The details from a couple exciting days since crossing the mouth of the Bay:

Ok lets see.....

After touching the shore of SE VA on at Kiptopeke SP on thursday afteroon I was in a tremendously good mood. The folks at the park had been firm in stating that I was not allowed to beach my kayak if I wanted to camp with them ( I asked whether they were encouraging me to drive in instead to which I didn't get a response) so I paddled very leisurly for a couple more hours staying right off the beach. There were no creeks or inlets to duck into but I didn't mind camping there right under the sandy cliffs and I found a nice little spot between two big fallen trees that would provide a little break from the wind, hide me a little, and prevent morning walkers from strolling by. It was an un-eventful but pleasent night and the next morning I got up ready to paddle what I expected to be 5-6 miles to Cape Charles where I planned to visit South East Expeditions, a kayak/kite surfing shop owned by Dave Burden the brother of Sarah who helped me out in SC, to get some local knoweldge. Turns out I was already in Cape Charles because in ten minutes I had come to their little harbor. I realized why I had been getting looks from passing boats, they probably had never seen anyone camp there before. HERE IS THE SPOT.

Anyhow, I found Dave's shop which was nice and spent awhile talking to John who I suspect is from England (or Australia - I didn't ask) who gave me lots of good information. He did confirm my suspicion that the general attitude to camping along the beach is not a favorable one. Oh well. I spent a few hours poking into their little boutique shops and getting coffee/lunch and generally being a tourist. They were having a Schooner festival the next night (Sat) so I admired some tall ships that had already come in. By the time that I got back underway it was like 1 oclock and I had only gone about a mile earlier. I didn't have much motivation that afternoon either and I took full advantage of the Eastern Shore's ample kayak "rest stops" to relax and just Enjoy. I was feeling very glad that I spent the time and effort to get over here because it was perfect paddling. Very calm wind, I stuck close to shore and admired big empty patches of marsh, all the usual suspects of shore birds, rays, crabs and some nice houses up on the banks. It was just a very relaxing afternoon. Towards dusk my lucky timing once again struck and as I paddled past a large group of kids playing in the water their mother yelled out an offer of a cold beverage for a spin in my kayak. She was probably just kidding but I took her up on it imediatly before she could retract and just like that I was sitting in one of their lounge chairs sipping a rum and coke while she took the Steiner Liner for a little cruise. It was the first time in 2 and a half months that someone else besides myself has paddled my boat. After she was done we let each of the kids (ages 6-10) play in it too. I was so impressed that these little guys were able to maneuver it so well. The best one was the oldest boy, Jordan, who I'm ashamed to say handled the boat better then I do. It turned out two families had rented the place for the weekend and had come over from Virginia Beach. They didn't believe me at first when I said that I had come from Miami and insisted that I had to have a vehicle close by. They ended up feediing me a big plate of spagetti and let me camp there in their yard. It ended up working out well since I had just been warned that morning about camping along the beach.

Saturday I woke up early after something ( I suspect a pine cone) slamed into my poor little tent (I suspect a child with a good arm) and got on the water as soon as I could. It was another fantastic day and I decided there is no reason to push it so I moved along at a reasonable but certainly not aggresive pace. At one point I was saddened to see a large sea turtle washed up, still completly intact except for a large slit down its shell, presumably from a ship. I also learned about a frustrating trap for paddlers here on the eastern shore. When attempting to follow the shore you have to be very careful of marshy bays that you have to back-track out of. For almost the entire length of the ICW I was able to get by using eyeball navigation and perhaps I picked up some bad habits but twice on saturday I got suckered into areas that proved to be dead ends. These impeneratrable marsh walls seem to appear out of nowhere bc they are so low and I still don't carry binocs. Its particulary frustrating to when, like Sat, there is a tail wind and you're crusing and then you have to turn around and paddle back into the wind to get around the jutting laing. and its particularly embarrising when you pass a good sized riviera and wave and say hi to all the shirtless dudes and girls in bikinis and then 5 minutes later you are paddling back in the other direction. I don't know if that makes sense or not to you all but regardless its something I'm going to be more careful of.

Ok, and then the day got interesting. The plan that I had made in my head was to set my self up for a nice, straight-shot open water crossing to Smith Isl on Sunday so I stopped for the night at the tip of IIIIIIIIIIIIIIii so that I wouldn't end up paddling FARTHER from Smith. The little spit of land I selected wasn't like the ideal camp spot but I could have been fine, I've definitely stayed in stranger places along the way. Well it wasn't until I had finished cooking dinner and getting ready to through up the tent right at dusk did I hear over the weather radio that there was a rapidly growing storm that was going to be headed directly for me. I was being stubborn maybe but I was very reluctant to paddle somewhere "safer" so I decided just to hunker down and ride it out. Well it was only like 1.5 hours till high tide and I had at least 10 feet of sand between me and the water so I figured it could be close but I would be fine. I positioned the boate inbetween my tent and the water thinking that might help a little if the water did actually rise. It did, and my little breakwall didn't help. First the storm brought strong winds which pulled out most of my stakes - they don't tend to hold very well in sand - and lots of cloud to cloud lightning. The winds filled up my tent with pounds of sand and put a nice coating on EVERYTHING. I was sure that my tent was going to blow away with me in it. Then as it began to rain the lightning began to struck the ground/water. I'm not one that gets nervous in storms and have never really been worried about lightning but my tent being the highest thing in a large sourounding area I got a little anxious. I wasn't sure whether aluminum tent poles attract lightning or not but I felt pretty sure that I was going to get struck. And then my tent gets smacked by my boat. The water had already risen high enough to move it about 4 feet up the beach and hit my feet (yes, it was tied to something so it couldn't float off). I moved my tent back as far as I could which was not much farther and got back inside right as the rain began to pound. It was almost midnight and I was exhausted so despite all this excitment and my nervousness I fell asleep. I woke up a few hours later and the storm had mostly passed it was just raining lightly and I felt very fortunate. It was without a doubt the worst weather I have had yet - I cant remember ever seeing so much lighning associated with one storm.


Wow this is a long update already and there's still 2 more days to catch up on. Its funny, I'm here on Smith Isl and a very similar storm is coming through as I type this. Tis the season I guess. I'm glad I'm in the safety of a house this time. I was warned that we might loose power and I don't want this long update to be lost so the second half of this update will come once the storm