Capers Island Mini Excursion - Saturday and Sunday

So, for those of you who frequent the beach, particularly those who have stayed the night right on/just off of the beach, you know what two of my complaints probably are.

1) The noseeums (spelling). These little devils are only here on Earth to make our lives miserable, and they do a damn good job of it. They are also so tiny, that the slightest crack in your "defense" allows a flood gate. I woke up several times swatting and scratching Friday night that I was more irritated by the bugs than I was by the heat. Seriously, why were these little boogers put on this planet?

2) The sand. Just like the little bugs, sand can come from anywhere and it will get everywhere. You might as well not even try to clean it out of the room (or in my case tent) until you are ready to leave. Seriously, a losing battle.

But despite all of that, I wouldn't trade camping on the beach this past weekend for anything because the sunsets and sunrises mixed in with the sound of the waves crashing really make up for it. Despite the little bugs and the sand in places it shouldn't have been, I was really relaxed.

Something that I really like about camping is that, depending on where you are and who you are with, you go to bed when the sun goes down and you wake up when light starts breaking. It really helps you maximize your day, I feel. Anyways, we woke up Saturday and Sunday just before sunrise. Both days we wanted to get out with the tide. Seeing as high tide was around 6:30 each morning, it wasn't too much of a problem. So we took our time eating breakfast (freeze-dried scrambled eggs with bacon bits for me) and then packed up. We decided to pack up all the valuables and just leave tents, sleeping bags/pads and clothes just in case. But, really, we never had anything to worry about because there were plenty of people around to watch our stuff.

So, Saturday we had all day to kill, but we really wanted to get most of the paddling out of the way before the heat of the day. So, below is the route we took. The yellow dot attached to green line is our campsite, then we went out through the one channel and out along Bull Island. We may have made it further, but I'll get into that in a second. We then turned around and back-tracked into the intracoastal waterway and then back to our camp.

So, why the backtrack there along Bull? We had originally planned on going all the way around Bull Island, timing it just right to use the lowering tide to carry us out and around, and then the slack and incoming tide to take us into the intracoastal waterway and back along the back end of Bill. However, just a little ways into the first stretch Dave noticed a change in the winds. It was enough to somewhat spook him, and for good reason. If the right or wrong wind pops up, then we could have been facing larger swells and even whitecaps.

Not a pleasant paddle.

Instead of risking it, we decided to turn back. Now, while we were out there paddling both out and back we noticed an ATV on the beach. Every so often, it would stop and we could see 1 or 2 people getting off and going up into the dunes a bit. We guessed that these were people looking for turtle nests, and probably helping preserve or track them. So, as we rounded back into the channel (which I'll describe in just a second), we decided to hike up and meet the people doing this to ask a few questions.

Now, when I said we rounded the channel, I mean we came in like a wrecking ball... that was suddenly stopped. We got to practice our surfing and riding waves a little bit... until we hit the newly formed sandbar. At low tide, it really is an extension off of Bull Island. So much so, we had to get out and walk our kayaks in to where we could paddle again. But all we needed to do was just beach them for our short hike.

And that's what we did. We made it only a few dozen yards before the ATV came up and we talked with the gentleman and lady on it. Turns out we guessed right. They were tracking and monitoring the loggerhead turtle nests along the beach. We didn't really get to ask them too much because they seemed to be on a time crunch but we were able to see where two nests might have been due to the tracks from the mommas.

Only problem was, neither looked in tact. One had raccoon tracks leaving it so it might have been robbed, or the would-be-thief may have spooked the momma and she decided to try again another time. The other, we couldn't really tell at a distance what was going on, but we also decided to not intrude on the area.

Seeing the nests reminded me of a few pictures I've seen recently by the Charleston/South Carolina Aquarium when they have released animals back into the wild. I really want to make it down sometime to witness that because I think it would be so awesome to see.

Anyways, after a little bit more of walking, we went back and got into our boats and decided to take on the intracoastal waterway. We made our way inland for a while and along the way saw one large ship with a white dome on the front. We're not sure what it was, but I'm guessing it was some sort of research vessel.

It's also interesting to note at this time that traffic was really picking up. We saw lots of boats with families and friends racing out to claim their areas for the day on Bull and Capers. I mean, it was Saturday, after all, and the summer, so why not load up the boat with food and drinks and hit the beach?

Once we hit the actual intracoastal, we turned around and slowly made our way back. This is where one of the cooler moments of the weekend happened. I had just turned my GoPro off when something surfaced right off the port/left side of my boat and exhaled. It was a huge head, probably one of the biggest I have ever seen in the wild. Dave saw it as well, so I have my backup, there. This thing was a huge loggerhead turtle with about a 6" wide or bigger head. He/she was up just long enough to exhale, inhale and then gone. Too. Stinkin. Cool. I absolutely love kayaking for these moments. Sure, I could get a better look at a turtle on the Discovery Channel, but how many people can say that a turtle blew its nose on you (ok, it wasn't THAT close, maybe).

