Outer Banks, Ferries, and Good Eats (Part 3)

On Monday morning, I missed an exit returning the rental car, and got to the airport just one minute before the car was due to be returned. I showed the guy where the car had been bumped, and he said not to worry about it. Whew! He also told me that Enterprise still gives a half-hour grace for returns, and that I could return the car to a neighborhood rental location for no extra charge. That way I could get a free ride back to the motel. God is so good! It still was stressful though since his directions to the other rental location just got me to the right general area . . . where I did not see any Enterprise signs at first.

The rest of the week was mainly occupied with work, of course. But I did eventually make time during a lunch break to ride the passenger ferry across the Elizabeth River and back. The dock was within about a block of the conference site. This was my first ride on a paddlewheel boat. Since it was covered by my 7-day bus pass, I didn't have to pay a fare either!

After the nasty nor'easter weather of the weekend, most of the week had great weather for my commutes back and forth on the bus. Of course the buses offered a wide cross-section of fellow passengers, everything from gangsta types to an evangelist and college students and old folks and cute little kids. Generally the rides were pleasant and timely, although there was one Third World-like experience where the connecting bus apparently ran out of gas at the transfer stop. Obviously somebody really messed up to let that happen.

Outer Banks, Ferries, and Good Eats (Day 2)

Although the wind was strong enough to blow some small branches down, I had a nice dry night. I headed into Washington and then east toward the Outer Banks, to see how far I could get before church time. It was interesting to discover that Washington, NC was the first city to be named for George Washington. It was close to 9:30 by the time I got to Swanquarter, so I started looking for churches. No one was at the Baptist church yet and there was only one car so far at the Christian church. So I killed a little time looking around the waterfront and watching the ferry come in. By this point, a couple more cars had shown up at the Christian church, so I decided to give it a try.



After a good "whole church" Sunday school class, the people started pouring in. By God's grace, I just happened to be there on the day of their once a year homecoming/reunion service. So the church of maybe 20 or so mostly elderly members filled up with about 100 people. It was an interesting and enjoyable worship service, with the pastor holding firmly to the Word in spite of the discouraging size of the church. I was surprised to find out that this "Christian" church is actually associated with the Churches of Christ, and yet that they also included some wonderful non-acappello bluegrass for special music. The group is called the Believers Trio, although only two were present. Since it was homecoming day, of course I was encouraged to stick around for dinner on the grounds. It was nice not only to get bunches of wonderful free food, but also to get to know some folks. In particular, I talked a good bit with "J.D.". He was one of the out of town visitors who comes every year to homecoming at the church through his wife's connection. He told me he's active in a Missionary Baptist church, and that his initials stand for "Junk Dealer". It never ceases to amaze me how God has so often provided these opportunities since I decided to trust Him that I could travel without eating out at restaurants on Sunday.

I still had a long drive to get to the Outer Banks. I stopped briefly at Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge along the way. After many miles of flat and fairly monotonous driving, I was surprised to see a sign for "Stumpy Point Ferry". Not only was I not aware of any ferry in the area, I like the name too! I drove down to look and was stopped by a gate that said "State property. No trespassing." That left me scratching my head a bit, but I resolved to figure it out once I got access to the all-knowing Google. What I discovered is that there is an emergency evacuation ferry between Rodanthe and Stumpy Point to help with getting people off the Outer Banks before a hurricane.

Finally, I got out to Nags Head and exposure to the misty winds of an early nor'easter. The waves on the open Atlantic were pretty impressive and frothy at
Coquina Beach. Of course, I had to think about whether they would be passable by kayak. There seemed to be gaps where it would be possible to get out without being pummeled by a ten foot breaker, but it's always really hard to judge waves from a distance. I also made a sidetrip over to see the Bodie Island Lighthouse. Going further south into Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, I reluctantly decided to turn back. Even at low tide there was still water over the road in many places. Not knowing how deep or salty the water would get and remembering that I was in a little tiny Rio rental car, I opted for the responsible backtrack to the north.





