Kayak Canoe Alabama

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Little Bateau Bay to Lower Crab Creek

Saturday, July 30, 2005 brint.adams@us.army.mil

At 8:00 AM this morning, a group of five pushed off from the old Riverdocs boat launch and headed north into Chacaloochee Bay. This is a state-owned property along the north side of the Causeway highway 31/90/98 in Spanish Fort, AL. It is an unmarked dirt parking lot, about 100 meters west of Ed's Seafood Shed. The water level was high, right at high tide with a temperature of 80 degrees, clear skies and a slight northeasterly breeze.

Rob, Bill, Steve, Danny and I eased north one mile, past the entrance to Conway Creek and Big Bateau Bay, around the extended arm out into Chacaloochee Bay. We turned northeast and headed towards a couple of tall cypress trees marking the entrance to Savage's Ditch. This is a narrow cut that turns north, winds and then turns east and connects to Conway Creek. There is another cypress announcing the entrance to Conway. We turned north on Conway for about a half mile to the entrance on the right to Little Bateau Bay. Right before it there is a narrower cut on the right which connects eastward to the upper end of Big Bateau Bay and Red Maple Slough.

We turned north up the connector to Little Bateau and took the right or east fork. Along the right shoreline, there used to be an elevated camp and old boat dock which are now completely cleared away. We are not sure if the state did this or the owner, but it took away a nice place to stop and stretch. We stopped anyway, and a couple of us got out to check out the clearing where the camp used to be last year.

We continued towards Little Bateau, which is just north of the wooded area known as Red Maple Slough. Once we turned into Little Bateau Bay, we immediately came into a huge area of lotus, which is taking over most of the bay. We were a little past the peak blooming period, but there were still a number of fully open blooms and some buds ready to open. We stopped for a few pictures and proceeded to wind our way around and through all of the lotus until we came across the middle fork and turned back south to Conway Creek.

At this point, we had paddled about 6 miles and decided to lengthen the trip by heading further north on Conway to the Tensaw River. Upon reaching the Tensaw, we turned north, diagonally crossing the river to the entrance to Crab Creek. There are some cypress marking the entrance, with Upper Crab Creek heading straight north, while Lower Crab Creek is the tributary heading slightly southwest. With the tide falling now and the breeze somewhat behind us, we moved easily along at five mph along the south side of the tree line. There are two tributaries coming out of the woods, which we passed for another day. After paddling west for about a mile, Lower Crab turns south and empties into the north end of Delvan Bay.

We paddled due south to the narrow spit of land separating us from the Tensaw River, crossed the river southward to the Interstate bridges. From here, we turned east under westbound lanes enjoying the shade from the intensifying sun. Once we reached Chacaloochee Bay again, I decided to take off at a faster pace, heading east along the Causeway on my routine workout course and back to the Riverdocs parking lot. The total trip was 14.5 miles and took us about 4 hours.

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