY
We loaded the canoe and launched out in to the sound behind Bear Island (which, it turns out, has no bears, and was originally Bare Island. Not due to any human nudity, but a general denudedness of the landscape). Being in a moderately laden canoe, we cut across the channel that the motor boats were using so as to not be troubled by their stupidly over-compensating wakes, and through the break in the dredged-up dirt opposite the dock. This was the first mistake. On the other side of the dredgings we found ourselves in a sweep of hammocks. Here, perhaps, should be discussed Mistake the Negative First. Hammocks, by my definition, have never been “those muddy grassy shoals behind barrier islands”. Hammocks are a thing for swinging in. I was horribly misled by the name of the place, “Hammocks Beach State Park”. Suffice to say, the hammocks in the sound were the muddy variety.
We wound through the hammocks, and eventually stumbled on a marker for a canoe trail. I looked at it, looked around, and saw another marker a few hundred yards up-wind. “Balls to that,” said I, and ploughed onward among the hammocks. That would be the second mistake. A 2 mile paddle took us the better part of 2 and a half hours as we ran in to dead end after dead end until, finally, we came to a dead end that was separated from a wide open channel by only 10 feet of hammock. We portaged and finished the last half mile, or what we thought was the last half mile, paddling up wind, because apparently there is no “off shore breeze” in that part of the world. When we got to what we thought was the landing (Mistake the Third), we realized that there were another set of those canoe trail markers, and that they wound around the point of land we were at, and that they marked a trail that was indistinguishable from a narrow Floridian creek at low tide. This was low tide. There was no way in hell we were going to maneuver the boat up that (because, it being low tide, water was flowing out of the creek), so I got out and dragged the thing another half mile up this creek, until we reached the ACTUAL landing.
From there, it was a few hundred yards to carry our gear to our camp site, over beach sand, which meant that by the time everything, including the boat, had been moved, we were thoroughly exhausted. However, it was in all ways worth it. Our tent was pitched just behind the dune line, which we could sit on top of or lean against, looking out across the ocean, eating a long-delayed lunch, and drinking restorative liquids. And then the deer flies showed up. To the benefit of my continued marital happiness, they left Jenny alone and focused entirely on me. The sand flies, though, seeing that I had been claimed, set about making sure that Jenny did not feel left out. OFF Deep woods did the trick, though it needed re-applying every hour or two, and shortly after the sun went to bed we did the same.
SUNDAY
Sunday we had nothing to do, which was the goal. We’d brought books (too many, it turned out, but that’s what happens when bookish people pack for vacation. Mistake the Negative Second) and mats to lie on and spent most of the morning alternating between swimming, reading, and collecting shells (which may or may not have been against the rules, we couldn’t quite figure out). After noon, the day got hotter, and we moved inside the tent, until we realized it was ghastly hot in there, too, and we couldn’t keep the deer flies out without turning it into a nylon oven. Eventually we caved and walked down to the bath house (the showers and toilets on the island, being another half mile away from our camp. Mistake the.. what are we on now?). At the bath house were also picnic tables and a concession stand that would have cold water. Unfortunately, it closed shortly before we got there. But we lounged in the shade and the breeze reading until the heat broke, and then went back to camp for dinner.
MONDAY
Monday saw the culmination of the sort of stellar stupidity only smart people can really attain. “We could just launch off the beach,” said Jenny. “Er… okay, how about we take the boat out empty and see if you think it’s really doable.” So we did. She, in the bow, got the rollercoaster ride of crashing over the tops of waves, but thought that it was just fine.
I mention here, briefly, that I love my wife, but that she does not paddle well, spends a lot of time being distracted by the wildlife instead of moving water, and would end up going in very tiny circles if I weren’t steering despite my best efforts at education. This became important when…
We actually launched the fully loaded canoe out through the waves (with the park rangers watching us do this thing that, we later found out, was kind of against the rules). Water came splashing over the bows, and it was about this time that the camera and my cell phone got killed. Saturday, I had argued with Jenny, repeatedly, that they should go in a dry bag. She stubbornly refused until the point where I said “Fine!” Monday I did not even bother raising the point. As a result, I have no cell phone, but I finally heard her admit I was right about something. We bore away from the shore, working towards Bogue inlet at the end of the island while keeping bow-on to the waves (the waves came at an angle, and between the wind and the current we could actually point into the waves and still move towards the inlet). After the initial terror, I subsided to mild panic, while Jenny, in the bow, pulling us off the line we REALLY needed to maintain with every stroke, said “How ya doing? Terrified? Why?” She, too, though, would achieve the same state about the time we hit the inlet, where water pushing off of Bear Island to the south, and Emerald Isle to the north, funneled into each other in cross-currents that kicked up evil standing waves, and put more water over the gunwales. I was mid-calf in water by the time we pushed through into the sound, and we beached, ate lunch, and bailed the canoe before continuing on.
The rest of the paddle was easy: the onshore breeze, the making tide, and the clear and easy to follow and plainly obvious canoe trail markers all made the rest of the trip mild and uneventful. We coasted in to dock, loaded up the car, and headed home, but not before I made one last mistake: not topping up the gas tank. We were two exits from home and the local gas station when we ran out, and spent a spare twenty minutes waiting for our friend or BWC to show up with gas, whoever managed it first.
Jenny asked me if I had fun, and I really, really did, but I told her that I could not think of how to talk about the weekend as anything other than a series of unpleasantnesses strung together. But it was great. It was relaxing. I finished my book, flew my kite, swam, got to see the rare site of Jenny in a bathing suit, and just had a couple of hiccups along the way. And I’d do it again. But I’d take the damn ferry and camp at the site right next to the bath house.
