Just getting to the place I found on google earth was an adventure because of the gated communities. I was ready to leave at 9:30 am; it started off a bit windy (gusts to 20 mph) and and very choppy. As the day passed and I was in a narrower channel the winds were less and the chop was smaller. I t was mostly sunny all day a pleasant 80 degrees.

As travel goes I tended to stay about 30 feet out of the channel, changing sides at an underpass’s where the channel was very narrow. Changing only to minimize wind and or straighten the path some. Other boaters were in general very polite and didn’t try to wake me. There were many slow, no wake areas too, but in general folks slowed down. Sometimes I wish they would just fly by as they would throw a smaller wake (they normally don’t slow enough to not throw a wake). One boater at the end of my day checked to see if I was okay. I did see at least 2 different rookeries, many pelicans, too many buildings, and many different boats. Just before lunch the Coast Guard came alongside to give me a sticker for the Kayak in case it broke loose. I said thanks but I was good as is. I stopped for lunch at a public boat launch, rehydrated, ate a sandwich and a tangerine. Took off the outer shirt dried out the kayak (my spray skirt seems to allow water to seep in), and was off again. Many of the places along the route are quite nice but I don’t see many public access areas. It was fun to see that some large boats really can’t travel much faster than me. They have to wait for bridges to open and the like. After 15.36 miles I found Peg at our designated pickup point (around 3:30PM). It was a good thing too because my phone stopped working about 1PM so I had no way to communicate with her.

So, that is my first take away of the day. Put the phone in airplane mode or some other low power usage mode, and carry my recharging batteries where I can get at them. Since Peg is picking me up daily for the first 5 days I had left them behind. The only issue is that my navigation app is on my phone too.

The second take away is that the water here is salt water. I knew that, just forgot how uncomfortable the spray can make you. And at the end of the day I’ll need fresh water to rinse out clothing. I need to figure out something here, because we know that isn’t going to go away anytime.

Go on over to the ICW Photo page for some pics Peg took and later I’ll post some from the GoPro.