Here, There and Everywhere

The low part of the trip came Friday morning. Bleary-eyed, I left my room, went down to breakfast, drank about twice as much coffee as usual (which is saying something) and then went to return to my room only to realize that I had no idea what my room number was. I actually had to go to the front desk and ask them to tell me my room number. I had gotten in late the previous night after a delayed flight back out of Atlanta, and had gotten to bed around 3 AM. The previous night I hadn't slept well because of job stress, and the day before that had been one of those 12+ hour days I tend to have when I travel. And here I was at the crack of, well, maybe it was 7 AM or so trying to function. Worse yet, I had driven from Richmond (where I had pre-positioned my car and kayak gear before flying to Mississippi) to Williamsburg to be near the kayak group, and they had chosen to paddle closer back towards Richmond to accommodate me since they assumed I was staying in Richmond. So, grabbing yet another cup of coffee I dragged myself out to the car for the 25 minute drive to Eagle's Landing.

Everyone is ready to launch - except my boat is still on the car

Well, no matter. I got to Eagle's Landing only 15 minutes late. The group was still milling about getting ready to leave and so I only held things up a little bit. We paddled upriver through the narrow, upper Chickahominy River, up to the Rt. 155 bridge. There was a lot of water in the river and so we were able to make it up past the bridge into some abandoned, flooded old gravel pits. The pits offered some nice shoreline for a lunch break.

Lunch Break at the pits

After lunch some folks headed straight back. I, feeling surprisingly energetic, joined the sub-group which chose to explore the pits - which are essentially interconnected small lakes - for a bit. Pastor Pete, who used to live in Richmond and paddle this area, thought there was another passage through the pits  to the "Old Chickhominy" which would have allowed us to do a loop to get back to Eagle's, but after several dead ends we gave up and headed back the way we came.

Friday's route is upper left, Saturday's lower right

I had marked waypoints at the little cut-throughs between pits so we could find our way back. I served as navigator on the way back, head down staring at my GPS to guide us waypoint-by-waypoint back to the river. Meanwhile, Jim A. was way out in front as he used his animal-like sense of the lay of the land to naturally find his way back. Like most people I can get turned around on the water - a lot of shoreline looks the same! - but Jim is one of those people who somehow through instinct always knows where he is.

I mentioned earlier that the Chick had a lot of water in it. That was great for extending our paddle to the upper reaches of the river, but it also made for some tricky flows  to deal with as we made our way through the twists and turns of the river. On the way up Linda D. got pinned by the flow against a "strainer" - a downed tree in the river, and on the way back she got taken by surprise by an overhanging branch and capsized. That left us having to do a rescue in a rapidly flowing river - not an easy task. It's funny - the river was no more than 50 ft. across at that point. No one was ever far from shore and no one was in real danger. But still, maneuvering kayak and paddler to a spot where they could be safely reunited was tough.

Suzanne and Pastor Pete rescue Linda

The rest of the trip back was fortunately uneventful and when we got back everyone headed back to the campsite. I hadn't brought my camping gear with me - the whole notion of rolling straight from a business trip into camping seemed like a bridge too far - and so continued to stay at the hotel. I headed back there to clean up. had planned to stop by the campground to catch Paula's presentation on VHF radio usage (as well as Ron's inexplicable group Erev Shabbat service) but on the drive to the hotel my tiredness finally hit me and I chose to nap. Or rather, a nap chose me.

I woke up in time to go to dinner. That was its own little drama, which I won't bore you with. Bottom line, Rob, Sophie, Suzanne, Madeline and I wound up at Two Forks Diner, where some other folks were already  eating. There wasn't much on the menu which wasn't shellfish, pork, or mixed meat/dairy. For me the choice came down to a burger or spaghetti and meatballs. I ordered the latter, which included what may have been meatballs and may have been leftover Civil War cannon balls - it was hard to tell. Well, the place did have a nice, friendly down-home southern diner charm, even if their choice of wines was, "red or white".

After dinner the group headed back to the campground. I returned to the hotel and went straight to bed.

