So my name is Tyler. I've been with Southeast Expeditions for about a month and it has been a blast. The guides I've gotten to interact with and get to know are some pretty awesome people. Things can get pretty hectic at times, but I've started to learn to live a day at a time and I think that is a very appropriate way to live here on the Eastern Shore. This is such a beautiful place and I'm very lucky to get to live and paddle here. On Sunday I shadowed a trip led by Marshall (he owns the Cape Charles Coffee House. Stop by and say hi if you get a chance) and we experienced something totally odd for the area. We led a trip in the fog. While we didn't get to see very much in terms of wildlife, we were blessed with the ambient noise of the foghorn, a new sound for our guests. It was cool to get to paddle through the salt marsh with limited visibility. It gave you the feel of truly being out in nature. If you are ever in the Cape Charles area, we would love to take you out with us and who knows.....maybe you'll get to experience something cool in nature too!
-Tyler
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Want to know everything we saw on the water the other day? Here you go!
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| ESNWR kayak ramp |
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Hooray for the first paddle of the season!
When Dave asked me over shrimp, hush puppies, and something cold at The Shanty the other day if I could switch my schedule around at my off-season job to guide a trip for eleven Habitat for Humanity volunteers on the short notice of just two days, the answer was.....of course! I monitor oysters and help with oyster reef restoration on the seaside and barrier islands of Virginia for The Nature Conservancy in the winter. In April, I only work a few days a week, so you'd better believe I want to take a group out on an off day.
The kids were fantastic. Sixteen to eighteen year old high schoolers and their two chaperons from the Adirondacks who were volunteering their spring break to build a Habitat for Humanity house in Bloxom. (Last year, they went to Birmingham, AL to build and gave themselves the name Team Tornado.) There's nothing like knowing ahead of time that your group consists of, at least relatively speaking, responsible and able teenagers. Many had paddled before, and those who hadn't were gung ho and ready to learn. They actually paid attention during my creekside paddle clinic!
It's not like I forget over the winter how much I love to kayak, but there's nothing like the feeling of sliding that boat in for the first outing of the season. Our launch time out of Red Bank (a seaside creek in Northampton County, VA not New Jersey) was just an hour after low tide, so were right at oyster level, giving me the perfect opportunity to talk about the work I've been doing at the Conservancy over the past few months. I plucked a clump of oysters out of the mud and was delighted when, once again, the kids came in close to listen and learn about what oysters do and why we really need them to keep doing it. They were excited by the shear numbers of fiddler crabs on the banks and even acted mildly amused when I ate a piece of sea lettuce out of the creek. As we floated on the rising tide back to the boat landing we found ourselves following a common loon as he dove and resurfaced, and we were all pretty impressed at just how far he could go without popping back up.
Back on land, while my co-guide and I were strapping the boats on the trailer (which the kids insisted on loading themselves), I remarked that if every group was as good as Team Tornado had been, we would have one heck of a season. Something tells me we will, no matter what!
-Margaret, 4/8/13
The kids were fantastic. Sixteen to eighteen year old high schoolers and their two chaperons from the Adirondacks who were volunteering their spring break to build a Habitat for Humanity house in Bloxom. (Last year, they went to Birmingham, AL to build and gave themselves the name Team Tornado.) There's nothing like knowing ahead of time that your group consists of, at least relatively speaking, responsible and able teenagers. Many had paddled before, and those who hadn't were gung ho and ready to learn. They actually paid attention during my creekside paddle clinic!
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| paddling the seaside marsh |
Back on land, while my co-guide and I were strapping the boats on the trailer (which the kids insisted on loading themselves), I remarked that if every group was as good as Team Tornado had been, we would have one heck of a season. Something tells me we will, no matter what!
-Margaret, 4/8/13
Monday, October 22, 2012
But there's still water out there!
Sometimes...often...as I'm finishing up a guided tour I realize I'm nowhere near ready to get out of my kayak. Just because the paying part of the paddling is over doesn't mean there's not still water in the creek. Fortunately, I'm almost always in a position to do something about that need to stay out just a little longer.
