 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...
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 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.  I’d expected Oyster Landing to be crowded on the high tide Saturday morning of a holiday weekend, but we had the place pretty much to ourselves save for a few kayak fishermen. A local and fun family of 7 joined me for a salt marsh loop, and our little local celebrity bald eagle was certainly in good form. It perched on a loblolly pine where we rounded the corner by the state park boardwalk and flew right over us, as if showing off.
Other marsh birds—ospreys, egrets, herons, gulls—graced the blue sky with their presence, and all was going swimmingly until one of the young men went swimming—my first tip-over in a while! I made the classic mistake of getting out of my guide boat to help him in, and I cut my legs on the sharp oysters when I sunk to my knees in pluff mud. But nothing too bad, nothing that would spoil what was otherwise another beautiful day here on the waters of the Carolina coast.  A sweet family of four from Chapel Hill joined me for an early salt marsh excursion out of Oyster Landing. The day was calm and fair, neither cool nor warm, and the tide was high, just beginning to crest, as we cut across the oyster flats and beheld the cormorants flexing on the pilings. The marsh grass was greening at the shoots, pushing the old brown grass into the water, and you could see the filmy detritus on the surface. I reached down in the cold water and extracted an oyster to show them our keystone species, and we turned around with the tide, scaring off the birds on the old nature center dock, the cormorants taking labored flight, the pelican just chilling. Back at the landing, a bald eagle flew above us, and I extracted a baby stone crab from the water, too, before heading off to the river.  The second of the day’s doubleheader proved doubly delightful as a family of four from downtown Philadelphia joined me on the river. The eighth-grader Lil wrote fantasy books and sung in the girls’ choir, and Shay had an adorable and toothy second-grade grin. Their parents were equally as cool, and we chatted in the way of old friend. We paddled upriver and took the Vaux Creek “lollipop” route and had enough time to jump onto the island for a quick peek at the old bricks and the Carolina bay and the longleaf pine forest. A swallowtail kite sublimely graced our presence on the big water back home, swooping in low and close to us, circling with its iconic tail and feeding on the wing. We saw no alligators nor any snakes, despite the day warming into what you could call heat, not to mention Shay’s curiosity in both species. A wind kicked up, but we had timed the tide as perfectly as possible, and we sprinted towards the finish after coming out from the “super-secret route.”
 The morning started cold as we launched from the cypress shadows of Wachesaw Landing, but the sun warmed us up as soon as we hit the big open water of the river. I had two groups this fine mid-March day for a Sandy Island trip—a family of four from Greenville, and a couple down here vacationing from P.A.—pleasant and curious and wonderful people, all.
Spring showed itself in the greening buds, and the swamp azalea pinking the banks, and the great blue herons nesting in their rookery high in the canopy. A shrieking osprey swooped down and caught a fish, as if giving us the Nat Geo special. In the back creeks, a few songbirds flittered, and the wild rice, still golden, swayed in a cool breeze. On our walk on the island, we saw pig and deer tracks, the pitcher plants just beginning to green a little for spring. Vireos and cardinals and chickadees punctuated the day with their songs, and on the way back, I found a handsome wild turkey feather in the river. We made our way through the little secret path in the grass and paddled in the open air on the big water back home, quietly and reverently at first, then chatting away like old friends. What a time, as they say, to be alive.  The brothers John (a philosophy professor) and James (a retired English professor)—my tribe!—brought their families for a two-hour tour that had us launching just as the heavy fog lifted like a veil on the river, and the day showed its gorgeous face. Three osprey cross-stitched the blue sky, and above them, five turkey buzzards. I was reminded of a line in John Graves’ paddling book Goodbye to a River: “A sky without buzzards seems empty to me.”
The kids were full of energy and inquisitiveness, and as we made our way through the rice canal, I heard a wild pig grunt in the wild rice and take off through the mud. Sadly, no reptiles today other than the sunning turtles, but we timed the tide perfectly, paddling up White Creek just as the tide was beginning to ebb, and the current offered little to no resistance. The landscape still had not burst into spring’s greens just yet, but we saw a pair of herons in their rookery when we got back to the big water, where we rode the outgoing tide over the waves of a boat wake, and then right on time to the landing. The conversation was, as to be expected, literary and philosophical, and I was delighted when the whole family burst out into an impromptu song about their dried mango snacks. Good folks, good weather, good water...great day.  Three solo paddlers from New England—Wayne from New Hampshire, Mary from Vermont, and Phyllis from Greenville by way of Massachusetts—came together as one, for one of the best River Reader trips in a long time.
The mid-February day turned sunny and blue as we crossed the river and took, in a change of last-minute heart, the long way to Sandy Island by way of Cowhouse Creek and the rice canals. No wind tickled the rice, and the river was as calm as the river can be. Two red cardinals provided something of a color spark for a day otherwise birdless. In White Creek we rode the last of the incoming tide, chatting idly in the way of fellow kayakers about our various lives, then turned into Vaux Creek for gorgeous swimming sunlight. On the island, on our hike, Mary found a buck’s antlers (four points!), and the longleaf pinecones were closed up in anticipation of the week's coming rain. We found two small yellow pitcher plants fresh and green among the winter's decay, and we heard pigs squealing and grunting at the edge of the rice fields when we got back to the dock. Then a big black pig swimming--fast as hell!--across the creek! We fought a little headwind on the way back, but we dug in and kept quiet in our thoughts until we reached the blue heron rookery. We noticed that the birds had returned and were building their nests--twigs in their beaks--and then an osprey cut across the sky to remind us that the river is never truly birdless.  The new and third River Reader season finally began on Valentine's Day with an afternoon double-header. First it was a noon river tour, and four young men--one in college, three others just graduated and down here for the federal holiday weekend--joined me for a two-hour loop. They wanted, they said, to see the Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge. And so we made our way downriver on the outgoing tide, everything in winter browns and grays but only just--you could sense it--about to burst into the greens of spring. We turned off-river and made our way through Buckskin Creek, our kayaks and a few holly berries the only touch of bright color in the entire landscape. A bald eagle soared above us--the first any of the group had ever seen in the wild--but not much else. Still, the day was warm and bright, the water cold and brown, the whole two hours fine and pleasant. One of the young men said, "I always say, 'South Carolina is where God goes to retire.'" And we all had to nod and amen him.  A few hours later, I found myself in the salt marsh with four wonderful women from my hometown. The afternoon wind whipped up the slightest nip, but the sky overhead was wide, the clouds wispy, and the light slanted with a particular kind of coastal clarity. The water was calm and very clear--you could see right through it with polarized lenses--and the incoming tide didn't put up much of a fight for the first ten minutes we paddled against it.
An oystercatcher worked the last little oysterbeds sticking up above the surface like a sentence, and an osprey carved the sky at the upper end of Oaks Creek. We followed the crab buoys and had just--just!--enough water to glide over the oysters as we rounded the bend under the eagle's nest. And then--as if returning from the river earlier--we heard the unmistakable chatter of the bird itself, and looked up to see a bald eagle soaring above. ~ All in all, I'd say, the world gave us quite the love letter on Valentine's Day. |
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May 2026
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