Alligator Creek

Aimee, Pete Brown, Mike and I paddled Alligator Creek today in search of the waterway's namesake. I was so stoked about seeing that one on Thursday that I wanted to see some more and Mike knew where to look. We weren't disappointed. The weather was beautiful, maybe even a little hot. When we launched from Belville Park there was no wind and the Brunswick River looked like glass. We weren't 10 minutes up the creek when a medium sized gator slid off the bank ahead of me and cruised out into the water, eyeing us for a minute before submerging. We continued on under the roadway and into the "lake" in the middle of the island, where we split up to search different banks. Aimee and I were the lucky ones, spotting a really big guy pulled up onto the bank up to his hind legs just a split second before he spun around and went under. I think he was even bigger than the one I saw on Thursday. He looked long and fat and prehistoric. At the other end of the lake there is a small creek that dumps into the Cape Fear just north of town. You can only get through on a full tide, which we had, so we wound our way through there at a very cautious pace. I found a dead turtle. We poked into the horseshoe and up creek off it, then lunched on a small bit of high ground on Eagle's Island. Then up to the N end of Alligator Creek and back through, where we ran into several more gators and a couple of osprey in the nest. We also saw an anhinga, unusual here, and tons of red-winged blackbirds. The trip back across the Brunswick River was a little breezy, but no big deal. Pretty day on the water again. Now to cleaning and bill paying. Cheers.

White Lake Sprint Triathlon, 7 Days Out

I rode 47 miles on the bike today! That's the most miles I've ever clocked in a single day. I did about 15 before work on my FX, and then my coworker and friend Kim asked if I wanted to ride out to Snow's Cut on River Rd. after work (about 28 miles round trip). I need the training, and she's done multiple tri's including an Iron distance race, and has been a personal trainer, so I said hell yes. At 5 I grabbed a Giant Defy 2 from the store and we hit the pavement. The ride out was into a reasonably stiff headwind, which made for a tailwind on the return trip. I hung with her for the first 2/3 of the ride, but she was waiting for me at lights by the end. I probably bit off a little more than I could chew, but that's OK cause I got a good ride in. At one point we were going 25/26 mph and it was awesome. I was absolutely starving by the end of it, but I still had to switch bikes back at the store and then pedal home, another 4 miles. I got some killer cramps about a mile from home and had to stop and stretch/rest. Then I devoured a meal of spicy spaghetti w/ spicy sausage meatballs, Caesar salad, and bread.

Lessons learned:
1. I need to work on my endurance and speed.
2. I need to make sure I take enough water and nutrition with me all the time, so that if my body is craving calories and hydration, I can take care of it.
3. Invest in a good pair of bike shorts. Tonight I wore tri shorts, which have less padding, and it felt like it.

Tomorrow Aimee and I will be joining Mike for a paddle up Alligator Creek on Eagle's Island in hopes of recreating Thursday's encounter for Aimee. Then I'm going to cook my baby dinner. Have a good Sunday. Cheers.

Critical Mass

An Old CM Flyer

I participated in my second Critical Mass ride tonight. For those who don't know, Critical Mass is an international bicycle awareness campaign with local rides in hundreds of cities around the states and the world. Rides occur on the last Friday of every month. There is no central leadership; riders gather at an established spot, start at the given time (usually about 6 pm), and monopolize one lane of the road. In Wilmington they meet at 6 under the clock tower at my alma mater, UNCW. Tonight we turned left out of the uni up to Oleander, Oleander to Wooster, Wooster to 5th to Market (at which point I break off since I live a few blocks from there). This is different than last time I rode it, but the idea is to ride down major thoroughfares on a Friday night in rush hour traffic for maximum effect. Most people smile and wave, some people stare, and every now and then I guess one or two drivers will get upset. Tonight there were no negative incidents. It's surreal to ride down College, Market, or Oleander in jammed traffic on a bike with 50 other people and feel totally comfortable. Dig around on the net or check out your local bike shop or ask cycling friends if there's one near you. It's a cool experience. Cheers.