I was loading the boats onto my Subaru after a Chatham Vineyards Paddle the other day when the bug bit me. (Not an actual bug, you see. An actual bug would NEVER bite you on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.) The breeze was so nice, and the air was so clear in the late afternoon light that I felt like I could see every single waving blade of cordgrass on the shoreline. And, oh my gosh, I just love kayaking on the Shore in October so much. So, I did what any good self-propelled boater would do in such a situation. I rode back up to the winery, asked Julie to pour me a glass of Church Creek Vintner's Blend, and took myself for a little excursion.
The family who owns Chatham Vineyards has put every bit of land they own along Church Creek under conservation easement, thus securing it as the middle of nowhere forever. It is thanks, in great part, to stewards like the Wehners that we have so many pristine paddling locations on this narrow strip of land.
My little round two was very pleasing, but it wasn't very long. The tide was pretty low, so I couldn't sneak into the sheltered parts of the creek to hunker/paddle where the wind (which had really picked up!) couldn't get me. Around one bend, I found a slightly deeper "pond" where I put my paddle in my lap and drifted for a bit. The water is especially clear at this time of year, and I was perfectly delighted to float along watching snail tracks in the mud beneath me until I ever so slowly eventually ran aground. Turning myself around, I looked up and saw that a juvenile bald eagle had been watching me meander through the marsh while I had been watching the snails meander through the mud. Like I'd busted him spying, he immediately swooped off his branch and away, showing off his already impressive wingspan.
I was loading the boats onto my Subaru after a Chatham Vineyards Paddle the other day when the bug bit me. (Not an actual bug, you see. An actual bug would NEVER bite you on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.) The breeze was so nice, and the air was so clear in the late afternoon light that I felt like I could see every single waving blade of cordgrass on the shoreline. And, oh my gosh, I just love kayaking on the Shore in October so much. So, I did what any good self-propelled boater would do in such a situation. I rode back up to the winery, asked Julie to pour me a glass of Church Creek Vintner's Blend, and took myself for a little excursion.
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| breezy times on Church Creek |
My little round two was very pleasing, but it wasn't very long. The tide was pretty low, so I couldn't sneak into the sheltered parts of the creek to hunker/paddle where the wind (which had really picked up!) couldn't get me. Around one bend, I found a slightly deeper "pond" where I put my paddle in my lap and drifted for a bit. The water is especially clear at this time of year, and I was perfectly delighted to float along watching snail tracks in the mud beneath me until I ever so slowly eventually ran aground. Turning myself around, I looked up and saw that a juvenile bald eagle had been watching me meander through the marsh while I had been watching the snails meander through the mud. Like I'd busted him spying, he immediately swooped off his branch and away, showing off his already impressive wingspan.
It seemed unlikely that I would get to top that in the last hour or less before sunset, so I started back towards Chatham. My phone buzzed in my pfd, and a friend told me she and her clan were on their way to Cape Charles and wondered whether I was in town. I told her that I was, in fact, nowhere near town but that I didn't consider that to be a hindrance. The quiet of the post-tour solo paddle is a wonderful thing, but sipping something icy cold with loved ones on the harbor afterwards is pretty good, too. So, I loaded one more kayak onto the Forester and headed on down the road...
-Margaret 10/22/12
-Margaret 10/22/12
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Paddling Chincoteague...worth waking up early for.
I typically guide in lower Northampton County, so any opportunity to paddle up on Chincoteague is worth waking up early and making the hour and a half drive from Cape Charles to our Island shop. The waking up before 7:00 am (yes, that's early for me) was a little rough this morning, but we're having an early September cool snap, so I was awake the second I stepped out the door and the air hit my face.
I'm always blown away by the number of birds you see as you drive the Chincoteague Causeway through the marsh to the Island. Most notable are the great egrets and snowy egrets which stand out whiter than white against the cordgrass and mud flats, but there's a lot of everybody out there. The last time I came up, I saw a laughing gull standing on a sign that said, "KEEP OFF." Delightful. Birds can't read.
