 I plucked a swamp rose and passed the flower around—to both groups, a couple from Colorado, and a local family of four—because TIL (“Today I learned”) that swamp roses are as fragrant as any rose. So, from now on, we will stop to smell the roses on River Reader trips when they are in bloom. And as we did so, a gator swam past. Terror and beauty, I joked.
This was another calm water, calm weather day with good people. What more, I often say, can you ask for? Well, a large Atlantic sturgeon leapt from the river, achieving a an aerial height of, I’d guess, four feet.
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 Kentucky people are generally, I’ve found, good people. And this group from Kentucky was my kind of people. They’d gone with me before in the salt marsh, a few years back, but this time it was river time. I decided to take the scenic route to the island. We went down Cow House and cut through the canal with the white mallows in big full bloom. A small wind tickled the wild rice.
The water was calm and pleasant in White Creek, with one small gator, and in Vaux Creek, too, despite having turned towards ebb. On the island, everything seemed sluggish and shy-- Even the pitcher plants were bent down, their tubes filled with the recent rain. Our group, though, was cheerful, talking in the way of old friends. On the way home, as the current was ripping, we saw in the channel marker nest two, osprey fledglings, curious and golden-eyed.  Sunrise on the river is where it’s at. I’m telling you. The water was calm, the light was gorgeous, and we had the river to ourselves. Well, except for the sturgeon leaping five feet out of the water, and the osprey circling and dive-bombing over and over again for a fish, and the alligator heads sinking under, and the swallowtail kite soaring above, and the yellow-bellied sliders popping up, and the light breeze fluttering the swamp roses, and the anhinga taking flight, and the herons croaking in their rookeries, and the obedient plants and pickerelweed blooming purply among the morning. Otherwise, it was just me and this kind, interesting, and interested family of four from Maryland. I wish I could start every morning like this morning.
 A family from eastern NC called to see if they could hop on the Sandy Island tour, and I decided to go for it--even though it was a last-hour booking--and once again, I was super glad I did because they were awesome. A sturgeon jumped in sunlight right when we got on the river, and the flooding tide scooted us right along upriver. We saw a big brown water snake in the crook of a cypress tree, wrapped around a knee. Herons in the rookery. Ospreys on the wing. Baby gators in the back creeks. On the island, we saw turkey tracks on the road and redheaded woodpeckers flying from pine to pine. The yellow pitcher plants leaned over, their tubes filled with rain. One velvet ant crawled across the soft sand of the road. Andrew, who works in historical construction and renovation, assessed the bricks in the rubble pile and concluded they were modern. He could see an oil sheen on the bricks, and the mortar was a clue, too. Back in the kayaks, a light rain cooled us off, and we crossed the river after the canal and returned on river left. We caught a current by the shoreline, and a little tailwind, and I noticed another rookery I'd never seen before, the herons just as cranky. This ancient river never gets old.
 Dolphins! In the river! A pod of four spouting beside our kayaks a little upriver from the landing...a Memorial Day treat for Donna, a repeat customer, and her crew of three, one of whom was an ornithologist, all of whom were cool. Swamp rose in good bloom, herons and osprey on display. We had the river unbelievably all to ourselves on this morning that started overcast and ended sunny. No gators or snakes, but a few sunning turtles and lots of water gliders, dragonflies, prothonotary warblers, and a single red cardinal blotching red the swamp. We made it into Vaux Creek just as the tide turned, and got out on the island for a hike with white-tailed deer running through the forest. Yellow pitcher plants, turkey tracks, songbirds, oh my. On the way back the boat traffic had picked up, but we raced home safely along the shoreline with the tide pushing us as though the Waccamaw were a lazy river. The landing was packed with the holiday weekend boaters blasting their engines and music, but we got out safely and all the wiser for yet another terrific River Reader trip.
 I was beginning to forget this was work. I had the sneaking suspicion I was stealing people’s money. That I had somehow cheated the system to be able to do what I do. And for the first one hour and forty-five minutes of our two-hour river tour today, with Tom and Tammy from West Virginia—a damn cool couple just back from a trip to Greece—everything was pretty damn perfect. We took the falling tide down Cow House Creek as egrets and osprey took flight. We returned to the river and then up the side creek that I call Little Gator Creek, where sure enough little gators swam. Yellow-crowned night herons stalked the mud flats, too, and a six-foot alligator was sunbathing on the banks as we rounded into White Creek. Tammy and Tom and I talked of travel and family and kayaking—the conversation flowing freely on the open water—but I was beginning to worry about the water levels in the canal. Would we have enough water to make it through?
