K&E's Spring 2000 Outer Banks Kayak Trip

The Outer Banks is our first attempt at an "active" vacation, and except for the complete misery we rather liked it. We'd been doing a lot of kayaking at home in Santa Cruz (or at least wishing to kayak) and a flatwater kayak holiday sounded like fun. As long as we were flying east, we decided to stop an visit some freinds and it was easier to fly into Richmond, out of Raleigh-Durham and rent a car in between than to fly direct and arrange temporary transport.

Virginia

First, we visited Lee and Sharon, and cooked in their expansive kitchen. Lee was Eric's first professional boss and a dear freind, and who couldn't love Sharon? We bought them our favorite cookbook as a host gift and then made a complete disaster of the kitchen making fresh pasta. At least it tasted good.

D.C.

And we also took a day trip into Washington, D.C. Eric had never been and thought a day trip would cover it. We did manage to walk to all of the monuments and see the sights despite the intermittent pouring rain ,and we even found time to drag Eric Lipton away from his news desk for lunch and cynical DC chatter.

Outer Banks Kayaking Trip

We spent a week kayaking around the Outer Banks and the Albermarle Peninsula in North Carolina on a trip with the Nantahala Outdoor Center. We had two great guides, Kurt and Jimmy, and a small but good group of people to paddle around with for the week. Besides ourselves there were another couple, John and B from New Jersey and a brother and sister, Mike and Hanya from New York.

We set up camp at Pettigrew State Park, next to Lake Phelps, and took a week of day trips around the area. Unfortunately it rained the entire week. Even in Virginia they declared the weather was abnormally cold and wet for the time of year, but that didn't make us feel any drier. The National Weather Service became our bane and our in joke.

Camp

Camp was a series of three campsites, two to pitch our tents and one for the mess. The tarps strung over the tables look ridiculous but were absolutely necissary with all of the rain we got. Unfortunately the rain also meant we couldn't just hang our gear out to dry. We hung things on the tarp line, in the bathrooms, and in the van with the heater on to try to dry out life vests, booties, shirts and even wetsuits. The van developed a ripe smell over the week that can only be appreciated by people who love saltwater sports.

I'd also like to say that NOC provided us with the nicest gear: Wilderness Systems kayaks, Werner paddles, and Lotus vests. Very excellent.

The first day was spent paddling Lake Phelps to get a feel for our gear and so the guides could gage our skill. Part of that included a wet exit, which I dislike intensely, but we still can't roll. The easterners all declared that sea kayaks can't be rolled, which we found pretty funny, since all of the serious west coast kayakers roll their sea kayaks. After going back to camp for dry clothes, we went out for a paddle on the lake. Impatient to get in the water, Kristin tried to follow Jimmy off the bank and into the water, but her tail got hung up on the bank and she tipped over, into the mud. Ugh. So much for dry clothes.

Scuppernong River

The Scuppernog is a nice, lazy river on the peninsula. The first part of the paddle meandered through narrow channels overhung with greenery that occasionally meandered and crossed. The only stops on the Scuppernog were floating wooden platforms that could hold four, maybe five people before they began to submerge. The second of these platforms had a small clearing of dry land behind it, so it is where we stopped for lunch, everyone careful to keep the balance so that one end of the platform wouldn't swamp. In the clearing behind Kristin found poison ivy and learned that you can just wash off the oil in the water if you are quick, or with soap if you aren't.

After lunch the river opened up and so did the rain clouds. Instead of a nice paddle downriver, crossing from bank to bank with the turns, we paddled upwind and crosswind in a driving rain. We were soaked and miserable.

Alligator River

The Alligator River is part of a wildlife preserve and is less of a river than an estuary. The rain stayed mostly in the clouds and we enjoyed a nice paddle through wide bends and narrow passages, even over and through the reeds. We heard many different birds but were unable to spot any in our binoculars. This paddle included our only portage, since the water level was too high to go under a bridge. In the last photo, you can see Hanya attempting to slide under and the slight tilt of her boat that presages the flip just about to happen. Kristin also went under the bridge and made it though, but declared it difficult and stupid and the rest, including Eric, portaged over the bridge instead.

Lake Mattamuskeet

Lake Mattamuskeet is by far the most peculiar water we paddled, if not the most interesting. It is 18 miles long, 6 miles wide and averages only two feet deep. We put our paddles down frequently to gage the depth of the water and most of the time the peaty murk just covered the top of the blade. Not that we were dying to get out of they kayaks, as the bottom was very sticky mud. The only features of Lake Mattamuskeet are levies left over from drainage projects early in the century. It was down one of these canals that the group encountered a mosquito hatch and Kristin upheld her status as gear queen by being the only person with mosquito netting for her hat. Back out in the open lake, the stunted cypress trees that grow in the open water were full of Osprey nests and unsuspecting paddlers were driven away many times by angry parent hawks.

Cape Hatteras

On our one day actually on the outer banks we took a significant side trip to see Cape Hatteras, mostly because Kristin wanted to see the lighthouse that the Army Corps had moved a quarter mile inland. The lighthouse and facilities were still mostly closed, so all there was to see was the quarter mile swath of cleared ground and the remaining bits of foundation at the original location.

Pea Island

Pea Island is a wildlife preserve on the inside western edge of of the outer banks. It was a short, uneventful paddle with lots of bird sightings. Kristin decided she wasn't feeling well and napped in the van instead.

Merchant's Millpond

The last day of the trip was supposed to be along the waterfront of a town looking at pretty houses. But that is part of the Inn itinerary, and by the time we got there the fog would have lifted and that was half the point. So we decided to try a place Jimmy had found for our last afternoon paddle. John and B decided to head home and didn't join us for what was probably the best day of kayaking all week. It was almost sunny, it was swampy, it had wildlife, and it was fun. It was also Saturday and full of other weekend boaters. Bobbing buoys marked out trails through the trees and to a campsite that was the destination of a troup of Girl Scouts. Heading deeper into the pond, however, we saw snapping turtles sunning, cottonmouth snakes napping, rat snakes and too many other snakes to name. We even saw a beaver house. It was a cheerful end to a very wet week.

Coda

All photos taken with Fuji one-use and waterproof one-use cameras. Digital transfer by Kodak Picture CD.