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.

On February 21 Janet, her golden retriever Gracie and I took a hike on the Campground Trail in Carolina Beach State Park. We parked at the Boy Scout bat cave parking lot and hiked from State Park Road, through the forest and swamp, several miles  to the campground marina.

The prior night low temperature at our house was 24 degrees, so the water in the hose from the bladder in my day pack in the Jeep froze.  When we hit the trail, I was disappointed to learn that I did not have anything to drink. Fortunately, as we hiked the temperature warmed up to 42 degrees, so the water eventually melted.

Today’s trip was our first hike at Carolina Beach State Park. We were pleasantly surprised at the nice condition of the trail. It was well marked with signs, and the trail path was easy to follow. We only hiked on about 20% of the park trails, so we will go back for more.

When we got to the marina, Gracie remembered a nice sandy beach where we had been before, with an over-looking wooden place to sit and view Snow’s Cut and the Cape Fear River.  Gracie ran from the trail head, across the parking lot to the beach and jumped in the icy cold water.  I don’t see how she can stand it. After playing with Gracie for awhile and enjoying the view, we headed back home. 

A good time was had by all.

Tough Times at Copperhead Shelter

Backpacking used to be my one of my main sports, along with tennis, telemark skiing and a few others.  The pain from hip arthritis and a pinched nerve in my back; three surgeries; and multiple recuperations kept me off the trail for many years.  Last weekend, Friday January 31 – Saturday, February 1, went on my first backpacking trip in four years.   

This trip was my fifth attempt in two months to backpack to the Copperhead Landing shelter on the Neusiok Trail in Croatan National Forest at the NC coast.  The first trip was stopped by a pack too heavy for me to carry.  The next trip was cancelled by the cold weather forecast.  The third effort was prevented by bad GPS directions which kept me from getting to the trail head in time to complete the hike before dark.  On my fourth effort I carried a small day pack and successfully hiked to the shelter.  This trip was with a full, but lighter, backpack and I made it.

The Copperhead Landing shelter name is misleading.  There is no landing, and thus no place to kayak in to the camp site and disembark.  The nearby Cahooque Creek is actually surrounded by swamp.

I navigated with a Garmin Montana 750i GPS and the Avenza map app on my iPhone.  Both devices worked correctly. I have the Avenza figured out. But the Montana is a long-term complicated work in progress. I have had it for many years, and I am still figuring out how to use some of its features. It is non-intuitive, not user-friendly and the graphical user interface is primitive. But it is powerful and can do things not found in any other hand-held GPS on the market.  

My pack was heavier than average, since I have sleep apnea and must carry a CPAP machine with a big Transcend battery; and a hearing aid charger with a heavy Anker battery.  I found that the Anker can charge the hearing aids, cell phone and GPS for two nights.  My pack also carried a bulky set of winter clothes and a heavy water filter.

The hike from the parking lot to the shelter was 3 miles, which I made in 1.5 hours, for 2 miles an hour. This trip was done with a full, heavy backpack weighing about 40 pounds.  Somehow, I traversed the same trail, same distance and same speed as on my hike two weeks prior with a light day pack.  I did not feel like I was pushing myself particularly hard. I am not sure know how I did it.

This trip I took two trekking poles which were quite helpful.  I did not have the stumbling and falling forward, nor hand blisters, that I experienced on my prior hike.

To save weight, I only carried a quart of water in my backpack, just enough to drink for the hike in.  When I got to the shelter, I went to the creek / swamp to get water for the weekend. I used the best camping water filter pump on the market, an MSR Guardian Purifier, which costs $400 and removes everything, including viruses, that get through most other filters.  The water I pumped from the swamp was safe to drink and cook, but it tasted rotten.

Do not depend on obtaining water from this source.  It is sometimes unavailable.  The trail to the creek goes through a thick stand of reeds which have to be stomped down. Then you reach mud which gets progressively softer and wetter. There is no defined river bank. Eventually you get into mud so soft that stepping in it would cause you to sink to your thighs, like quick sand. I know, because I tested the mud with my trekking pole, which sank about 3 feet.  Trying to walk through it could be a life-threatening situation while trying to crawl back to the bank.

Beyond the quicksand, the water is only an inch deep and full of silt, mud, plant scum, leaves, sticks and insects.  The clear water was beyond that.  Standing on the last firm mud, I flung my pump filter intake hose as far as it would reach.  The intake filter immediately clogged with silt and would not pump.  After many efforts to wipe the silt off the filter, I got about 2 quarts of water, which was only about half of what I needed. 