The north side of Nags Head was a lot more commercial/residential/touristy. The Wright Brothers Memorial at Kitty Hawk was closed up by the time I got there, but I did get to go into Jockey Ridge State Park for a look. They claim it's the highest sand dunes in the eastern U.S. and a popular place for hanggliding. I don't think anybody was hanggliding today, but it's definitely a mighty big pile of sand. I took a few pictures and then headed on up to Norfolk.

The temperature was in the low 40s, with a wet wind chill, for most of the afternoon. But the only thing to dampen my spirits heading up to my motel was a sign shortly after crossing the Virginia line. "Last exit before toll road". What?! I had been down this way several years ago and did not remember there being a toll road. I quickly turned off and started trying to figure out what to do. Of course I couldn't find a decent place to pull over and look over my map (which didn't show a toll road anyway). I found where the "Business" version of the road was and continued blindly northward, wondering if it would disappear or change names or eventually push me onto the toll road anyway. When I came to a confusing intersection, I angled back toward the highway, discovered that it was now toll-free, and resumed my journey to Motel 6. Actually, I still managed to miss an exit before settling into my home away from home and gradually shifting mental gears to think of the next day's conference.

Outer Banks, Ferries, and Good Eats (Day 1)

It had been several months since I had flown on business. So the National Weather Association conference in Norfolk, VA was a nice chance to get away. Of course, there was also some stress in getting my presentations together. But let's not talk about that for now.

Flying in as usual on the Saturday before the main conference, I was looking forward to seeing the Outer Banks of North Carolina and checking out some ferries. Things got kind of crazy before I even left Jackson.

I realized as I was waiting for my flight that I had forgotten to pack a belt and didn't know for sure if the pants I had packed were skinny enough to be "self-supporting". So I called my wife to see if she could rush back to the airport with my belt in time before my flight. Luckily the TSA folks were cooperative about her passing the belt through the X-ray machine to me. Unfortunately, she had a tire blow out on the van as she was leaving the airport. So wife and kids all got to sit on the side of the road at 6 AM watching the sunrise until AAA could get someone out to change the tire. I was very relieved on my next phone contact to find out that they all enjoyed the experience (as much as could be hoped for) and I wasn't in the doghouse for getting them into the mess.

Once in Norfolk, I made a look at where my motel for the week and Kinko's were, before grabbing some lunch at Hardee's. As I was eating, I was also observing the people around me and struggling with my Christian witness. The guy at the next table over particularly caught my attention. As he got up to leave, I was torn between regret at my lack of faith and wondering if I was off the hook now. But he didn't leave. He turned to me and asked if I was a Christian! When I said yes, he said "I thought you were. Sometimes you can just tell." Huh? Well, we spent the next half-hour or so talking about his walk of faith after being saved just a couple years ago. Lots of blessings. Please pray for Forest as he continues seeking to serve the Lord. Actually, I was impressed throughout my visit with how visibly Christian the area is.

After some minor challenges in finding where to buy a 7-day bus pass downtown, I headed southwest into North Carolina to look for some ferries. I was not able to reach the small river ferries that I was most interested in, thanks to the annoying fine print in the rental car contract forbidding me to go on unpaved roads. I got photos of the signs and considered walking the remaining distance, but there was not a suitable place to leave the car. Argh. I did a little better when I got down to the Bayview-Aurora ferry across the broad tidal Pamlico River. I caught the last ferry of the day at 7:30 (drastically reduced schedule due to budget cuts) and began the challenge of finding a place for the night.



I was afraid I couldn't make it around to Goose Creek State Park before the campground gate closed for the night, and I hadn't thought to bring a AAA CampBook with me. So I drove toward Washington with my eyes open for campgrounds. When I saw a sign for a campground/resort near Chocowinity, I figured I'd better give it a try. It turned out to be a lot bigger, fancier kind of place than I would normally bother with, but I kept thinking of that "bird in the hand" business. So I settled for having to pay thirty bucks as the one and only tent camper among hundreds of RVs, mobile homes, and yachts. The security guy kindly escorted me to a site and shared about how God had protected him and his church in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina. And then . . . he put his truck in the wrong gear and backed into my rental car. Ouch. Amazingly, there was only a little bit of paint lost from the front license plate area. But you just never know how picky rental agencies will be when you return the car, and of course I didn't bother with any supplemental insurance. At least I had a nice comfy place to settle in for the night and wonder what Sunday would bring.

