Luxury Cruise?

I don’t want to jinx things, but as plans are starting to firm up for the 2019 tour, it is looking like a luxury cruise compared to last year.

One of the expected features of the 2019 Journey of the Fishhugger.

First, due to a lot of factors (mostly logistics of the pick-up), the route this year is short at 100 miles or so. But I have 10 days to cover it. So, I will have the luxury of taking days off -- just to rest and have fun, or in case of bad weather. Having extra days built into the plan takes away a nagging anxiety about making it somewhere by a certain date and time.

Second, I am familiar with the water I will paddle this year. I have not paddled a lot of the route, but I know the OBX and have paddled the sounds a fair bit. Last year that was not the case. From the Chesapeake Bay to the Elizabeth River to the Dismal Swamp Canal, it was all new and unknown.

Third, tide and current are not really factors. The sounds are protected from the Atlantic by those long, improbably thin pieces of land known as the Outer Banks. The Albemarle sound is the largest mostly brackish or freshwater sound in North America. It was a mostly saltwater sound until 1830, when a storm closed the Currituck inlet and limited the flow of ocean water into the sound. The tidal range for most of the Albemarle Sound is just several inches between high and low. Only near the inlets do tide and current become something to factor in and plan for – if you get too close to an inlet in a kayak on a falling tide, you could end up in the Atlantic.

This historic map of the Carolina coast from 1731 shows where the Currituck Inlet used to be.

Fourth, I will have an amazing support team along the way this year. My dad is not only going with me to the put-in in Elizabeth City, but he plans to follow along the Outer Banks (OBX) as I make my way to the take-out in Hatteras, so we should have several opportunities to meet up for a meal or drinks, or even share a place for the night. My wife Chris and son Julian are also planning to come down for several nights and I hope to take a day(s?) off and hang with them. Hannah won’t make it – she will be a freshman at Virginia Commonwealth University (go Rams!).

Fifth, good folks are already being helpful. I have been offered several possible places to stay for a night along the way, and the owners of an Air BnB have shared some thoughtful local paddling knowledge.

So, while there are still many wild cards that can throw a wrench into things (wind being the most likely), I am feeling more relaxed about the tour this year.

Plastic facts of the day: Recycling is fine, but it is NOT the answer. In 2015, the U.S. recycled about 9 percent of its plastic waste, and since then the number has dropped even lower. The vast majority of the 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic ever produced — 79 percent — has ended up in landfills or scattered all around the world. And as for those plastic shopping bags: Less than 1 percent of the tens of billions of plastic bags used in the U.S. each year are recycled. Barrels of oil required for US annual plastic bag consumption: 12,000,000.  Good plan.  Recycling will never ever solve this problem. Using less single-use plastic is the only sustainable answer.

Thanks for following!

TT

The cure for anything is salt water -- sweat, tears, or the sea. -Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen)

Of course, sometimes even a luxury cruise hits a rough patch...

A More Active Hurricane Season Could Lie Ahead, Scientists Warn
John Schwartz, The New York Times
NOAA issued an updated El Niño report on Thursday stating that conditions had returned to a neutral status, which will eventually allow hurricane formation to ramp up. The forecasters at NOAA's climate prediction center thus raised the likelihood of an above-normal season in the Atlantic to 45 percent, up from 30 percent in the May forecast.