On a surprisingly warm afternoon for February 28, Janet Smith and I went kayaking south east of Wilmington, west of Wrightsville Beach, north of Banks Channel, in Lees Cut. This area has a small bay, several small islands and some sea grass estuaries. We had been there three times before, and it does not have a lot of exposed, open water, so we felt safe and comfortable. But I made some mistakes, which were a learning experience.
For 50 years, most of my paddling was in Appalachian mountain creeks and rivers. I was used to a steady current, lots of rocks and sometimes big rapids. I knew that if we were going one way, then we would paddle down stream with the current, and drive a shuttle vehicle back to the put-in. Or, if we were going out and back, then we would first paddle up stream against the current, turn around and drift back to the put-in, which was also the take-out. Often there was wind, but it was never stronger than the river current, so the wind was not a factor in planning our logistics.
For this trip on February 28 to Lees Cut, my first mistake was checking the weather prediction for the wind, and then not checking it again. The report was for 6 miles per hour, which was fine. When we got to our put-in beach, the wind was way stronger, blowing up water chop and occasional small white caps. I did not get an official measurement of the wind, but judging from my experiences of riding in the back of a pickup truck and feeling the wind on my face and chest, I think it ranged from 15 to 20 mph. Janet and I had paddled in that kind of chop before, so I was not conscious of an issue. But, instinctively, the high wind gnawed at the back of my mind and made me feel jumpy and pushy to get on the water and start paddling strongly.
My second mistake was not consciously feeling the wind and realizing we would have a hard time paddling against it, so we should not start our trip paddling down wind. We should have followed the river current rule and first paddled into the wind. As we started paddling the wrong way, the wind behind us was already a problem. It kept trying to turn us sideways, so we had to work hard to keep straight.
Our pre-trip plan was to paddle across the bay to a small beach on an island, then circle that island to the head of Banks Channel and finally go back to our put-in / take-out. The third mistake was not checking the tide. I knew that Lees Cut is affected by tide, as far as raising and lowering the water level, but there is usually little tidal current. So, I did not consider the tide. After we passed the small beach and wanted to circle the island, we were looking for the channel between the grass beds. But it was only mud. The tide was too low to circle the island.
That’s when it hit me. The wind was terribly against us, and we were in trouble. I called Janet to turn the trip and head home. Often, Janet’s preference is to push our trips to the limit. Regardless of the time of day, the conditions or a looming deadline [like night fall], she will sometimes disagree with my instruction to turn around. She will keep walking, biking or paddling away from our take-out. This time, thankfully, she agreed and we headed back.
Immediately, we had difficulty turning around. The wind tried to keep us sideways. We struggled towards our put-in / take-out beach but could barely move. Any pause for rest pushed us backwards. After a while, Janet called to me that she was out of energy and strength. She could not make it to our take-out. We were surrounded by islands and sea grass beds. There was nowhere to make land fall and me walk to my Jeep and drive back to Janet.
I had very fortunately added a tow rope to my deck just after my last trip. But I did a poor job of stowing the rope. The carabiner at the cockpit end of the rope had slid down the deck line out of my reach. We pulled over to a small beach where I exited my boat. I set up the tow rope from my stern to Janet’s bow. Janet showed her fear by twice sternly requesting that I start paddling and get her out of there.
The first second that I started towing we encountered a problem. The wind was too strong to just paddle where I wanted to go. I had a long fight to get my boat headed upwind and towards our take-out. In another minute we ran into a bigger issue. The wind pushed the bow of my boat onto a shoal where I got stuck, from which I could not go forward nor turn. Janet’s boat had blown into mine, which kept my stern from moving. Getting out of that predicament was the toughest three minutes of paddling in my life. And those prior tough paddles included getting though some large rapids on the Nolichucky River in Tennessee and the Chattooga River in Georgia.
Then, finally, something good happened. When we got paddling forward, with me towing, straight into the wind, and straight toward our take-out, I was pleasantly surprised at how sleek and efficient were our Wilderness Systems and Eddyline boats. I could pull both boats, with occasional paddling help from Janet, by just good, clean, strong effort. My Greenland paddle blades had good bite in the water. I did not wish for a European paddle. It was not grueling or debilitating. We made it back to our take-out beach without calling the Coast Guard.
When we landed, we still had a pretty long, hard slog to haul the boats over a long stretch of sand, up stairs and along a dock, to the Jeep. I took Janet’s boat first, and did it slowly, resting several times. Then I made my fourth mistake. I left my boat with the bow on the beach and the stern in water. When I returned to it some 10 minutes later, as I walked down the beach, I could see the wind and waves lifting the stern and moving the bow around. Literally the very second that I put my hand on the boat to pull it in, the bow lifted off the sand and started to drift out into the water.
I only took a few photographs, because most of the time I was working against the wind. A good time was sort of had by all.
