Bay Minette Basin
Sunday, November 28, 2004 brint.adams@us.army.mil
Thirteen paddlers took to the water on a beautiful Sunday afternoon with a temperature of 65 degrees, no wind, no clouds and a low but rising tide. As has been the monthly tradition this year, Matt led us into the basin and took the first right turn into the short ditch leading to his "Monet Cypress". After lazily paddling north through the many small grassy islands, we stopped along the shore where Hurricane Ivan tipped a couple of trees back into the bank, exposing the shellbank below them. This also opened up a prime archaeological site, where we found several pottery shards, glass and nails from a much earlier time.
While continuing north to explore the basin and shoreline, we were entertained by osprey, coot, kingfisher, ibis, egret, heron and loon. After part of the group returned to Buzbee's, the remainder cut across to the west side of the basin to Gilliam's Ditch and turned north to the area Bob calls Seldom Seen. We were able to get to the tree line and almost made it through the gap on the west to the other side, which eventually leads to Yancy Bay. After turning around, we took the fork to the left and soon exited back into Bay Minette Basin.
After cutting back over to the eastern shore, we stopped for a break under the canopy of a couple of large oak trees. Once we began paddling again at around 3:30, all except Bob and I decided to return. We decided to go around to Yancey Bay and see how far north we could paddle. We were surprised to find we could get to within about 200 meters of the gap in the tree line we came to from Gilliam's on the east side. We also explored another finger off of the upper end of Yancy, which also heads east toward the tree line and follows north along it for awhile. This whole time, we kept several coot moving ahead of us. They were too lazy to fly off, just moving about 50 meters at a time.
On our way back out, we scared up a medium sized gator and were enthralled watching the red-winged blackbirds diving down to a screeching halt to find a place to rest for the night. The sunset was gorgeous at 5:00, as we turned back east for our return to the Hwy. 225 bridge and Buzbee's parking lot.
Thirteen paddlers took to the water on a beautiful Sunday afternoon with a temperature of 65 degrees, no wind, no clouds and a low but rising tide. As has been the monthly tradition this year, Matt led us into the basin and took the first right turn into the short ditch leading to his "Monet Cypress". After lazily paddling north through the many small grassy islands, we stopped along the shore where Hurricane Ivan tipped a couple of trees back into the bank, exposing the shellbank below them. This also opened up a prime archaeological site, where we found several pottery shards, glass and nails from a much earlier time.
While continuing north to explore the basin and shoreline, we were entertained by osprey, coot, kingfisher, ibis, egret, heron and loon. After part of the group returned to Buzbee's, the remainder cut across to the west side of the basin to Gilliam's Ditch and turned north to the area Bob calls Seldom Seen. We were able to get to the tree line and almost made it through the gap on the west to the other side, which eventually leads to Yancy Bay. After turning around, we took the fork to the left and soon exited back into Bay Minette Basin.
After cutting back over to the eastern shore, we stopped for a break under the canopy of a couple of large oak trees. Once we began paddling again at around 3:30, all except Bob and I decided to return. We decided to go around to Yancey Bay and see how far north we could paddle. We were surprised to find we could get to within about 200 meters of the gap in the tree line we came to from Gilliam's on the east side. We also explored another finger off of the upper end of Yancy, which also heads east toward the tree line and follows north along it for awhile. This whole time, we kept several coot moving ahead of us. They were too lazy to fly off, just moving about 50 meters at a time.
On our way back out, we scared up a medium sized gator and were enthralled watching the red-winged blackbirds diving down to a screeching halt to find a place to rest for the night. The sunset was gorgeous at 5:00, as we turned back east for our return to the Hwy. 225 bridge and Buzbee's parking lot.
posted by brint @ 9:39 PM
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