A Kayak Expedition for the Everyman

I spent the fall searching for expedition members from my paddling friends. Many asked, “Just why would you want to do that in a single day?”. It took several months to collect the other five members of the team.

Most of the work for any expedition is in the planning. Executing the plan was fun. About 6 weeks before the paddle, members of the team commenced doing long paddles—18 miles or so. We did a final “warm up” with a 22 miler on the preceding Sunday. Early on a Sunday morning, six hearty recreational paddlers set out on the expedition. My tidal calculations worked out well, though we had stiff breezes in our faces earlier than anticipated in the morning. Open water becomes choppy when the breeze blows in the opposite direction of water flow. The stronger the breeze and the more rapid the current, the larger the chop. The paddlers experienced more chop than we wanted on the trip across Charleston Harbor.

After rounding Fort Sumter, we saw breaking waves on a shallow sandbar between the fort and Morris Island, our first planned rest stop about a mile away. A group of three paddled out around the breakers and stopped on Morris Island. The second group cut inside the bar, risking having to take a little walk in shallow water—and took a break on one of the sand bars between fort and the island.

Paddling Down Folly River

The paddlers then proceeded down Clark Sound, between James Island and Morris Island. The shortest route from Clark Sound to the Lighthouse Creek, the creek that would take us down to another barrier island, Folly Island, is not easily discernable. Many twists, turns, and small creek entrances end up on mud flats at low tide. Without any real landmarks, the only way to get through this section without making wrong turns was to use my GPS. I had marked the route on previous scouting trips. We were in the most confusing section, with about 1 ½ hour until low tide, when my GPS indicated, “Bear left”. Another expedition member who had scouted this section also said, “Bear left”, but bearing left was a narrow, almost out-of-water creek. After some indecision, the group finally bore left. It was the right way to go, but if it had been low tide, there would have no water.

The tide carried the group down Lighthouse Creek and a small breeze kept the group cool. The plan had been to get all the way down the Folly River and take a break just before turning the corner onto the Stono River and riding the tide up the Stono. Unfortunately, a stiff breeze (25-30 mph) had whipped up and was blowing in our faces.. The wind slowed the group down and put us off schedule. We had done the first 18 miles in 6 hours; I had hoped to be a little further along in order to appropriately catch the incoming tide. We ended up paddling against maximum incoming tide and a strong wind in our faces. The trip from the Folly Bridge to a sandy beach just before the Stono took two hours instead of the one that had been planned. The group paddled so slowly that the GPS recorded the time as rest time rather than underway time!

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