I woke up to some pretty gross weather - overcast with storm clouds in the distance - but I ignored it, got my things together and started to paddle around 9. Pretty much right away it began to rain and quickly I found myslef with my skirt and rain gear on, head down trying to just trudge through the storm. At one point the rain did get so intense that I was forced to take shelter underneath a boat that was up on a lift at the end of a long dock. The people were probably looking out from the house wandering what I was doing out there in the first place. As soon as the rain passed it became beautful though. Well, sunny at least, but there was a pretty good south-ish wind. I entered the Coosaw River which was very wide and got carried along by the wind at a pretty good pace. The problem was that the river was so wide and straight that I was having a very hard time seeing markers which were way to spread out, I think, anyhow. I'm pretty sure that I have mentioned this before but it is VERY hard to navigate unknown water from a kayak. I don't sit much off the surface of the water so my eye-line is just 2.5-3 feet from sea level. From that height I can only see about 2 miles to the horizon - not much when you are in open water. Its easy to spot markers and distinguish cuts in the marsh when you are standing up on the deck of a boat but not for me. Plus I don't have any binoculars with me, which admittingly is my own dumb fault. Anyhow the point is that I got lost. I missed what I was looking for, the Ashepoo Coosaw Cutoff, with seems to be nothing more then just a small passage through marsh. I instead paddled to a marker that appeared to be right according to my chart but when I got up to it I noticed it was #3 (with no yellow triangle of course) opposed to #186 as I was expecting. If you think I'm an idiot then also understand that at the time I was also getting beat up by 2-3 foot waves caused by a 15-20 mph wind so it wasn't like I was just floating in calm water with lots of time to reference the chart.
So I was pretty upset about being lost. Marker #3 was nowhere on my charts, my GPS was vaue about where I was, and my phone (of course, Scott) had no service. I really was totally lost with no idea where I was. I refused to backtrack though which would entail paddling back into the wind so I just kept going. Fortunatly the island the I came to on my left had all these little white signs posted every couple hundred yards along the shore and even without being able to read them I knew that it had to be Morgan Island. Although I had never been there I knew of Morgan Island from its infamous reputation and I was aware that it was in the area. Actually I had originally always intended to detour off the waterway to visit the island but the night before Patrick and Rob had adamently advised that it would not be wise/worth it to go that far out of my way. I think Patrick's exact words were, "that would be an all-day affair." With that in my mind I had mixed emotions knowin that I had gone pretty far out of my way but also that I could see some wild MONKEYS! That's right, Morgan Isl is full of wild monkeys. Who would think, in SC of all places. I hadn't been out of my boat all day (it was like 3) so I ignored the no trespassing signs and went on shore to try to see if I could get a glimpse of one of the monkeys - I figured it would be hard to find them. Boy was I wrong. In just a minute I saw this little monkey in the trees, jumping from one to another and I was tiptoeing after him trying to get close enough for a good picture. I came around this corner and there was a little clearing and there in front of me were literally hundreds of monkeys. They all seemed aware of me and kept their distance but they didn't flee so I just watched them for awhile. I considered trying to lure one over for a photo with a piece of Sweet Baby Ray's beef jerky but I realized that (besides being ecologicaly irresponsible) there was the potential with so many of them for the situation to get out of hand.
Knowing that I was on Morgan Isl I was able to use my GPS to get my bearings and hatched a plan to get my back on The Waterway. It was 4 oclock by this point and I was tired so I didn't expect to reach it that afternoon. I also had no idea where I was going to sleep. My GPS did label Ottor Island which I remembered Scott mentioning that people sometimes camp there so thats where I was heading for. When I got up to the northern point of Ottor Island at about 7 I was SOOOO relieved to find marker 162 which signified that I was no longer lost. Apparently my very inacurate and outdated charts refer to Ottor Isl and Fenwick Island. Either way I was at Fenwick Cut and I was siked. Sure I had gone hours out of my way and paddled aobut 15 miles when the path was only about 7 but I had gotten to see monkeys. The sun was dropping and I didn't know what I was going to do for the night, though, so my excitment didn't last too long. I think have said this before too but while in this stretch them in right now (since basically the St. John's River) dry gound is really hard to come by. At least dry ground that is accesble by a kayak: pretty much everything has a border of marsh around it. Plus the tide was just starting to come back in so I had oysters and pluff mud between me and any land too. Based on my charts I had one potential option for camping: Raccoon Island. The fact that it was directly across from a place called Alligator Creek didn't make me to happy but I was desperate. I was very very lucky that Raccoon Island's banks were firm (that honeycomb-ish looking clay mud opposed to pluff). I pulled my boat all the way up, slipping and falling on my butt I few times, and found a few trees to sleep between. The old Clark Hammock saves the day again. It actaully wasn't that bad for the marsh - buggy, sure - but I was so tired I slept like a baby.
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