Horn Island (Day 2)

After a decent night of sleep in spite of the wind, I got myself up just early enough to get a nice view of the sunrise. I didn't exactly rush to get going though, partly because I wanted to take my time to consider more how best to pack the kayak. And it's kind of challenging to fold up a tent and ground cloth by myself with the wind blowing. Not to mention the fact that it was just such a magical place to be and to reflect on God's will for me.



Horn Island sunrise



Clear water on the Gulf side of Horn Island

So it was past 10:00 when I finally shoved off in the kayak. The wind was blowing pretty good out of the east-northeast and it looked like there would be plenty of whitecaps over the Sound. I had hoped to paddle west a ways along the north shore of Horn Island to look around before heading for the mainland. But I decided that wouldn't be the most prudent approach since it looked like I was gonna have a tougher workout on my return. Not to mention the fact that I would still have the 3 1/2 hour drive back to Jackson after getting back to the boat ramp.

The paddle back did turn out to be somewhat brutal. To start with, I discovered that I had absolutely no sunscreen left, so I just had to accept that I was gonna get burned (on my hands at least). Since it's normally safer and easier to be oriented nearly perpendicular to the waves and I wanted to avoid being blown very much to the west, I tried to head more northeasterly instead of north on my way up to Round Island. As the wind intensified over the open waters though, whitecaps were sometimes breaking off the tops of three foot waves out of the east. None of the waves were scary enough to give me any real concerns, but it was plenty annoying to spend so much time paddling eastward when I wanted to go north! Between gusts I could angle more to the north while keeping a careful eye for changes in the waves. I discovered that there were two types of waves that I didn't get along so good with. I called them "sneakers" and "smackers". The sneakers were ones that would surprise me by coming out of a different direction or breaking with little warning. The smackers came from abeam to smack against the side of the kayak and splash over the cockpit. I was really wishing for a more waterproof neoprene sprayskirt, although very thankful for the comfortable water temperature. Unfortunately I didn't think I should take a chance to try to photograph the conditions. A later check of wind observations from Petit Bois Island indicated that the winds were gusting at over 20 kt. A comparison with a couple versions of the Beaufort wind scale in some kayaking books implied that the winds may have approached 30 kt at times, since there were very definite streaks of spray-foam on the sea.

It was a nice relief when I finally set foot on Round Island. The wind was still blowing like crazy, but I was good and ready to eat some lunch. I knew I still had some pretty tough paddling ahead, although I'd decided to scoot around the west side of the island to have a nice break from the rough conditions. Even walking around, I felt about like I would blow away. I discovered though that I could talk decently on the cell phone by facing away from the wind with the phone inside the hood of my jacket. The paddle along the west side of the island was amazingly tranquil, with the wind almost seeming calm at one point. Once I got into the unsheltered waters between Round Island and Singing River Island though, it was as rough as ever. The waves may not have been quite as high, but were steeper thanks to the shallow waters. And now my target was northeast instead of just north. After what seemed like too long of a paddle (and with the wind shifting slightly south of east), I decided that I was basically upwind of Singing River Island and made a turn to surf my way in towards its shore. After landing, I unfortunately confirmed my suspicion that I ended up on the southwest tip of the island instead of the southeast. I also discovered that the kayak seemed excessively heavy in spite of pumping water out of the cockpit. Either I'd acquired some unwanted water in the stern compartment, or I was just too worn out. In any case, I couldn't bring myself to consider pumping out the tightly packed compartment.



