Another area that caught my eye as a paddling destination was Parker Creek in Calvert County, MD. The description in Savario and Nolan's "Sea Kayaking Maryland's Chesapeake Bay" made it sound really interesting. Carl and I hiked the American Chestnut Land Trust trails along Parker Creek last winter and it looked pretty cool - a broad valley with a narrow river winding through. The only downside was that the closest public launch point was 5 miles away, unless you went on one of the periodic guided paddles ACLT holds. They actually had one scheduled for September 22nd, but by the time I realized that, it was already full.
I was actually planning on biking that morning but it had rained overnight and the roads were pretty sloppy. I checked the tides and the wind on the Bay, and both were perfect for doing the 5 mile paddle down the Bay to Parker Creek, so quick like a bunny I loaded up the kayak, spare paddle, float, pump, VHF radio, GPS etc. and headed down (after the traditional 7-11 coffee/muffin fueling stop) to Breezy Point Marina, a few miles south of Chesapeake Beach. The forecast was for winds out of the south at 5-10 knots, waves 1 foot or less, chance of fog and drizzle - and that is pretty much how it went. I had a headwind on the way out and a tailwind on the way back.
First the Googlefied map of the paddle, courtesy of Innersource:
Breezy Point Marina is right next to Breezy Point Park but the park had a big sign "No Boats Allowed," so I paid the $10 launch fee at the marina. The park was mostly filled with humongous motor homes - I guess if you have one of those, parking at a beach-side park is a cheap way to have a waterfront home. After about a 1/4 mile paddle out of the marina through a channel I was out on the Bay. I turned right and headed south with about 1 foot waves hitting the front left of the boat (port bow mizzenmast for you nautical folks). Occasionally there would be some bigger waves but in general it was just steady one footers, though the cliffs seem to reflect waves so there were stretches of pretty confused water. I don't get a lot of practice in open water so this was perfect - enough wave action to have to deal with it but not that much outside of my comfort zone.
The 5.5 mile paddle down to Parker Creek went pretty quickly under overcast skies, with the cliffs and some really nice houses (perilously close to falling into the Bay) on my right and the wide open Bay on my left. I stayed about 150 yards offshore and there was very little boat traffic at 9am when I started out. Every few minutes I'd hear a skittering sound, like something was creeping through leaves behind me, and I'd look around and see a fish boil where lots of little fish were jumping the surface to escape some big fish underneath. A few crab boats were working their pots but didn't seem to be catching much. The only sounds were the waves on the shore and the paddle going in and out of the water - and the occasional grunt of the paddler.
I did 4.5 miles the first hour and a mile later was at the point where Parker Creek empties into the Bay. The actual creek opening is only about 20 feet wide and behind a sand bar, and it was an incoming tide. Getting onto the creek involved finding the very narrow channel with a strong current at my back. I ran aground once and had to spin around and try again to navigate the s-shaped opening. One last swerve around a downed tree and over a final sandbar and I was on the creek.
Parker Creek is very curvy, with lots of 180 degree turns - I got a lot of practice edging and sweeping. I chased the obligatory heron upstream, saw an immature bald eagle (who probably thought that a grown man paddling a kayak instead of being at home fixing his lawn tractor so he could mow his overgrown lawn was pretty immature, too) and then a very large bald eagle. Other than that, not much wildlife. I think ospreys have moved on, and no snakes or beavers or anything else was out. Every mile or so there were some kind of platforms with triangular nets on a cable pulley system - they looked like some sort of bird shelter, but there was nothing in them.
Given our drought-like conditions, the creek got pretty shallow slightly less than 1.75 miles upstream. I began to see slightly submerged logs and began to worry about hitting something and dumping. I reached a point where the creek broadened out and straightened, and noticed that every paddle stroke was raising a cloud of black mud because the water was barely a foot deep. I knew from hiking that a bit further up I would reach the remains of an old bridge site and a spot where I might be able to get out without fighting the mud, but I decided to just turn around and head back out. The second hour of paddling I only made 3.5 miles, as navigating the creek was definitely low speed. Parker Creek is actually probably a better place to canoe than to kayak, given the shallow water, slow speed and tall surrounding grasses - sitting up a bit higher would have been good, too.
About 3/4 of the way out I ran into the scheduled ACLT guided tour group on their way in, about a dozen folks mostly in canoes. They were surprised to see me, as the lack of public launch places keeps down the kayak visitors. I was going to beach the kayak when I reached the Bay and stretch my legs but I decided to just push on since I wasn't feeling tired at all. A lot more boat traffic on the way back, so in addition to the wind at the rear right quarter (aft starboard poop deck) I had a lot more wakes to deal with. The wind was still only in the 10 mph range, so the skeg on the Capella was all I needed to stay relatively straight.
The sun had come out by now and it was just a glorious day to be out on the Bay. At the three hour mark I had done 12.1 miles and had a great view of the houses on Dare's Beach - it really looks like one big storm would wipe out most of them. Three miles later I was back at the entrance to Breezy Point, where I was able to surf some swells into the channel. Fifteen miles and 3:20 in the cockpit without getting out is my new record, I think - it felt good to do my patented reverse paddle float dock dismount at the launch ramp dock and get out and slowly evolve to being a standing human being again.
Since I was half-way to their Drum Point house, I called Chris and June and it turned out Chris' mom and dad were visiting, and since I hadn't seen them for years I drove down to say hey - and got there just in time to pick a few crabs for lunch (crabbing is not so hot in the Solomon's area - Chris had to admit he bought them from Mel's Crabs). Chris, his dad and I then took a boat ride up the Patuxent to a park just south of Broome's Island where a reenactment of some battle from the War of 1812 was going on. It was a nice ride but watching how we waged war in the old days always reminds me of how much more efficient we now are at killing each other - it wasn't "Saving Private Ryan" by a long shot.
Three guys in red uniforms would walk forward a few yards, shoot a few times, walk back a few yards. A drum and fife gang would tootle a few tunes and a guy with a flag would march forward, then a cannon would go off and some guys in row boats would go get some more guys in red uniforms. I imagined how awful it would be to be a kid whose father was into these reenactments and who dragged to you to one every weekend. I dunno: the War of 1812 isn't really one of your top 10 wars, maybe others are more exciting.
There is no such thing as a bad day when you spend most of the day on salt water and my timing was such that by the time I got home it was too late to tackle the tractor or the lawn - even better.
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