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In Good Company, photo by Garrett Grimsley

Mill Creek, Varnamtown

My good friend Lydia, host of the party I attended last weekend, is starting a new job this spring down at Holden Beach renting various beach gear like surfboards, bikes, and kayaks and running tours by bike and kayak. She's doing some reconnaissance for tours, so today Mike and I drove down to help her explore a possible tour location in the area. We launched from a boat ramp in Varnamtown, which I had never heard of until today and paddled across the Lockwood's Folly River into a marsh creek called Mill Creek. There was absolutely no wind when we were launching, and I was being eaten alive by no-see-ums. There was also a haze of smoke from the fires that are burning down in Myrtle Beach, and the air smelled of smoke. The bugs let up a little when we hit the water, but shortly a little breeze picked up and that was the end of the bug problem. At first I was kind of non-plussed on the paddle, but figured it couldn't go wrong since Mike and Lydia are two of my favorite people. Shortly though, it got interesting as we stroked up the creek against the outgoing tide as the creek meandered through a large marsh. Mike gave us a lecture, at Lydia's prompting, about the plant life. The standard local marsh grass is spartina alternaflora, which is very familiar from our days guiding at SMKC in WB (also known as marsh cordgrass). As we moved further into the marsh, however, the species changed to black needle rush. I've seen this on Bradley Creek at WB. It's interesting to see the change from all cordgrass to a border zone of both grasses to all needle rush. There were plenty of marsh periwinkle's along the way. The highlight of the paddle, by far, was having my first alligator experience by kayak, and it was a doozy. Mike and Lydia stopped for a quick restroom break and to scout a lunch spot, which wasn't very good. From his standing vantage, Mike suggested that there might be a better spot a little further along, so I decided to paddle ahead and check it. I got about 50 yards up when I saw a mud bank where all of the grass was flattened down, as though a gator had been sunning there. I was aware of the possibility of seeing gators from convo with Mike, so I noted it but kept paddling. All of a sudden I was aware of fast movement ahead of me, and when I looked, there was a HUGE alligator in mid-air, lauching from the bank into the water. He didn't slide in; he jumped. All 8-10 feet of him sailed through the air and splashed loudly down into the muddy creek, just 20' off my bow. It happened so fast that I'm not positive of his length, except that he looked very long. What I am positive of is that he was very big, and that his girth was more impressive than his length. There is no way I could have wrapped my arms around his middle. I was thrilled and shocked and scared, all at the same time. It was amazing. I paddled backwards because I didn't want to test or follow him by myself. I kept going, in reverse, as fast as I could, all the way back to Mike and Lydia and started excitedly yelling at them what I had just seen. We paddled further along until the marsh became forest and the water looked more like blackwater than marsh creek, both to try to find the gator and for a better lunch spot. We found neither, and ended up eating in our boats just across from the gator launch pad. The entire way back, and still some 7 hours later, I glowed about how awesome it was. In the bird category we saw great blue heron, great egret, spotted sandpiper, red-breasted merganser, green heron, laughing gull, common tern, red-tailed hawk, osprey, and wood duck. On the way back I started feeling the effects of forgetting sunscreen and wearing short sleeves, which I remedied by rubbing the cool black marsh mud onto my forearms, which worked quite well. It was a nice trip. I can't tell on Google Earth how far into the forest we got, but I'd estimate the trip at 8 or 9 miles total, out and back. On the way home I got a Nehi grape soda in a glass bottle. It was a good day. Get your ass outside and do something fun! Cheers.

BFE

I spent this weekend with about 25 of my favorite people eatin' pork and paddling in BFE. This was the 3rd iteration of the party, which has previously consisted of a Saturday night oyster roast and potluck dinner at Scott and Lydia's homestead, camping out on their property, and a blackwater paddle on Sunday. These are group photos from each:

The 1st Annual BFE Oyster Roast and South River Paddle

BFE 1.5 Oyster Roast and Lumber River Paddle

BFE 2 Pig Pickin' and South/Black River Paddle

This time a pig was roasted instead of oysters. We had a perfect night for an outdoor party and camping. Temps in the mid 50's. In addition to the pig, we had excellent pickled shrimp, my jalapeno cheesy cornbread muffins, various sides and salads, and a selection of deserts. It was quite a meal. There were some new faces, and some old ones, and we all had drinks and talked story around the bonfire. The highlight was the Naked Virgin Foot Race, which was hilarious but not photo apropos. Aimee and I camped on the edge of Scott's long-leaf pine forest without the rain-fly on the tent and both slept wonderfully. We woke to the rooster's crow and a very persistent whip-poor-will. Scott worked his magic in the kitchen again with made-from-scratch biscuits and homemade sausage, eggs fresh out of the coop in the backyard, a big ol' tub of grits, homemade jams and apple butter, coffee, and macerated strawberries (Lydia deserves some credit for manning the grits). After breakfast we packed everything up and drove to the launch some 45 minutes away.

