Bay Minette Creek 6 mi.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005 brint.adams@us.army.mil
With more north wind and low tide, the Causeway was extremely low again, so I opted for Bay Minette Creek. This was my first try at late afternoon dusk paddling on the well protected creek. Already at 4:30 PM, the sun was down behind the hills, even though not fully set across the bay yet. The weather was great at 60 degrees, no wind at all and very clear skies.
I shoved off, debating whether I would have enough light to go 4, 5 or 6 miles before too much darkness. I was really set on going 6 miles in about an hour, but along the way, did think about cutting it short. The water level was low, but still much better than if I tried to paddle out along the Causeway, which was also windy and choppy. My mile splits down to the turnaround were 9:37, 9:30 and 9:20, so I was happy to stay under my goal of 10:00 miles (6 mph speed) in the rapidly declining sunlight.
On the way back with less visibility, I had to be careful not to take a couple of wrong turns and had to quickly avoid a couple of logs at the last second, which seemed to pop out of nowhere. I also scared up a couple of blue herons and barred owls. With almost no light left back at the Bromley bridge, I came in with a total time of 58:07, with the return mile splits of 9:44, 9:46 and 10:08. The temperature had also dropped down to 48 degrees when I got back to the car. The paddle was exciting at dusk, as the landscape looked different while I tried to push hard to get back before darkness.
With more north wind and low tide, the Causeway was extremely low again, so I opted for Bay Minette Creek. This was my first try at late afternoon dusk paddling on the well protected creek. Already at 4:30 PM, the sun was down behind the hills, even though not fully set across the bay yet. The weather was great at 60 degrees, no wind at all and very clear skies.
I shoved off, debating whether I would have enough light to go 4, 5 or 6 miles before too much darkness. I was really set on going 6 miles in about an hour, but along the way, did think about cutting it short. The water level was low, but still much better than if I tried to paddle out along the Causeway, which was also windy and choppy. My mile splits down to the turnaround were 9:37, 9:30 and 9:20, so I was happy to stay under my goal of 10:00 miles (6 mph speed) in the rapidly declining sunlight.
On the way back with less visibility, I had to be careful not to take a couple of wrong turns and had to quickly avoid a couple of logs at the last second, which seemed to pop out of nowhere. I also scared up a couple of blue herons and barred owls. With almost no light left back at the Bromley bridge, I came in with a total time of 58:07, with the return mile splits of 9:44, 9:46 and 10:08. The temperature had also dropped down to 48 degrees when I got back to the car. The paddle was exciting at dusk, as the landscape looked different while I tried to push hard to get back before darkness.
posted by brint @ 7:29 PM
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