Portsmouth City Park Paddle 8/27/2013

Where did the water go, this was the question everyone was asking this pastTuesday ? We had a paddle lined up for 9:00 A.M. but the low tide was at 7:30 A.M. so we had to carry are boats out to deeper water about 100 feet from the shore line. We still had hard pack ground to walk on so it wasn’t very hard to do and everyone was ready to paddle at 9:30. The plan was to paddle the Western Branch of the Elisabeth River out toward the main river and the weather was cooperating very well. I had told everyone to bring lunch, just in case that we could not make it all the way around to The Flagship Restaurant, but the trip was so pleasant that we arrived there in 2 hours and 15 minutes. On the way we past under the Churchland Bridge, by a lot of nice homes with long boat docks, the West Norfolk Bridge and by the Portsmouth Marine Terminals, which closed down last year. As we got to the West Norfolk Bridge we took a short break there on a sandy beach before continuing on. We all drive by this area every week, but do not really get to see it not wanting to have an accident, so it was a lot to take in. Looking around at the Hwy. 164 Bridge and all of the large ships that are tied up to the piers, with some of the largest Tug Boats pushing 200 ft. plus barges along the Elisabeth River. I for one really enjoyed seeing all of this up close and the river was so accommodating it was just a great paddle. We paddled over the Mid-Town Tunnel and they had 10 cranes over on the west side of the river working on the New West Tube and then by 3 large transport ships that the Navy had anchored side by side with a big signs reading “STAY BACK 500 FEET” and we tried, don’t pay any attention to Bill’s pictures of this area. Lunch time, and we paddled into the harbor there at the Flagship Restaurant up to their boat dock. I had been here two days earlier and knew it was going to be a challenge for us to climb out of our kayaks onto their high dock. No trouble ! after all we are the Tuesday Group, just asked Dottie, she was one of the first ones out with only a little help. This was my surprise for the group because I never said anything about eating at a restaurant in the write-up but it worked out great and everyone said that the food was delicious and we were about the only ones there. We had Spinach Salads, She Crab Soup in a bun, burger’s and fries and lots more and all wanted to come back to this location again.

Well it was time to go and we climbed back into our boats and paddled back the 5.5 miles with Margaret, Dottie, John O, John F, Mark B, Mark C, Ken, Bill and Bruce and the river was still smooth and beautiful for us. We reached City Park at 3:00 P.M. with 11 miles paddled, we loaded our boats and in Tuesday Group Fashion headed to DQ and all had ice cream. Another great outing with theTuesday Group on another great day here in America. Bruce

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