 Three different groups booked for this afternoon excursion in the first fall air. The river was absolutely gorgeous. No birds, though, but also no boats, just a few yellow sun drop flowers. They all brought unique knowledge and energy, and we stayed remarkably compact. The tide was flooding fast. In Vaux I just drank it in--the cut grass, the wilting pickerel weed, the wild rice, the blue sky. On the island, not much unusual, but we marveled anew at the usual--pitcher plants, pig and turkey and bobcat tracks, high sand rims of Carolina bays. It was a rather classic River Reader Kayaking excursion, concluding with a leaping sturgeon!
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 Nick was a young and curious birder traveling solo from Ohio, and I was happy to take him paddling in the salt marsh. The wind was probably too strong for a kayak tour, but we braved it anyway and saw so many birds. We used the marsh grass and the high tide to our advantage, paddling over the spartina tips and taking the back way to the beach, which was filled with terns and gulls and oystercatchers and plovers and pelicans. I thought I saw one guy catch a fat flounder, but it turned out to be just his straw hat. The way home wasn't easy, but we were thankfully able to cut across the marsh, and I was glad for the adventure and the chance to give Nick an adventure, too. I told him I had traveled solo many times, and he reminded me that I will always take solo paddlers with River Reader Kayaking. It's in the DNA of the company.
 V-- had never been kayaking before, so I recommended a sunrise tour and took her out in the breezy flats, where we watched the sun rise over Garden City and turn the whole marsh a spectrum of gorgeous colors. I’d misread the tide charts (I’d checked the river, instead of marsh), so we fought a little outgoing current as we wound through the back mazes of marsh, but V—did great. She was a natural. Great egrets lifted in skies that were coral and periwinkle and cobalt, and mullet jumped and broke the surface. The weather was, if not cool, then definitely not as hot as it had been, and our paddle was truly great.
Afterwards, I met a man in bellbottoms playing his wooden flute in Morse Park. Every day is strange and beautiful, I remembered, only when you let it be. The blog got away from me during the month of August. I could blame the heat, the late summer lull, the fact I'm back in school, yada yada--but I was just lazy and forgetful. It happens.
Nevertheless! August was filled with so many great kayaking trips with so many great people. I still kept my log, so I can quote a fragment from each trip here, as a kind of round-up: 8/9 - No gators or snakes or even really birds, but a nice easy paddle through Buckskin Creek with good vibes and easy conversation. 8/11 - five-foot sturgeon leaping vertically out of the water right beside us at the end 8/17 - jellyfish floating through the creeks, egrets galore 8/18 - sunrise over the lone cedar tree on the strand 8/20 - A hermit crab on the banks, its furry legs sticking out of its shell. 8/27 - A fish surfacing in White Creek, cardinal flower in bloom, a woodpecker and a dove far off 9/1 - I picked up a small jellyfish that was not a cannonball, and I left for the river with a light sting on my hands. 9/1 - Up the river on the incoming tide we went, past a shrieking osprey in the channel marker, then cut across the river and into Vaux Creek, a day of lovely color and the first slightest detection, a small twinge, of fall. 9/3 - an otter surprised us at the mouth of Cow House Creek, and we watched it slip along the banks 9/5 - A baby gator posed in the duckweed |
AuthorHastings Hensel Archives
September 2026
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