Kayak Virginia Beach

Swimming Snakes - North Bay - Back Bay - North Bay Marsh

Well I have always looked at it on a maps, but I have never gone into and explored the marsh area at the very North end of Back Bay, so I decided to remedy that today. I can't find name for the marsh area at the North End of Back Bay, so I am just going to refer to it as the North Bay Marsh. I guess the problem I have had with this are in the past was, it is very close, but also far away, you know just tucked in the corner, and it is also about a 2 mile paddle from the nearest launch. I launched from the Horn Point Canoe Kayak launch, and made my way across North Bay, and started following the shoreline until I got to a channel that feeds the marsh, it is a little hidden, but not that hard to find. When I turned into the channel, I was swarmed by these little tiny bugs, it was really weird because you could hear buzz of these little tiny bugs it seemed like there were thousands of them, they didn't bite, they just swarmed all over until I moved far enough away, and they would go back into the reeds. About half way up the channel I came across a juvenile Great Blue Heron sitting on a post, I had to rush to get a couple of pictures, before it flew off. Around the corner I saw the heron again along with about 5 ducks, they didn't really wait around and all flew off. Caught a turtle doing the Super Turtle on a chunk of concrete while sunning. This concrete brings up a point of caution for this stretch, there is a bunch of submerged concrete here that looks like it was an abandoned irrigation dyke, so use caution primarily around the big square looking piece, or you will probably end up with some ugly scratches on the bottom of your kayak.
I was going up a channel, and I saw what I initially thought was a reed floating across the channel, but it was a Eastern Ribbon Snake it was little over 2 feet long, and didn't seem to bothered by my presence, but was a little annoyed when the kayak drifted between it an the bank it was headed for. A little further up the stream I saw another much smaller snake, that was totally frustrated, because it was trying its best to to swim into the wind, and wasn't making much progress. I really think it wanted a ride, because it thought heading for the kayak was a good thing, I kept my distance, and kind of acted like a windbreak and it made it to the shore.
there are a lot of interesting looking little inlets that I will come back to when the water is a little higher. The paddle back was pretty much uneventful until I got back to the launch and saw a very large Black-and-yellow Garden Spider .