View from Round Island toward Bayou Casotte industrial area



Calm waters on the west side of Round Island


About the only "nice" thing about my remaining battle with the wind was that at least I was close enough to land so that I could see that I was (gradually) making progress. After crossing the Pascagoula ship channel, I had my one case where I was significantly concerned about losing control. I had just watched a tugboat go past and figured I was pretty much home free, with the wind at my back. And then I noticed the wake from the tugboat bearing down on me. It looked like it would build into about a five foot breaking wave, and there was no way for me to get turned the right way in time. And yet somehow it just passed right underneath me without any trouble. Thank you, Lord! Besides the wind and waves, the other big difference on today's paddle was the boat traffic that I saw. Crossing between Horn and Round Islands, I'd seen a big barge heading east on the Intracoastal Waterway. And there was an odd sort of construction barge that I watched come from near Gautier, pass to the north of Round Island, and then turn up toward Pascagoula.

When I hauled myself out at Lake Yazoo around four o'clock, I found that I did have a lot of water in the stern of the kayak and a very soaked sleeping bag. Good thing I wouldn't be needing it! Driving back to Jackson, my muscles were in total rebellion. With a few stops along the way, it was past 10:00 when I finally got home. I was amazed the next morning to find that I did not have any muscle pain at all. That definitely had to be a God thing! However I did have an incredible sun and wind burn on my hands. My hands were so swollen that Nancy claimed they were double their normal size. Frequent slatherings of aloe vera though throughout the week resulted in a surprising recovery, considering how bad it initially looked.



Pascagoula shipyards, from entrance to Lake Yazoo

Spring Equinox on Horn Island (Day 1)

It finally occurred to me that I'm many months behind on paddling trips to report about. This last weekend was one that I've wanted to do for quite a while. I'll try to start catching up on the past trips soon too.

As part of my training for this summer's Acadian Coast PrayerPaddle, I've tried to find time to get down to the Mississippi coast for some salt water kayaking. Horn Island has long been on the agenda since it's the most easily accessible of the barrier islands in the state. About nine miles south of Pascagoula, it's a wilderness island within Gulf Islands National Seashore. It offers the opportunity for paddling across a good bit of open water and the chance to practice going through the surf zone on the Gulf of Mexico side of the island. Since there are two other smaller islands along the way (Singing River Island and Round Island), the longest stretch between land is actually only about five miles. It also requires crossing two shipping channels.

I had hoped to go out to Horn back in December, but didn't since I wasn't able to find someone to go with me and it turned out a bit on the windy side and I also ended up with less time than I'd hoped for. So at the end of Spring Break I drove down to Pascagoula under beautiful weather. I felt more confident about going solo since I had a VHF marine radio and the water had warmed up to the upper 60s.


Loading up the gear at entrance to Lake Yazoo



I guess it was sometime around 11 am when I got on the water. There was a bit of a breeze (less than 10 kt) out of the north, which I figured would generally be a help. Although the wind picked up a bit, it was a nice ride over to my lunch break on Round Island. It was nice to see that there was still something left of the old lighthouse. As I shoved off southward to the east end of Horn Island, it was hard to make out exactly where I was headed to, but I knew it would get clearer as I got closer. Because of a break in the sand dunes, the easternmost part of the island really appears to be a separate island from a distance. It wasn't until I got to a couple miles offshore that I could clearly see the connection. Again I made good time on the crossing, and was surprised at how few boats were on the water.




Ruins of Round Island Lighthouse



Southeast side of Round Island



Looking east along the north shore of Horn Island


Upon landing on Horn, I took a break to look around and walk across the washed-over sand to the Gulf side. It was really a beautiful amazing place. So much sand! After a while I figured that I'd better inspect for waterlogged gear and then decide about doing more paddling. I was a bit annoyed to find that my leaking rear bulkhead had resulted in a wet tent. But with the wind blowing, I thought that I could dry it out pretty good if I went ahead and got it set up. So I set up camp a little after 4:00, before paddling around to the Gulf side to try out the kayak in the surf (about 2 to 3 feet). Surf landing and launching was an interesting and fun experience, but I knew that I didn't have a lot of time for playing around. While paddling just outside the breakers, I got a slight scare from a big big fish jumping behind me. Also saw some dolphins, but not close enough for decent pictures. A couple other surprises on the island were a big navigation buoy that had washed ashore and an impressive amount of smoke coming off the (presumably) prescribed fires on the mainland, probably in Misssissippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge.