My guests and I had spoken on the phone a couple of days earlier, and I already liked them. They'd come from Richmond to partake in Chincoteague's Second Saturday Art Stroll and decided to make a vacation out of it. She had done quite a lot of canoeing but not much kayaking. He had never kayaked at all and described himself as, basically, the lanky guy who could never quite get into his comfort zone on the water. I like it when people are honest. And, no, he didn't fall in. He really did a pretty good job...and he loved it!
Before we even hit the water, we saw a little green heron stalking along through the oysters. Little green herons (That's their whole name, by the way. I'm not trying to diminish them at all.) were our escorts in the marsh today. At almost every turn, we'd come across one. They make a seriously squawky ruckus when you surprise them, then fly off with the feathers on their head puffed out like you just woke them up on the couch, and they can't believe the nerve of you. One seemed sure that we were chasing him as he flew and landed, flew and landed in ten foot spurts along our path.
This was a low tide paddle, another rare treat for me, and that almost always means loads of bird activity. I took us off the beaten path and down a relatively deep (maybe 1 1/2 ft) creek through the marsh in hopes of checking out some mud flat action away from everyone else who was on the water this morning. That paid off big time! We saw great blue herons, little green herons, snowy egrets and great egrets nearly everywhere we looked, many of whom were so intent on their fishing that they let us get pretty close before grumbling and flapping away. We even saw a belted kingfisher perched on a piece of pvc pipe that was marking who knows what. By paddling along the path of the visibly falling tide through the grass with the assumption that, if water is moving, it must be coming from somewhere, we triumphantly made our way out to Assateague Channel and were treated to a great view of Assateague Lighthouse.
We were on the home stretch of our little outing, and, while my guests and I were thrilled with all the birds we had seen, I was secretly a bit sorry not to have come across a little blue heron. I love the contrast of their dark blue feathers against the bright green of the cordgrass, and they're such a pleasing size. It's wonderful how holding still out there and focusing on one thing will bring another into view and then another and another. As we were floating and watching an osprey circle on a thermal current high above, a little blue popped his head out of the marsh right in front of us. Then, as we floated and watched the heron hunt among the oysters and ribbed mussels, three herring gulls flew by with the first one squabbing at the other two while a small blue crab dangled tenuously from its beak. There was no question as to the translation of his squawks!
All three of us were grinning by the time we got back to the kayak launch. It had been the kind of trip that was so wonderful we had to wrap up the morning with a group hug at the boat ramp. Then I headed off to wash our boats down, and they headed off to do whatever it is people do after an enchanting two hour paddle through the salt marshes of Chincoteague and Assateague Islands.
-Margaret, 9/12/12
View of the marsh from the deck of our Chincoteague Island shop.
I'm always blown away by the number of birds you see as you drive the Chincoteague Causeway through the marsh to the Island. Most notable are the great egrets and snowy egrets which stand out whiter than white against the cordgrass and mud flats, but there's a lot of everybody out there. The last time I came up, I saw a laughing gull standing on a sign that said, "KEEP OFF." Delightful. Birds can't read.
My guests and I had spoken on the phone a couple of days earlier, and I already liked them. They'd come from Richmond to partake in Chincoteague's Second Saturday Art Stroll and decided to make a vacation out of it. She had done quite a lot of canoeing but not much kayaking. He had never kayaked at all and described himself as, basically, the lanky guy who could never quite get into his comfort zone on the water. I like it when people are honest. And, no, he didn't fall in. He really did a pretty good job...and he loved it!
Before we even hit the water, we saw a little green heron stalking along through the oysters. Little green herons (That's their whole name, by the way. I'm not trying to diminish them at all.) were our escorts in the marsh today. At almost every turn, we'd come across one. They make a seriously squawky ruckus when you surprise them, then fly off with the feathers on their head puffed out like you just woke them up on the couch, and they can't believe the nerve of you. One seemed sure that we were chasing him as he flew and landed, flew and landed in ten foot spurts along our path.
