Pavillon, Fox Creek etc

[spider]

Nice day to be on the water. Weather reports were a little "iffy" with a chance of this, that or the other thing. We set off from Pavillion Beach, one of my favorite launching spots.

On the water by 11:30 am, we were crowding the 2hrs from low tide to try and sneak through Fox Creek on whatever whisper of water we could find .

Well, I must be deaf in one eye and can't see out of the other, because I was "directionaly challenged" from the outset.

I had it in my head not to swing to far to the left when looking for Fox Creek, so I over compenstated by hanging on the right to much. With a touch of incoming water we were ending in many "dead ends". I have done this loop a couple of times so must have been suffering from CRS (can't rememb.. s...).

On the plus side... we did learn you don't need a rudder to steer a tandem, and plenty of practice paddling in reverse...you know those skills we are supposed to practice. Often you read about "oh you really should challenge your self to improve." I would say my wife (we were in a 21 ft tandem) was well challenged that day.. with patience being the virtue which she excelled at.

One advantage of primarily paddling solo or tandem is you don't have to worry if you are leading people astray, paddling beyound their abilities or just boring them to tears.

Turning such a long boat in the tiny little rivelets was a bit of a "comedy of errors" with a group of boats it would have been more of a mud mass of bumper kayaks.

Excellent birds...

Turns out we were in Treadwell Island Creek ! Now we know where all the good birds hang out.

Nice group of Yellowlegs, who were pretty tolerant of our passing within a couple of feet. Nice Snowy Egrets with their yellow feet, and Great Egrets looking at us fairly increduously, (should have asked the 1st seal we saw at the outset which was the right way to go).

Unidentified Hawk flying about..but it was the 4 Turkey Vultures circling over head that got us to thinking.. perhaps we should move on back, find Fox Creek and be done with it. I mean we were a bit stuck but I think the Vultures were a bit overly optmistic if they thought that would be the end of us...after all it was a "learning experince"

Rest of the trip went ok.

Found the creek and the canal that leads you under Argilla Rd. Met a couple of guys who were rounding up those black Geenhead fly boxes near where Fox Creek dumps into what is Castle Neck River, never thought it had it's own seperate name just thought it was genericly Essex Bay).

They warned us the wind had kicked up and to expect some wind chop.

That worked out great wind and current were going our way so had a nice spirited ride over to Choate Island (Hog Island) . Nice picnick on the Island and then out through the mouth of the Bay, just a whisker after high tide .

Turns out the bay was a little rowdier than the Ocean side so had an nice cruise on the way back with a little huff an Puff against the wind near the last leg of the return.

Nice day all in all !