East end of Horn Island



Smoke from fires on the mainland



View across Mississippi Sound to Round Island and Pascagoula



Surf on Gulf of Mexico side of Horn Island



Navigation buoy washed ashore on Horn Island




East end of Horn Island



Pond on Horn Island



Small crab in pond



Dunes on Horn Island



Horseshoe crab

Arriving back at camp, I scrounged up some driftwood for a fire, broke off a piece of firestarter that I'd been carrying around for nearly 20 years, and had a nice little fire going with the first match that would light. (The matches were also ancient.) I bragged to my wife on the cell phone about the freeze-dried "barbecue chicken" that I was about to prepare. And then I found out how awful it was! But at least it did fill my belly pretty good. During the evening, the weak sea breeze that had finally kicked in shortly before sunset suddenly was replaced by a strengthened northerly wind that threatened to tear apart the tent's rainfly. Since there was zero chance of rain, I removed it and settled down to try to sleep amid the noisy flapping of the wind.



Campsite on Horn Island



Horn Island sunset



Campfire on Horn Island

Another Ferry Accident in Bangladesh

Another ferry sinks on a river in Bangladesh after a collision. At least a couple dozen casualties.

Holidays and traveling

Although low gas prices definitely make traveling and adventuring more feasible lately, where I've gone has been more dictated by work and visiting family instead of just taking off somewhere. While out in Arizona a couple weeks ago for the annual conference of the American Meteorological Society, I managed to get out to some neat places. I also had some good visits with family in the Phoenix area and in Flagstaff.

Unlike the multiple snowstorms that my parents had while visiting in Flagstaff over Christmas, I had great weather the whole time. There was still lots of snow in most places above 5000 feet or so, but hardly a cloud in the sky and only a little bit of hard packed snow on the roads (the ones that were open of course). After a couple days trying to acclimate to the altitude, I made a dash up to the Grand Canyon for a long day-hike. Not as long as I would like of course; but I did manage to make it from Hermits Rest to Dripping Springs for the first time. Surprisingly I was able to do the 6 miles and about 5000 vertical feet in just about 6 1/2 hours, in spite of thinking that I was out of shape. And I didn't even hurt too terribly the next day! The trails were the iciest that I've seen them, but no problem as long as I had my in-step crampons on. And there was hardly anyone on the trail. A great place to be alone with God and to marvel at His creation.

The other little adventure that I fit in was to go through Jerome on the way back down to Phoenix. I'd never been over that way, and was really impressed at how the town really does pretty much hang on the side of the mountain. The drive over Mingus Mountain was an impressive winding road, although my enjoyment was tempered a bit when I realized that my gas was well under a quarter tank and there wouldn't be any gas stations until I got close to Prescott. I not only made to Prescott Valley all right, but also got a pretty good deal on gas.

Before going to Jerome, I took a short hike up in Fay Canyon, west of Sedona. I missed the side trail up to Fay Canyon Arch at first (really more of a natural bridge), so I got a nice work-out and enjoyed the beautiful Red Rocks. I also spent some time at Tuzigoot National Monument. In some ways the museum was more impressive as a window on the lives of people from the pre-1400 Sinagua culture than the actual ruins. It's hard sometimes to realize that these were real live people so long ago, loved by God and as lost without Him as anyone else.

A whole other set of adventures was my commuting between my uncle's home in Sun City and the conference in downtown Phoenix. The new light rail was great, but didn't go anywhere near Sun City. So I had some experiences with the city bus system, mostly very good experiences. But the schedules did sometimes cause challenges for my needs. For me, it just enhanced my enjoyment of the week and helped me clear my mind from the long days of work.