Bert Gildart: Writer and Photographer

©Bert Gildart: Unless you do lots of pre-planning, kayaking to new places can be a challenge, especially from water level where so much of the landscape appears featureless. But the rewards can be immense, and during our recent trip we had dolphins circling our kayaks, saw a multitude of birds — and one day had what Janie called a herd  of armadillos (five!) circling our tent. As well, we were thrust back into the gilded age, a period when the ultra rich celebrated their wealth by building castle-like homes, which still remain on Cumberland Island National Seashore. It is something I’ll describe in my next posting.

But in this posting I want to explain a bit about the joys of kayaking and tell how we approach it. I also want to explain a few of the restrictions managers place on visiting this national seashore, and ways in which they have of preserving the wilderness qualities of this incredible barrier island located just off the coast of Georgia.

INITIAL PLANNING

Our planning begins back home in Montana, where we place all equipment necessary for a journey of several days into a large Wall Mart box. Basics include a home (a tent), sleeping bags, food, and a backpack stove for cooking. It sounds simple but when you start actually preparing for a trip you realize there’s much more that might be needed, particularly in late fall when there is so little daylight – and when you are getting older. The list then must include head lamps, perhaps a book, pills, thin rope to suspend food  and so protect it from raccoons – and perhaps a “pee bottle” so you don’t have to clamber out of the tent at night.

And then, of course, you absolutely must have maps and for me, some type of GPS system – and on this trip having one was a life saver. We purchased a Garmin eTrek (cost from Amazon about $80). Though I would have preferred to have had detailed USGS maps, the park doesn’t carry them so we purchased a map produced by Top Spot map company, and it turned out to be exceptional.

Before leaving we plotted out GPS coordinates, and that’s what later (keep reading) helped us. This type of planning is what has resulted in many successful kayak trips throughout North America to include the Bay of Fundy, South Manitou, and the Apostle Islands, among many others.

CURSES! OUR BASE CAMP CHANGED

The other chore (and it proved a challenge) was finding a safe and secure base from which to launch. We had thought Cooked River State Park would be ideal, and were paying nightly for our site and were assured by several in authority that we’d have no trouble extending for the duration of our trip, which would be unpredictable as it was weather dependent.

 

(CLICK TO SEE LARGER IMAGE)   L to R: Though we’ve preplanned at home, still we completely pack our kayaks prior to transporting them to launch site; cart at Plum Orchard for toting gear; Hunt Camp at Plum Orchard and site of college group that befriended us.

 

But one morning we were informed that our site had been “sold out” from under us and that we would have to leave the park, for no more sites were available. Fortunately, not far away was a commercial site known as Big Wheel RV park, and the manager even offered us transportation back to our kayaks after I returned from our launch point at Crooked River. As a result, Big Wheel  became the base from which we operated.

And so (packs tagged with the proper park camping permit) four days ago we pushed off for a three-day trip, leaving on the crest of high tide – and for awhile, all went well. The outgoing tide helped sweep us in the right direction, but then, although the weather station had predicted light breezes, something happened. Soon, strong winds began to blow, and that is when we were glad we’d mapped out our course, for with the GPS – and our waypoints — essentially all we had to do was follow the eTrek pointer. That helped when waves and wind forced us into some tall marsh grass.

Though we didn’t make Brickhill, our destination, we did make a campsite at Plum Orchard, and were flattered when a college group invited us to camp with them. All were graduate students completing advanced degrees in park management.

DOLPHINS

Next day I kayaked toward Brickhill (Janie was exhausted) but the tides were wrong and it took me about three hours to reach a point just a mile or so south of Brickhill. But here, immensely good fortune offered me a consolation. Suddenly behind me I heard a powerful exhalation of breath. Five dolphins began circling my kayak, leaping out of the water, looking my direction. This went on for about five minutes.

By now, it was early afternoon, and I realized I’d never reach Brickhill in time to complete my real goal, and that was hiking several miles to the northern part of the island and seeing America’s First African Baptist Church. But the goal remains one of the features I know will lure me back again to this incredible island.

 

With no wind and the tide now in my favor, what had taken me over two hours to kayak was reduced to about 40 minutes. The distance was close to five miles and one time, my eTrek told me I was in fact cruising at over 5 mph.

FERAL HOGS

For Janie and me, our time was up. Though we would have liked to remain and camped at Brickhill Bluff, park managers had opened Cumberland Island for a 3-day hog hunt, which may seem incompatible with a national park, but is really a good thing. The point is that hunters get the campsites, but some day we’ll try again!

L to R: Sunset, Plum Orchard; arrival of hog hunters necessitates our departure, but their presence is a good thing.

Hogs which escaped from plantation owners and from black slaves had proliferated, and had begun destroying the park’s vegetation. Something had to be done, but even a professional hunter found he could not eliminate them. Today, they reproduce at such a rate that although hunters now take hundreds, hundreds still remain secreted.

And so Janie and I again pushed off, this time with no wind and with another powerful and favorable tide. To me, our experience offered exactly what it should have offered. It offered the challenge of coping with a little uncertainty and then the rewards of seeing a multitude of new and different features in an incredible national park administered area.

Again, in my next posting, I want to show images of Plum Orchard, and explain how it came to be.

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THIS TIME LAST YEAR:

*Channel Islands

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 15th, 2010 at 9:04 am and is filed under National Lands, Natural History/Conservation, Outdoors, Photography, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.