Daily stats
Start: 6:00 AM - Hobucken, NC
Finish: 2:00 PM - Under HWY 94 Bridge
Time: 8:00
Daily dist: 34 miles
Total dist: 3000+ miles
Companions: None
Weather: Sunny with wind from SW at 15-20 mph (great tail wind)
Notes: Not much camping available on canal portion of ICW in this area
Start: 6:00 AM - Hobucken, NC
Finish: 2:00 PM - Under HWY 94 Bridge
Time: 8:00
Daily dist: 34 miles
Total dist: 3000+ miles
Companions: None
Weather: Sunny with wind from SW at 15-20 mph (great tail wind)
Notes: Not much camping available on canal portion of ICW in this area
Over the course of this trip I’ve established a few rules to take some of the guess work out of decision making. One of those rules is that within an about an hour of the planned end of the day, no amount of forward progress is worth passing up a good camp spot. On this day that rule saved my rear.
It was 2:00 and the end of my normal eight hour day so I started scanning for a place to camp. I had made great time with an amazing tail wind all day and was very tempted to stay on the water and put in a few more miles. However, in the canal portion of the ICW I was traveling I hadn’t seen a single piece of high campable land in almost 12 miles. The map showed similar topography for the next 12 miles or more which meant I could end up paddling another three hours before I saw high ground which was more than I really wanted to do. At this point I was on a concentrated search for something other than cypress knees and swamp grass on which to land my kayak for the night. As I passed under the Hwy 94 bridge (a tall flyover causeway like so many that have replaced draw bridges along the ICW) I spotted the remnants of the concrete embankment of the old draw bridge that once carried cars over the water at this spot. There was a sandy gap in the rocks at the waters edge where I could land my kayak and the land on top (in the old road bed) looked flat and grassy. So without many other options I decided to land and check things out and sure enough it would do.
It was 2:00 and the end of my normal eight hour day so I started scanning for a place to camp. I had made great time with an amazing tail wind all day and was very tempted to stay on the water and put in a few more miles. However, in the canal portion of the ICW I was traveling I hadn’t seen a single piece of high campable land in almost 12 miles. The map showed similar topography for the next 12 miles or more which meant I could end up paddling another three hours before I saw high ground which was more than I really wanted to do. At this point I was on a concentrated search for something other than cypress knees and swamp grass on which to land my kayak for the night. As I passed under the Hwy 94 bridge (a tall flyover causeway like so many that have replaced draw bridges along the ICW) I spotted the remnants of the concrete embankment of the old draw bridge that once carried cars over the water at this spot. There was a sandy gap in the rocks at the waters edge where I could land my kayak and the land on top (in the old road bed) looked flat and grassy. So without many other options I decided to land and check things out and sure enough it would do.
It's not pretty but at least it's not swamp
It’s ironic how I spent most of my day paddling solo in remote water passing by numerous beautiful sand beaches along the shore only to end up under a highway bridge camped out on an old road bed. I may have been under a huge concrete chunk of civilization but I was still cut off from the world by a half mile of impenetrable swamp in both directions and 60 vertical feet to the infrequently traveled highway bridge above.
Not much else to camp on in the area.
It may not have been the best camp spot in the world but it was high, dry, and bug free. The next morning I realized how fortunate I was to have chosen that spot when I did indeed paddle another two hours before I came upon the next piece of dry land barely big enough for a tent. Sometimes you just have to call good enough - good enough.
Old guard rails make gook drying racks - who knew
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