Kayak Virginia Beach

Around the marsh - Back Bay - Pocahontas Marsh

Not a lot of pictures today, lots of wind, lots of chop, but a good trip never the less...
I had a guest today, Tim a visitor to kayakvb.com
We put in at the Princess Anne Wildlife Management area, and set out for a trip around the Pocahontas Marsh. As we approached the end of the channel we noticed that is was a pretty windy on the bay, and the was some pretty good wind swell and chop, but not bad enough to change our plans. The crossing out to the marsh was fairly fast, as we pretty much had the wind on our back, and a following wind swell, we averaged just under 5 MPH with very little effort, and our peak speed was 6.4 MPH.
The wind kept most the the animals under cover, except for the occasional Red-winged Blackbird on the lee side of the marsh, and a Green Treefrog.
The Northbound leg was a little tough, directly into the wind (15 mph gusting to 20+) in semi-shallow water, but very little wind chop. The same issue with my paddle happened again, but seemed a little more severe, to the point I felt like the right blade was going to snap off. I was going to switch over to my back up paddle, but the sun had heated up the ferrule enough that I couldn't get it together all the way, the water was so warm, that it didn't help dipping it to cool it off. So I think I am going to start looking at a new paddle, I really don't have any confidence in this one anymore, and if I can't get my back up paddle together easily, is just not a good thing... I guess I could carry around some ice for emergencies.
We took a short break on a little protected beach at the North end of the marsh, before heading back the the launch site, it looked like the swell had picked up a bit, and I needed to take a look at my paddle again.
All in all a good trip, with a little challenge in the swell, and good company, hope you had a good time Tim, we'll have to do it again...