Causeway to Mobile River 2005 V
Sunday, August 28, 2005 brint.adams@us.army.mil
This was my last pre-Hurricane Katrina paddle and without knowing what the future would bring, I wanted it to be memorable and a hard workout. My expectations were exceeded on both counts. I arrived at the boat launch area on the Causeway, where the Interstate bridges cross at 5:45 AM, to take advantage of the remainder of a rising tide before a 7:06 AM high tide. The parking lot was just starting to flood a little, so the water level was definately high already with another hour to go.
I pushed off at 5:56 AM, well before sunrise into a northeasterly breeze, cut west between the bridges and back north up into Delvan Bay and the Spanish River. The combination of rising tide and into the wind caused a pretty good chop out in the open water. Nonetheless, I clipped off a few + 6 mph miles and passed the Pontoon Saloon, at 5.55 miles in 57:34, which I think is a PR for the first section. The sky was overcast and a not overly hot 82 degrees, so I was feeling pretty good and continued without a break up to where the Spanish River branches off of the Mobile River by the high electrical lines, in 1:12:44 for 6.89 miles, still a PR.
In my normal brilliant trip timing, I arrived about the time the tide was supposed to top out and start to fall, giving me a large push back down the Mobile. So, I started out and found I was only making about a 5.3 mph pace and thought I just needed to wait it out until it turned. Well, after several miles of the same pace, still heading into a rising current, I finally realized the Katrina effect was not going to let the tide out.
The memorable part of the paddle was, other than having to slog against the current, was seeing all of the traffic on the Mobile River. In preparation for the pending hurricane, tug boats were busily moving barges around, upriver, off into side channels and tying them off to the shore upriver. There were numerous large yachts moving upriver trying to get out of harm's way as well as fishing boats, small and large.
I finally made it down and around Choctaw Pass with the realization that I lost all of the time I made on the way up and was well behind pace by now. The worst was yet to come as I turned northeast into the teeth of the wind, with a slightly rising tide, so I was breaking through some 2'-3' chop on the way home. My pace slowed some more until I finally reached the Causeway bridge in 2:57:36. With no way to beat three hours, I still decided to give it a good finish and pushed hard beneath the bridges and made it back in a total of 3:08:22. When I got back to the parking lot, it was obvious the tide never dropped, as the whole lot was now about 6" under water. This was a good tough paddle, although disappointing to not break the three hour mark.
This was my last pre-Hurricane Katrina paddle and without knowing what the future would bring, I wanted it to be memorable and a hard workout. My expectations were exceeded on both counts. I arrived at the boat launch area on the Causeway, where the Interstate bridges cross at 5:45 AM, to take advantage of the remainder of a rising tide before a 7:06 AM high tide. The parking lot was just starting to flood a little, so the water level was definately high already with another hour to go.
I pushed off at 5:56 AM, well before sunrise into a northeasterly breeze, cut west between the bridges and back north up into Delvan Bay and the Spanish River. The combination of rising tide and into the wind caused a pretty good chop out in the open water. Nonetheless, I clipped off a few + 6 mph miles and passed the Pontoon Saloon, at 5.55 miles in 57:34, which I think is a PR for the first section. The sky was overcast and a not overly hot 82 degrees, so I was feeling pretty good and continued without a break up to where the Spanish River branches off of the Mobile River by the high electrical lines, in 1:12:44 for 6.89 miles, still a PR.
In my normal brilliant trip timing, I arrived about the time the tide was supposed to top out and start to fall, giving me a large push back down the Mobile. So, I started out and found I was only making about a 5.3 mph pace and thought I just needed to wait it out until it turned. Well, after several miles of the same pace, still heading into a rising current, I finally realized the Katrina effect was not going to let the tide out.
The memorable part of the paddle was, other than having to slog against the current, was seeing all of the traffic on the Mobile River. In preparation for the pending hurricane, tug boats were busily moving barges around, upriver, off into side channels and tying them off to the shore upriver. There were numerous large yachts moving upriver trying to get out of harm's way as well as fishing boats, small and large.
I finally made it down and around Choctaw Pass with the realization that I lost all of the time I made on the way up and was well behind pace by now. The worst was yet to come as I turned northeast into the teeth of the wind, with a slightly rising tide, so I was breaking through some 2'-3' chop on the way home. My pace slowed some more until I finally reached the Causeway bridge in 2:57:36. With no way to beat three hours, I still decided to give it a good finish and pushed hard beneath the bridges and made it back in a total of 3:08:22. When I got back to the parking lot, it was obvious the tide never dropped, as the whole lot was now about 6" under water. This was a good tough paddle, although disappointing to not break the three hour mark.
posted by brint @ 5:29 PM
1 Comments:
At 5:19 AM,
Manish Batra said…
Hey, very nice site. I came across this on Google, and I am stoked that I did. I will definitely be coming back here more often. Wish I could add to the conversation and bring a bit more to the table, but am just taking in as much info as I can at the moment. Thanks for sharing.
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