Kayak Adventure

Porter Bay, Vermont
NoLL

Libby returned yesterday afternoon. Thank goodness. In the evening we went to the weekly free band concert in the city green. This morning we left Vergennes first thing.

We didn't go far. About halfway down the creek, we anchored at the confluence of Dead Creek and Otter Creek. Then we launched the two kayaks we borrowed from Jenny. We took a bag lunch and off we went.

To get in to Deep Creek we had to pass under a bridge less than 3 feet above the water. It would be difficult to get any vessel bigger than a canoe or a kayak in there. The reward, when we emerged on the other side, was to be transported to a wilderness paradise that we had all to ourselves. We didn't see any other people in there.

Dead Creek is very beautiful. It is perhaps 1/4 mile wide and 3 feet deep. The shores are mostly lined with cat-o-nine-tail reeds but some places have trees. Behind the veneer of trees are corn fields and hay fields belonging to the farms, but they are barely visible from the creek.

We saw abundant birds of several kinds. Prominent were the great blue herons. There are lots of those majestic birds, but none allowed us to get more than a few hundred meters away before giving an angry graaak and flying away. We also saw osprey, and more often than not, they were flying by carrying a cargo of a fish freshly caught. There are eagles nests all around the area but it appears that they are occupied by osprey. Like eagles, osprey are large birds of prey and I imagine they fill the same ecological niche.

We also saw lots of fish. Not directly, the water was too turbid. But we saw them jumping. and several times the kayak would almost run over a fish basking on the surface. The startled fish would disappear with a swirl and a splash.

It was a great trip. We're really glad we did it, and now we're wondering if we can't manage to carry a kayak all the time. We definitely can't manage two, but maybe one.

Just after returning to Tarwathie and raising anchor we were hit by a sudden and brief thundershower. It gusted and it rained intensely for about 10 minutes, but all the time I could see blue sky behind the rain up above. If the sun hadn't been at the zenith, we would have seen a nice rainbow. Anyhow, I am nearly out of clean and dry clothes so I stripped naked except for a foul weather jacket and manned the helm that way. Tsk tsk, what a fashion statement.

Our strenuous chore for the rest of the day: hang out all our wet clothes and watch them dry.