Saturday morning I met the group at the campground as folks were finishing breakfast and getting ready to hit the water. A group of us had decided to paddle straight from the campground's boat ramp, avoiding having to transit to the put-in. This put us on a lower, somewhat more open section of the Chickahominy River. We headed upriver into the wind, which made for a tiring paddle, then did a loop through some marshes - into one creek and out another. We launched at 9:30 AM and by noontime everyone was ready for a break, but in the marshy areas it was impssible to find a landing spot with solid ground and room for 11. Finally, back out on the Chick we found a little beach where we were all able to stop for a lunch break. For the second day in a row I had brought a can of tuna but no utensil with which to eat it. It was one of those cans of spicy Thai seasoned tuna - tasty, but quite oily and therefore messy. But I was undaunted. I stuck a finger into empty wrapper from a granola bar and used it as a scoop to eat the tuna - pretty sloppy going, but well within the bounds of kayak etiquette. After lunch it was a fairly short paddle back - a 15-16 mile day.

November sunshine - Saturday

A highlight of the Chickahominy trip is always the Saturday night potluck. As usual, it was a varied and delicious feast - roast meats, turkey chili, salads, stews, veggies, and potatoes from Ron the potato man. Saturday night was also the only time I got to see the whole group of roughly two dozen, since people were doing different paddles on different days. After the pot luck we went to the adjacent site where the campfire was burning. People were astounded that I was going to drive home that night - until they realized that, though it was dark, it was only 6:45 PM, easily enough time to do a 2 1/2 hour drive and still get home at a reasonable hour. As it happened, while Tall Tom took off at about that time I wound up hanging around until 8 or so - and still got home at a reasonable hour.

And so there you have it - my take on how to visit three cities in two states, do two kayak trips, and most importantly, go cold weather camping without ever sleeping outside, all in 5 days' time.

OK, this is nerdy, even by kayaker standards

Chickahominy Kayak Trip

It always seems to start with traffic, even at 6:30 AM on a Saturday. I was out the door at 5:30 in order to rendezvous with Ralph's group in time for the day's kayak outing. For several years now Ralph has taken on organizing the November Chickahominy trip, which was started by Bill Dodge and is now in something like its 13th year. Most of the group camped at Chickahominy Riverfront Park Friday night, but being the world's worst cold weather wimp I opted to sleep indoors and drive down Saturday morning. While I inched along I had time to snap a picture of the brake lights in front of me for Jen's benefit. Jen and I had a long history of getting stuck in traffic together on the way to kayaking. I emailed her the photo with a note saying that I guess the bad karma causing our past traffic delays had been mine. Fortunately the traffic backup was fairly brief and I made it down to Jamestown in plenty of time to meet up with the group - in fact, I was the first one at the launch (I knew I was getting close to my destination when I noticed that the Mazda next to me at a traffic light was being driven by a woman dressed in colonial era clothes).

The group rolled in shortly after I did, all a little grumpy from lack of sleep. It turns out that despite having gotten a 4 AM start to the day I was probably the best rested of the group since I hadn't had to put up with noise from redneck yahoo campers partying late into the night or the sounds of late arrivers setting up their tents well after midnight.

Bald eagle in a bald cypress on the James River

 Saturday's plan was for our group of eighteen (Ralph, Rich and Sue, Jim Z, Jim A, Suzanne, Sophie, Bear, Steve, Suzanne, Dick, Paula, Charles, Lois, Aht, Bob, Pete and me, to circumnavigate Jamestown Island. Most of the group had done this trip before and so knew the route; for me it was all new. We launched from the Jamestown Yacht Basin (now apparently called the Jamestown Eco Discovery Park) and headed out into the James River. Our first destination was to go visit the replicas of the Godspeed, Susan Constant and Discovery (the three ships sent by the English Virginia Company in 1606 to settle Jamestown) at Jamestown Harbor. The original fleet was captained by Christopher Newport, who today has a university named after him in nearby Newport News. We paddled around the ships like native Paspahegh tribespeople, and I exchanged "pretty boat" compliments with one of the costumed interpreters on board the Susan Constant (my wooden Shearwater kayak always draws comments). After that we headed off past the Jamestown ferry and around the island, stopping for lunch about 2/3 of the way around. During the lunch break I "swam" my suit - floating around in the water to make sure it was properly watertight. 

Checking out the ships at Jamestown

When we were done kayaking I headed to my hotel to check in and get cleaned up. Fatigue from my long day got the better of me and I wound up napping for about half and hour. Then I showered and headed over to the campground to meet the group. I got a little bit of a hassle from the campers about my luxe accommodations, and of course I laid it on by telling them I was late because room service took forever and how relaxing my massage at the spa had been.