This was a low tide paddle, another rare treat for me, and that almost always means loads of bird activity. I took us off the beaten path and down a relatively deep (maybe 1 1/2 ft) creek through the marsh in hopes of checking out some mud flat action away from everyone else who was on the water this morning. That paid off big time! We saw great blue herons, little green herons, snowy egrets and great egrets nearly everywhere we looked, many of whom were so intent on their fishing that they let us get pretty close before grumbling and flapping away. We even saw a belted kingfisher perched on a piece of pvc pipe that was marking who knows what. By paddling along the path of the visibly falling tide through the grass with the assumption that, if water is moving, it must be coming from somewhere, we triumphantly made our way out to Assateague Channel and were treated to a great view of Assateague Lighthouse.
We were on the home stretch of our little outing, and, while my guests and I were thrilled with all the birds we had seen, I was secretly a bit sorry not to have come across a little blue heron. I love the contrast of their dark blue feathers against the bright green of the cordgrass, and they're such a pleasing size. It's wonderful how holding still out there and focusing on one thing will bring another into view and then another and another. As we were floating and watching an osprey circle on a thermal current high above, a little blue popped his head out of the marsh right in front of us. Then, as we floated and watched the heron hunt among the oysters and ribbed mussels, three herring gulls flew by with the first one squabbing at the other two while a small blue crab dangled tenuously from its beak. There was no question as to the translation of his squawks!
All three of us were grinning by the time we got back to the kayak launch. It had been the kind of trip that was so wonderful we had to wrap up the morning with a group hug at the boat ramp. Then I headed off to wash our boats down, and they headed off to do whatever it is people do after an enchanting two hour paddle through the salt marshes of Chincoteague and Assateague Islands.
-Margaret, 9/12/12
Friday, September 30, 2011
One Crazy Summer
As a semi seasoned traveller, I’ve often heard of the common cliché "the places less travelled offer the best and most diverse experiences". The Eastern shore of Virginia didn’t disappoint…
Arriving in Norfolk on the east coast of the USA for the first time I saw, as expected, a multitude of highways, advertisements and block buildings. Although coming from a life in Asia, I felt strangely at home.
After a 20-minute drive courtesy of my ‘local’ girlfriend, Ashley, we arrived at the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay bridge tunnel. Here she told me this was the last turning point before leaving the mainland and if there was anything I wanted to buy or do that required anything larger than a small row of shops, now was the time to say so. I happily declined the offer, and we began making our way across the ocean on the pillar- supported road to the eastern shore.
Arriving on the shore, surrounded by greenery and wildlife, I wondered if in fact we had crossed time zones and not the 20-mile stretch or so of the Chesapeake Bay. We headed to the town of Cape Charles and although I didn’t know it at the time, this was to become my temporary home during the most visitor-populated summer months.
Whilst in Cape Charles I bumped into a well-known figure in the town, Dave Burden. After I pieced together some clues I had picked whilst in the town I discovered that Dave was, amongst other roles, the owner of South East Expeditions (SEE), a one stop shop for any water based adventure you might seek. Luck seemed to be on my side that afternoon as Dave spoke of a potential position at SEE for the summer months to include any job from moving wood to leading kayak tours. I’ve always embraced a varied schedule so this possibility, in this setting, initially seemed too good to be true – it wasn’t.
Working at SSE did, as I thought, involve a wide range of jobs from moving kayaks to looking after the store. The first highlight came in the form of an ACA (American Canoe Association) course, which at that time was the barrier between what I was currently doing and becoming a kayak guide. Although I had a large amount of experience in water based sports it was clear from the outset that even though we were in a relaxed rural setting, it was vital to apply ourselves every step of the way for both quality and safety purposes. Making it through the action and theory based course along with spending hours and hours developing my area specific knowledge led to my first opportunity to lead a kayak tour. Taking people out kayaking would involve preparation in boat moving, readying the guests for the adventure that awaits them and most importantly ensuring everyone has a good time, whilst keeping the day problem free. As each trip is so different and based on a massive number of variables including weather, tide and people, knowing the area inside out became vital.