Long story short: we did not. I had checked the tide charts but had neglected to account for the drought. We didn’t have enough water in the canal to ensure free and easy passage, even though the tidal range was, well, supposedly within my range. I had to get out. I had to heave. I had to ho. I had to crawl on my belly in the mud like an alligator. I had to push. I had to pull. I sank up to my thighs with every step. So much for the gym this afternoon. By the time I got them into enough water where they could push-pole the rest of the way, I was panting like a pup. Thankfully, they were cool and understanding and patient. We agreed it was a pretty good story to tell. Which is all I’m ever after anyways. And even though today’s tour turned into work, and I’m plumb wore out, and it’ll take two washes the get the mud off my clothes and gear, I wouldn’t trade this job for any job in the world.  Laurel and Josh from just outside of Pittsburgh and I crossed the river on a beautiful spring day and immediately saw a turtle basking and a brown water snake swimming, then wrap itself around a piece of driftwood on the far shore. An anhinga kept poking its head up in the river lilies right beside our kayaks as we made our way upriver. Herons in the nests, turtles on the log, ospreys in the air. In the back creeks the cutgrass sagged heavy with its seed heads, and a few spider lilies bloomed. On the island, redheaded woodpeckers flew from pine to pine, and the pitcher plants were bright green in their new growth. Josh was an electrician and gently corrected me on the powerline situation on the island (not two-phase but one-phase split in two...I think!). We crossed the river immediately after the cut and fought a headwind that slowed us down, but made for a nice air-conditioning as the day warmed up. What to say other than it was pretty damn perfect, once again...
 This morning, the first of May, started cold enough for a beanie and long sleeves as a jovial couple from Shelby, NC—by way of Cape Cod—entrusted me with taking them on a two-hour river tour. Wind gusted about, but the sun broke through just as we launched and crossed towards Cow House Creek. I duly noted that, should I ever get up to Cape Cod, I must try the fried clams at a strip mall hole-in-the-wall called Sir Cricket’s.
The rice canal today was gorgeous as ever, shadowed in deep spring, with a pileated woodpecker guiding me down it, in swoops and dips, then a pair of swallowtail kites coasting and circling. In White Creek, prothonotary warblers bothered the branches of stout dogwoods, and one posed preening for us above a yellow-budding arrow-shaped river lily—each little yellow thing like a distorted reflection of the other. In the big water I found a big blue catfish hooked on a limb line below the blue heron rookery. Big and blue—that might be one way to describe the day as a whole—which was another great day out on the Waccamaw.  Shelley (named after the English poet), who had been with me before three years ago in the salt marsh, and her friend Cheryl, down from the outskirts of D.C., braved the gusty cold winds of late April and made their way with me on a two-hour river tour. We had *just* enough water in the rice canal, although had to use our paddles as push poles at one point over the mud hump. (I had made the booking time while looking at the salt marsh tides, apparently.)
We passed the blue irises in bloom, up White Creek where one little gator sunk under and two prothonotary warblers—the first I’d seen this spring—flittered about. We rounded the corner to the big river, and the wind kicked up, and big yachts threw medium-sized wakes, then eddied in the river lilies beneath the heron rookery, and crossed to the other side as ospreys circled overhead. Shelley and Cheryl were readers—we all three shared a love of the Knoxville novelist and poet James Agee—and today they were river readers—the best kind, which is to say, kind and interested and interesting. And the sky was a cloudless deep blue, and the leaves on the trees were springing in fresh green.  I took a group of six really good dudes in their 60’s—down here for a reunion weekend from all over the country (Boston, Detroit, Philly, Raleigh, and Chicago)—out to Sandy Island this Saturday morning. I liked these guys—they were active, interested, interesting, convivial, kind, successful, easy-going. It’s hard to find that group dynamic with a half-dozen men anywhere in our country, at any age, and I knew it would be a good trip from the get-go.
One in their reunion had to cancel at the last minute, so we had an extra kayak. The problem was, right when we shoved off into the river, I noticed there wasn’t the extra kayak to be found. I counted in my head, then recounted. I was, by God, missing a kayak. My newest one, too! Had someone stolen it while I went to park? No, I reasoned, the tide must have come in under the dock and lifted it from the grass and taken it out to the river like a ghost boat. I found it, thank God, tethered to the other side of the public dock by a Good Samaritan, and I figured it was karma for helping another guy with his runaway boat a few weeks ago. But I decided to tow the empty boat behind me the whole way on the lollipop route, since we were already out on the river, and I didn't want to leave it alone at the landing. Thus, I towed a ghost today. With a strong incoming tide behind us, we sped upriver and saw the first snake of the season, a brown water snake coiled in my secret but surefire spot. The great blue herons posed regally in their high nests above blooming lilies as the day warmed into true heat. On the island, not much moved in the stillness, and my old landmark for the pitcher plants—what I called the “keyhole stump”—had fallen. But we hiked up the sand rim and beheld the Carolina bay from above, then made our way back to the kayaks to finish another great trip on a great day with great people. |
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July 2026
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