By the time we got back to where we starting a crowd was starting to form on both Bull and Capers. It's a really popular place for people to motorboat out to, if you hadn't figured it out already. There were a lot of people around, so we beached our boats on Bull again with the intent of hiking along one of the paths on the interior of Bull. But, to our dismay, we found that these trails have been closed off, at least on the south end. They may be open still to tour groups, but we weren't about to risk getting into trouble, so we took an even longer walk along the beach collecting sea shells (sand dollars were really abundant here) and talking about various things. We made it about a couple miles away from Bull's bone yard - which is quite the hike! - and then turned around.

Once we got back, we ferried across to our campsite, which was quite crowded, and hung out in the water the rest of the day. Again, no sense in overworking ourselves in the heat of the day and the water was really refreshing.

Another cool instance Dave, Ian and myself had came just a short while before dinner. I wasn't paying close enough attention, but I caught a glimpse of the action. Just inside the channel, there was a huge splash and a flash of gray/brown (dark). Turns out, it was a huge ray jumping out of the water. I know it was big, but Dave was staring right at it and says it had a wing span close to his own, and the wings were even curved under. Damn. What could make something like that jump out of the water? And I had no idea we had rays that big just inside our waters like that.

Again, why would you rather sit on your couch?

Sunday morning was very similar to Saturday except for the fact that we completely broke down our campsite and were headed home.

Now, before we get to that, we did get to witness a little drama the night before. We were joined on the beach by a group of teenagers or people in their early 20s. They were down a ways, but apparently at some point in the night, one of the girls got mad and decided to walk it off. They went looking for her and she came by our area hollering that she was coming back (and apparently had a dog with her, too). She was met right at our tents by a couple people and her boyfriend.

Now, none of us left our tents, but we were able to listen in as she explained, with a drunken slur, that she had talked to her mom for 3 days and the relationship with the guy was an unhealthy one. The boyfriend was pretty foul-mouthed and obviously drunk as well and they kept interrupting each other. I was about to yell, "Better not dump him until he takes you back to the mainland!" when Ian piped up with, "There are people here trying to sleep!" That got them at least whispering and moving back towards their camp.

I'm slightly, only slightly, interested in knowing how the rest of THAT night went for them.

Anyways, there's your bit of beach drama. Now, back to the fun stuff. Below is the map of our course for Sunday. Blue is the first bit of our trip, the yellow dot in between is where we stopped for a few hours to let the tides even out and to get some lunch, and the purple bit is our "home stretch."



So, to get back out into the open waters you know we have to go through that channel. Well, this particular morning, as we were making for the channel to break through the breakers, I caught a glimpse of a dolphin. Then another, then another pair and another... There were six, including one whose dorsal fin had been chopped/bitten off. Makes you wonder what happened to that poor guy, but he swam just fine, it seemed. The pod stayed with us and surfaced and swam amongst our three boats as we made our way through the breakers and out of the channel.

The above picture is a screen grab of video I took during this awesome sequence. Again. So. Stinking. Cool.

Once we broke through, one of the dolphins stayed with us for a while as we made our way down Capers. He/she even swam next to me for a second after I repositioned my boat closer to the inland.

After that, it was really hard for anything to top my morning.

We continued south and went in between the north part of Dewess Island and the south beach of Capers. Because the tide was still going out, we decided this would be a great place to take a break until the tides changed. As we were heading down, we noticed two campsites and their campers so we began walking up the beach to see if those people were around to just chat with. Two guys were breaking camp further up the beach and were actually paddling as we were walking their way. One was in a whitewater play boat (very small and loaded down) and the other was in a Pelican boat (not as small, but just as little room for gear). It seemed quite silly for them to be fighting the tide in those boats, and sure enough, they stopped to take a break eventually.

We walked down through the bone yard again and turned around, and once we got back, thought about hiking some more, but ultimately decided to stay on the south beach and just relax. Why push it, right? Just like on the north end of Capers and south beach of Bull, this area became a very popular place around 10:30-11. There were a bunch of families just out enjoying the day and even a tour boat flying a jolly roger. Also, we had a group of 8 other kayakers show up and a family of 3 also joined in. It really is cool to see so many people getting into kayaking.

Around noon, we decided the tides were about to turn, so we headed in, using a slightly different route from Friday. We continued our cut between Dewess and Capers and made our way into the intracoastal waterway. This was extremely busy with lots and lots of traffic and we were constantly fighting wakes from various boats and jet skis.

FYI for those motor boaters out there, we don't mind a little wake, but all we really ask is that you acknowledge us. Wave, give a big nod, flip us off for all I care. We just want to know that you see us kayakers and small boaters. I can deal with your wake after that.

The only really exciting parts of this last stretch were when we also almost got run over by a ferry from Dewess that came around a corner, never slowed down and just headed out into the flow towards Isle of Palms (jerk). If we hadn't been paying attention and slowed down, we could have very well been right in that thing's way as it came into that intersection.

Another FYI, kayakers and man-powered boats are SUPPOSED to have the right-away followed by sailboats and THEN motorized boats. But, as you can see, motorized boaters don't seem to take that into consideration.

The other really cool thing was we saw two feeding frenzies of dolphins fishing. It was really just cool to see them jumping, flipping their tails and churning up the water to contain the fish.