The river trip:

Another Magic Bus

We paddled section 10 of the South River, which ends on the Black. The put-in is off of Ennis Bridge Rd, and is familiar to me as the take-out from the previous section, which I've paddled twice now. The morning started off a little cool, but comfortable, and warmed up as the day wore on. Water levels were pretty high at 7.5', and this was manifest in the fairly swift current and the swollen look of the river. We were 16 folks on the water, which is a pretty big group, but we managed to hang together fairly well. About halfway in we found a little beach and took a break for lunch. At the end of the South River, the river braided out into swamp and was hard to follow, but we worked our way through and found the Black for the last few miles. All said we were about 5 hours gone and 13.4 miles covered. It's a lovely paddle through cypress forest with high banked and swamp sections, very green and pretty. The highlight for me was a barred owl that Brooke and I saw perched on a branch about 10' off the water. He wasn't the least bothered by our watching him from pretty close range. After snapping some pictures we just sat there staring at each other for several minutes. It was really amazing.

Shaken Creek

The Geezer and I paddled down Shaken Creek today. We had plans to launch from the WB drawbridge and head N as far as the F8 bridge and then explore marsh creeks on the way back, but it was pretty blustery and the N wind chilled things down considerably. Given those conditions, it made more sense to paddle some blackwater instead, and Geez knows plenty of good ones. Shaken Creek was his suggestion, so we drove out of town and got to the launch at Old Maple Hill Rd just of NC Hwy 53 in Burgaw. It's a smallish creek bordering Holly Shelter Game Land, averaging about 15' wide (my guess), winding through cypress and pine woods until it fetters out into swamp. Due to recent rain, levels were up and we were able to get pretty far back in there. The only sign of humanity once you get away from the launch is the occasional old catfish line hanging on branches into the dark red water. Most of the way the banks are pretty high, which was wonderful help shielding us from the wind, and there are lots of pretty little mossy/grassy spots that make for good lunch stops. This is a perfect time of year for this sort of paddle because everything looks so fresh and green, but without being overgrown and thick, and the bugs and snakes probably get pretty thick back there in the summer. We saw two deer, a dead wild turkey, a couple of broadwinged hawks, and several prothonotary warblers (pictured above courtesy of the Smithsonian). There was a pretty good current flowing (we paddled upstream and then floated it back down), which given the smallish width of the creek and plenty of cypress knees for downed limbs and trees to snag, created a couple of spots that required some work to get through. It would be advisable to carry a small saw and some line to clear the worst of it. All said, great paddle.

After that I went to the Y to swim, my first time in a pool in a long time. The tri that I'm doing in less than 3 weeks begins with a 750 meter swim, which is over twice what I thought it would be when I volunteered to do this thing. It went pretty well, and I think I swam about 20 laps or so, which is 500 meters. Right now I have to stop and take short breaks on the walls at the end of every few laps. Hopefully I can build up my endurance to swim longer without needing the breaks. We'll see.

Tally Photos

Here are the more interesting of the photos I took in the Panhandle:

Swamp Walk in Leon Sinks area of Apalachicola National Forest

Fence Lizard in the ANF

ANF Trail

Luke Smith, Wakulla Springs Park Ranger

Wakulla River

Wakulla is pronounced "wuh-KUH-luh," but Luke pronounced it "waw-KUL-luh." He was a great tour guide and had all kinds of funny stories and such. We're back home now and ready to fall back into our routine, which we have realized is one that we really love. I'm definitely going to have to make the most of Wilmington while I'm still here. Looking at another place made us realize how nice this place is and how good we have it.