Friday afternoon I whiled away the time smoking my pipe with some Virginia tobacco and sipping some Kentucky bourbon.  I soon realized that my body has changed since my last backpacking trip. I can no longer get by sitting on a log or rock.  My low back pain demands that I have a chair with a back where I can lean.  Since I failed to bring a chair, I had to suffer the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Later that evening I returned to the creek to pump more water and found that the wind and current had shifted.  The pumpable water was now about 10 feet beyond the reach of my hose.  I was stuck for the rest of the weekend lacking 2 quarts of water to be enough.  I just suffered with thirst for another day.

Many years ago, I spent a considerably large amount of time, money and effort to buy a new full size Ford Bronco, the biggest SUV on the market. I ordered it directly from the factory to get features not available form the local dealer to make it more rugged.  I added larger wheels, larger tires, deeper mud tread, snow chains, front bumper guard bars and a lifted suspension. My plan was to drive it anywhere that I pleased.  In just a few months, my home in Wilkes County experienced the deepest snow fall in over 50  years.  The depth was up to the top of my hood.  I could not go!  That deep snow was a lesson.

Trying to pump the swamp water on this trip taught me a similar lesson.  Having the strongest and most expensive filter on the market does not mean I can go anywhere and get clean water.  I have to know the conditions.  The silty Cahooque Creek was a condition that I did not know.  I learned a similar lesson.

Friday evening the sun went down at 6 p.m. I had nothing to do to occupy my time, so I went to bed at sunset.  In the middle of the night I learned that my CPAP battery is only good for 9 hours.  It expired at 3 a.m.  In the future, I must remember to start sleeping about 10 p.m., so my CPAP will run until 7 a.m. For the rest of that night, I could not breathe correctly nor go to sleep. 

Around midnight a heavy wind blew heavy rain past and under the large front porch awning and into the open side of 3 sided shelter. So, my down sleeping bag wet. Another source of discomfort.

The next headache was that sometime during the night my air mattress very slowly went flat.  I blew it up again, and it lasted long enough for me to get to sleep.  Then I woke up with it flat again.  I had a patch kit with me, but the leak was so small and slow that I could not find it.  I was left lying dead flat on a hard wood floor.  This situation caused me huge back pain.  Another source of discomfort for the rest of the night.

The final insult to my body was that my sinuses were stopped up.  I had a bottle of Afrin nasal spray for that purpose.  But after one squeeze, even with more liquid in the bottle, it went flat and refused to squirt any more. Sigh.  Oh well. I just suffered another injustice for many dark hours. 

In 60 years of camping and backpacking, I have never had any of these problems occur. Then,  last Friday night, all 6 of them occurred at the same time.  

Saturday morning the hike back to the parking lot took two hours, for 1.5 miles per hour.  With a heavy backpack; and with the tiredness and soreness from the hike in Friday afternoon; this speed exceeded all my expectations.   I felt like my hiking was painful and slow, but I was passing landmarks at a decent rate. I stopped to sit on every available log and stump, but the rest stops were not long enough to recuperate; and the little water I had left to drink was not enough to rehydrate  Plus, it still tasted rotten.  

When I was younger, I had been on other trips for 5 times more days, with heavier packs, for 10 times more miles; climbed up and down 12,000 foot mountains; and at a faster pace. But at the end of this trip, I was more tired and sore than ever before. Being 72 years old changes your body.

I believe that I am done with backpacking in swamps for the rest of my life. In the future, I want to backpack in the mountains; camp at the coast in the front country near my Jeep; and kayak camp on saltwater islands.

NRS whitewater PFD.  Life jacket.  Used, like new, no damages.  Adult size. Very secure 4 front buckles and 3 adjustable side straps. Large volume flotation.  Cost new $150. Sale price $90.

NRS waterproof case. Roll top with waterproof seal.  13 inches wide x 21 inches tall x 3 inches deep.  Cost new $30.  Sale price $10.

NRS Hydro Lock map case.  Size large.  16.5 inches x 21.5 inches.  Used, like new, no damages.  Map opening on bottom side with waterproof seal closing. Grommet holes in 4 corners to fasten to pack or paddle boat.  Clear plastic view screen.  Cost new $53.  Sale price $30.

Ankle weights.  3 weights, 5 pounds each.  Nylon and Velcro fasteners.  Sports workouts and physical therapy rehabilitation. Cost new $23. Sale price $10.

Merino wool cap with bill, ear flaps and toboggan .  Polyester fleece lining and waterproof membrane.  New, never used.  No damage.  Cost new $26.  Sale price $15.

L.L. Bean leather belt. Men’s black.  Thick, top grain leather. Used but no damage, fully functional. Belt buckle holes size 44 inches to 51 inches.  Cost new $45.  Sale price $15