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Picture by Bill Billings
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Tuesday Paddle on Back Bay, July 16, 2024
This past Tuesday Carolyn set up a paddle on the waters of Back Bay, there at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. This past weekend she accidentally hurt her arm, and decided she should cancel her paddle for the Tuesday Group. Well, as everyone knows the Tuesday group must go own, no matter what, so as soon as I heard about her mishap, I let Carolyn know that I would lead the paddle there on Back Bay. I did talk with her about her arm and how bad it was, and she assured me that it would be O K in a day or two.
We all know how hot it was on Monday and how hot it would be on Tuesday, so Carolyn let me know that 4 had canceled because of the heat, so that only left 4 Tuesday Groupers. I got on the phone and called them, and we decided we would all meet at 9:00 A.M. just as Carolyn had wanted to do.
All 4 of us got there around 9:00 A.M. and another man drove up and unloaded his kayak close to where we were, so I asked him, are you kayaking by yourself today, because it was a little winded, and he said no I am paddle with the Tuesday Group, His name was Jacob and he had just joined the club in July, and I had not met him. We all introduce ourselves and welcome him to the Tuesday Group. I let him know that he needed to sign up from now on, so he would know if the trip had to be canceled, because of the weather, and show him how to do this on his phone.
We talked about the heat, the wind, the snakes, and to be sure everyone had and drank enough water for today’s paddle. Then we slid our boats into the bay and started our trip, we had to avoid the South/West winds as much as we could, so we paddled over to Long Island and hugged the coastline for about 1 mile. We had already disgusted about how hard the wind would be heading down to Barbour’s Hill Boat dock with 2- or 3-foot waves, and it was really strong. Here we decided to navigate around Long Island and some of the other small Island, in this area. Have any of you ever heard of an Island moving, or disappearing all together, or at least part of an Island? It had been 6 or 7 years since we had paddle on the West side of Long Island, and I could not believe the difference in the water ways, and the land mass. Some places that we had paddled before with no trouble at all, had closed up to where we hardly could paddle through. Where it was 20 feet wide in 2017 now it was only 3 feet wide with the Phragmite grass hanging over our heads as we paddle through, with twists and turns. After the 5 of us got through we came out to an enclosed area the size of a large pond, which was never there before. We paddled to the end of this pond and found another smaller cut through which was harder to navigate than the first one, with less water in it. We all made it through this one also, and out into a very large body of water, which was three times as large as it was in 2017. Bill’s GPS show where we were paddling was land, crazy right? This water was at least 3 to 4 feet deep, and in 2017 some of this area only had 7 to 10 inches of water. The amount of wind it took to move all this land to make this body of water must have been enormous blowing across the Bay area. As we circled long Island in 2017, on the West side, you had land on both sides for almost one mile and then we would paddle back out into the large bay, but now after fighting to get through those two small narrow cut throughs it is wide open on both sides. To me it was so incredible to see how wind and moving water can change an area in such a short time as 6 or 7 years. I have a map put out by the Wildlife Refuge before 2017, and I picked up a new one on Tuesday and you can definitely see a difference in the land mass of these Islands. I had always been told that Ragged Island, just south of Long Island, at one time was one large island and today it is made up of 5 or 6 small islands, which I have paddled in and around many times not knowing what it once looked like. Loosing land to strong winds is one thing that I know of because at False Cape State Park we have Cedar Island and it is being washed away on all three side, and part of it has broken away, which we call Little Cedar, and eight years ago part of it broke away from this island and we name it Tiny Cedar. Tiny Cedar will be gone in the next 5 to 6 years, along with Little Cedar in the next 15 years, but Cedar Island will be around for maybe 100 years before it washes away. It is one thing to see this happen on a daily basis, which I have been watching for the past 30 years, but to see waterways close up with solid ground and solid ground areas open up to large bodies of water in 6 or 7 years is mind -boggling to me.
That is enough about Islands, we did have a great paddle for a little over 8 miles on Tuesday, with temps in the high 90’s and some stiff breezes blowing as we paddle south and south/west around the islands. On this trip we had Bill B. Steve L. Kevin M. Jacob A, and me Bruce J. and we had about 8 water stops so to be sure everyone was drinking enough water. Kevin found one of the cut throughs and I found the others one. Steve found a great spot for lunch which was big enough for all 5 boats to be pulled out of the water so we could eat and stretch our legs. Bill, as always, was taking pictures of just about everything we were doing, if you see a volleyball net out in the water, yes it was there, and no we did not play volleyball, it was too hot. As for Jacob, he was the new guy and as we were going through one of the small cut throughs, I told him The Tuesday Group is always an adventure, and I am sure after going with us Tuesday he knows that. He enjoyed being one of the Amazing Five Paddlers facing the heat and the South/West Winds. He also said he will be on next week’s paddles on Smith Lake, so guess we didn’t scare him too much. We were back at the Takeout by 2:00 P.M. and all had a great day on the water and the heat was not bad at all, we could have used a little less wind on the last mile and a half around Bread Island up to the takeout. Don’t ask me why they call it Bread Island, I only report the facts, yes ma’am only the facts.
Bruce J
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Carolyn was injured* fighting the heat and was unable to lead the trip. Bruce stepped in so that we could enjoy the fresh air and summer sunshine!
To me Back Bay is a wonderful wilderness with miles of wild water to enjoy. I like "bobbing". Bobbing is when kayaking in rough water you stop paddling to feel the real force of nature's power of wind and waves on your kayak!
As I paddled I was amazed to see how much better Bruce knew his way around Long Island that I did using my expensive GPS! And then, when Steve found us a place we could get out to eat lunch, Bruce treated us with cold watermelon! What a great Tuesday on the water!
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Bill Billings
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