Kayak Virginia Beach

First Visit - Southern Branch Elizabeth River

Well today was supposed to be nice, but the weather was not cooperating this morning and I almost scrapped any plans for kayaking. There was a lot of convective activity over the Chesapeake this morning, and the first look at the radar was not real promising. So I was going to go around to launches I have not been to, and at least get some pictures, but I did one last look at the forecast, and saw that the National Weather Services (NWS) was going to drop the T-Storm probability, so I took the opening. I was committed to checking out/using new launch sites today, so I decided to check out the kayak launch at Carolanne Farms Park, and launch from Great Bridge Locks.

Well after visiting Carolanne farms, I headed over to Great Bridge Locks Park, which was completely empty. The tide was out a bit making it a little hard to launch from the dock, so I opted for the ramp. Pretty easy launch, probably not as easy on a busy day.

In a nutshell, this section of water wont rate high on my favorite places to paddle. Even though I was pretty sure what to expect, it was more industrial then I expected it to be. When I go out, I want an escape, and if that is what you are looking for then go somewhere else. If you are looking for a relatively straight and busy waterway, then this is where you want to be.

Okay so the high point of the trip today was watching a drawbridge open, a first for me.

One last thing to make things fair, there are a lot of little tributaries on the south side of the river, that I did not look at, and will probably go back and take a look at that side of the river a little more.