Pretty soon, as the season took off I found myself taking folks out on a daily basis to assist them in exploring the wonders of an untouched, nature rich area. The only time it seemed not to be sunny was during a rare storm and that became a fascinating experience in itself. As time went on my enthusiasm for showing visitors the area only seemed to grow and it’s safe to say I even became accustomed to the hotter-than-England climate.
The days were varied, sometimes I would be leading a family of four on their first kayak adventure and my aim would be to give them a gentle introduction to what I hoped, for them, would become a lifelong indulgence. This would involve meandering through the salt marsh discussing the area, kayaking or just life in general. Other times I would be leading (or chasing) a group of teenagers keen on pushing as many boundaries as possible, this I found this surprisingly easy to manage as a decade ago, I was that teenager. Exploring the islands beyond the marsh became a fascination of mine and even up until the day before I left I was finding new ways to make each trip unique.
Eventually commitments elsewhere caught up with me and it became time to pack my bags. Although my time on the shore was in many ways short, it was long enough for me to be sure I’ll be back and I’m thankful to all who made it happen.
James and Ashley enjoying the sights and sounds of the Annual Chincoteague Pony Swim from the best seats in the house
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Storm the Shore & Kiptopeke Kayak Symposium
This weekend the Cape Charles area will play host to two major kayaking related sporting events. The Kiptopeke Kayak Symposium runs from September 23rd – 25th, and is headquartered at Kiptopeke State Park. The Storm the Shore Adventure Race starts at 9:00am on Saturday the 24th and runs for 30 hours through mid-day on Sunday.
The Kiptopeke Kayak Symposium will offer a wide range of courses for paddlers of all different skill levels. The focal area for this event will be the seaside of the Eastern Shore, one of the most remote and scenic areas on the mid-Atlantic. Participants will be attending from at least 5 states and the District of Columbia. They will have access to a wide range of courses, with small classes that will be delivered by some of the area’s top coaches.
Paddlers will be able to choose from a wide selection of courses each day, including both skill development and touring options. Some courses will be offered in the calmer waters of the Chesapeake Bay, while others will take place in more challenging open ocean environments.
The Storm the Shore Adventure Race returns to the area after a two- year hiatus. This popular event is the highpoint of a challenging series of adventure races put on by Hampton Roads Advenutre (HRAdventure). Hampton Roads Adventure is a volunteer not-for-profit organization dedicated to bringing affordable and accessible adventure racing to the Mid-Atlantic region.
Adventure Racing is a multi-discipline sport requiring teams to navigate their way through challenging terrain using nothing more than a map, a compass, and their wits. Adventure Race teams must travel together throughout the entire competition whether they are trekking, paddling, biking, and even while ascending the face of a mountain. Adventure Races are a true test of physical endurance, mental tenacity, heart, and teamwork regardless of whether it is a sprint race lasting 6 hours or an expedition race lasting several days. There is no other sport that delves as deeply into the human experience.
For more information on either of these events, or to find out how you can volunteer to assist with future events, please contact SouthEast Expeditions at (757)-331-2680, or visit their web page at www.SouthEastExpeditions.com.
While both events are primarily organized and put on by groups from off the Eastern Shore, the professional kayak guides and staff at SouthEast Expeditions are recognized as vital local partners with the unique knowledge base and experience to ensure that these events are safe, fun, and successful for everyone involved. As the Eastern Shore continues to gain recognition as a premier kayaking destination, more and more paddlers are discovering the allure of this land between the waters.
With over 100 paddlers and supporting staff coming to the Shore for these two events, as well as their friends and families, the estimated direct economic impact is expected to be close to $100,000.
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