Saturday night was the famous Chickahominy Camper pot-luck feast. London broil (formerly Brad's tradition, but this year supplied by Ralph since Brad has moved away), two kinds of chili, baked potatoes both white and sweet cooked in the campfire courtesy of "potato man" Jim Z, and much, much more. I wasn't doing meat so I had Paula's delicious salmon and spaghetti squash dish, Aht's cream of mushroom soup (with mushrooms soaked in madeira wine), and a ton of sides (salad, roasted root veggies, asian salad, ...). There were plenty of desserts too, and beverages.

After hanging around the camp fire for the evening the wimpy hotel folk bid our adieus. Aht and Talbot headed back to their hotel and I to mine. I slept blissfully until 5:30 AM when I awoke with a start - something was wrong. It was a noise. What was that noise? As I gathered my wits I recognized it as the sound of dripping water. I peeked into the bathroom to find water dripping out of the ceiling. The air vent was dripping water and so was the ceiling light. The globe of the light was filled with water. I called the front desk several times but no one answered. Finally I threw on some clothes and went down to the desk. No one was there so I left a note. At about 6 AM a staff member called my room but said there wasn't really anything he could do - it was too early to wake the guests in the room upstairs (!) and besides, the maintenance guy didn't  get in until 7. Since I was already awake I went back downstairs and had a leisurely breakfast, and by the time I went back up to my room the dripping had mostly stopped and I managed to soak the water up with three bath towels plus the bath mat. When I checked out someone with much better customer service skills apologized profusely and they wound up comping me the room.

One thing that's a given about Ralph's trips is that the group always agrees on a schedule and never follows it. If in the evening the group agrees to leave for kayaking at 9 AM, then the one time you know the group isn't going to leave is 9 AM; most likely Ralph will be rolling early. On more than one occasion (before I knew this pattern) I was taken by surprise, puttering around my campsite thinking I had 30 minutes or more to spare only to see a parade of cars with kayaks go by heading for the exit. [It is left as a discussion point for the reader as to whether this is a good trip-leading behavior]. So, I knew it would be in my best interest to get to the campground as soon as possible after breakfast. After finishing my complaints to management about my bathroom waterfall adventure I headed straight to the campground. At the campfire the night before the clearly stated plan was to gather at the park entrance at 9 AM and caravan to the put-in, which was a half hour away. I got to the campground about 8:20. Since at that time everyone was busy finishing breakfast and breaking camp I sat down at one of the campsite picnic tables and exchanged Words with Friends moves with Valerie until 8:40 when I got a text message from Suzanne (who didn't realize I was at the campground) with the address of the put-in (which I had already successfully Googled from my hotel room). I walked over to her just as she was getting into her car. "We're rolling!" she said, and pulled out. I made a quick bathroom stop then dashed to my car. As I drove out I noticed that while some cars were heading out, some of the group hadn't even taken their tents down yet. The planned caravan at the campground entrance was nowhere to be found and I wound up driving by myself to Eagle's Landing.

Paddling through duckweed on the Chickahominy (Suzanne's photo)

After this chaotic start (which no one else seemed to find chaotic), things got better. Because the forecast was for significant winds we had chosen a protected paddle on the upper Chickahominy River. This turned out to be a pleasant, winding excursion with various options to paddle around islands and cut through little inlets. We paddled about as far up the Chick as you can go. In fact, the last bit involved navigating around and over quite a few dead fall trees in the current of the river - a good test of boat-handling skills. The barely submerged trees were the most challenging: the technique is paddle as hard as you can and use your momentum to get you most of the way over the trunk then just as your boat starts to run aground on the tree amidships you grab the trunk and push yourself the rest of the way over, or wiggle your way over. Perhaps not the best treatment for a glossy wooden boat, but I don't mind a scratch here and there (the other guy on the trip with a wooden boat hung back and did not attempt the dead fall navigation).

We found a spot for a lunch break, which we also used as a turn-around point. On the trip up we had all stayed together but on the return trip the group got pretty spread out. There was a lot of VHF radio traffic as we all figured out who was where and made sure the whole group was accounted for. We only kayaked 10 miles or so, but the trip into the wind and against the current had been hard work and I definitely felt I had had a good day of kayaking.

Lunch break, Sunday

I had planned to eat dinner with Jim A., Steven, and Suzanne and then drive home; however, Eagle's Landing is almost all the way back to Richmond and so rather than drive 30 minutes east to eat dinner then drive the same 30 minutes back west, I bid my farewells and hit the road (the rest of the group was staying into Monday). The trip home was uneventful and I soon found myself back at home, happy to have had a November paddle. I haven't arranged my traditional birthday paddle this year and so it was good to have something I could call a quasi-birthday paddle, even if no one but me knew that's what it was.