Apalachee River to Causeway 2005 XLVIII
Tuesday, July 12, 2005 brint.adams@us.army.mil
Well, Hurricane Dennis came, fizzled and moved on with little damage (or even rain) to Spanish Fort or the Mobile Tensaw Delta. I have a good system down now for boarding up the windows on our house, taking only about two hours to put up and less to take it down. With a couple more possible storms heading into the Carribean, we might have to make hurricane preparations again in the next few weeks.
But, I cannot let a little storm interfere with getting out on the water, so out I went this afternoon after work. When I arrived at Riverdocs, the water level was very high, almost flowing into the parking lot. It was high tide about a half hour before I got there, but the over-riding reason was all of the rainfall coming down river, dumped from Hurricane Dennis over the past two days. At 5:15 PM, it was 83 degrees, partly cloudy with a southeasterly breeze and the start of a falling tide.
While I put in, there was a fairly large gator hanging around only about 10 meters away. He eyed me warily, until I started to slowly paddle towards him, when he ducked under the surface. I started out heading east as usual, in the high water, and got to the Apalachee in 6:59. On the way back, I tried to hug the south bank to stay out of the current and passed the parking lot in 15:52. The big gator was back on the surface watching me paddle by on the way to the Causeway. There were no fishermen or boats out as I headed for the Interstate bridges, making the turn in 33:34. This was not a particularly fast time, even though I was paddling against the current, for the most part, so I decided to try and pick up the pace on the return, even though the sun was still pretty intense.
My return time was a fairly quick 17:06, for a total of 50:43. The big gator was still hanging out, to welcome me back.
Well, Hurricane Dennis came, fizzled and moved on with little damage (or even rain) to Spanish Fort or the Mobile Tensaw Delta. I have a good system down now for boarding up the windows on our house, taking only about two hours to put up and less to take it down. With a couple more possible storms heading into the Carribean, we might have to make hurricane preparations again in the next few weeks.
But, I cannot let a little storm interfere with getting out on the water, so out I went this afternoon after work. When I arrived at Riverdocs, the water level was very high, almost flowing into the parking lot. It was high tide about a half hour before I got there, but the over-riding reason was all of the rainfall coming down river, dumped from Hurricane Dennis over the past two days. At 5:15 PM, it was 83 degrees, partly cloudy with a southeasterly breeze and the start of a falling tide.
While I put in, there was a fairly large gator hanging around only about 10 meters away. He eyed me warily, until I started to slowly paddle towards him, when he ducked under the surface. I started out heading east as usual, in the high water, and got to the Apalachee in 6:59. On the way back, I tried to hug the south bank to stay out of the current and passed the parking lot in 15:52. The big gator was back on the surface watching me paddle by on the way to the Causeway. There were no fishermen or boats out as I headed for the Interstate bridges, making the turn in 33:34. This was not a particularly fast time, even though I was paddling against the current, for the most part, so I decided to try and pick up the pace on the return, even though the sun was still pretty intense.
My return time was a fairly quick 17:06, for a total of 50:43. The big gator was still hanging out, to welcome me back.
posted by brint @ 9:46 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home