All-in-all, this was an awesome trip. It was only my second time camping out of a kayak and first time tackling the ocean in a kayak. While you could possibly do it in a smaller boat, you need to consider using the right boat, a long sea kayak, for this. Unless you're just looking to drag it out there and play in the surf, you'll be miserable trying to "cut" or rather push through the other stuff. And camping out of a kayak is always a challenge. Having to figure out what all you can take and need versus what you can live without can be a bit of a headache. Dave says 1 gallon of water per day is a good start, I went through 4 gallons in roughly 2 days (half a day of kayaking and camping on Friday and another half on Sunday with a full day on Saturday). You also learn it's not so bad to drink warm water, as long as it's fresh. But, that first sip of ice cold water once I got back to the marina and changed felt so good going down.

Capers Island Mini Excursion - Friday

I know I haven't really paid much attention to this blog, especially since I started the burger quest one, but I also haven't done a whole lot of kayaking that I felt like blogging about. That is, aside from earlier this year when a group of us went down a long stretch of the Edisto River (I really regret not writing about that one, honestly). Don't get me wrong, I love kayaking no matter what and even just going out and spinning in circles in a pond or rolling in a pool would keep me entertained for a while. But, I'm not going to bore you with reports about that.

Unless I am able to develop a new roll that nobody else has, but that is a long shot, there.

However, I finally went on a trek/mini expedition that deserves requires a post. Partly because Dave Rochelle (my local kayaking idol) wants me to have something ready to present to a forum in a few months, but mostly because I love sharing my experiences out on the water, and this was one that needs to be shared.

I need to come up with a creative title for it, but it is, in essence, the next step in my progression as a paddler and the middle or meat of an awesome three-week sandwich that will see me go from paddling two different boats in a lake, to camping and kayaking along the coast, to working on more of my whitewater skills in Tennessee. Man, am I spoiled, or what?

You may recall that last year (2014) I went on a weekend trip into the Okefenokee Swamp with Dave, my dad, and a few others from the Canoe and Kayak Club of Augusta (GA). That's really what caused me to start this blog, honestly. That was my first experience with having to camp out of a kayak and learning to pack everything you need for a camping trip into a kayak. Before that, I was learning whitewater and before that, it was basic paddling, safety and rescue techniques.

So, it is only natural that I keep going, right? Well, this trip up a small section of the South Carolina coast was just that: the next step in Milledge (IV) becoming a better, more experienced paddler.

Without further ado, here is my weekend trek to Capers Island - Part 1 of 3

On Friday, June 12, 2015, Dave, Ian Buckley and I set out from North Augusta/Augusta/Aiken and headed to the coast with the intent of paddling from the marina located at Isle of Palms up to the north beach of Capers Island and back over a three day stretch. In that time, we planned on covering at least 24 miles (I may be off a hair here) or more depending on weather conditions and we would be at a location that did not have any of the basic necessities that we all take for granted practically every day: indoor plumbing, fresh water, AC, electricity, AC, ice, prepared food.

Now, luckily we were just a semi-short paddle (or boat ride if need be) away from all of those in case the proverbial poo hit the proverbial fan. Also, Dave is a very experienced paddler and hiker, and always has plans B through Z covered. He had ways to listen to the constantly changing weather reports, a radio with proper channels to listen to the Coast Guard frequencies, he had a personal location device (I think I got that wrong, but you get the picture), and he also had a chart of the area as well as the most up-to-date tide charts for the days we were scheduled to be out there. As well as the cell phone number of the local sheriff's department. The man really knows what he is doing and is teaching me a lot in regards to taking this types of trips.

First thing first, though, before leaving, I had to get a different boat. For those of you who know me, you know that I fairly recently sold my Liquid Logic Remix 69 in favor of purchasing a brand spanking new Liquid Logic Stomper 90. I went from one whitewater creeker to another. And neither of those would do for this trip. My dad and mom also have two boats that are 12 and 13 feet long, but they are wider and more equipped for rivers and lakes, not swells and surf.

Luckily, our club president, Bernie, had an extra boat: a 17' Perception Eclipse that he has held onto as a loaner and he was gracious enough to loan it to me (Thank you, again, Bernie!). What was even better, or maybe worse for my bank account, was that as soon as I sat in the boat a couple of weeks ago to test it out, I fell in love and it fit me just about as perfectly as a boat could/should. I now know what my next boat will be come the off-season... but don't think I'm trading in my whitewater Stomper just yet. No sir.

Anyways, we had to have nice, long boats to cram some of the following equipment into each of our boats (and even other stuff I forgot): 3-4 gallons of water, 2 breakfasts, 3 lunches, 2 dinners, small snack bars for during the day, extra paddle, helmet, tent, sleeping gear, eating utensils, water bottle(s) for during the day, PFD (wearing that one), sun protection, bug protection (if you want it), water shoes, hiking shoes (if you wanted), changes of clothes (let's get real, I may have worn the same outer pants and shirt, but I still changed my underwear. I'm not THAT hard core), toiletries (TP, shovel for small trench digging, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant), GoPro cameras for documenting... 

By the time it was all said and done, both front and back hatches of my boat were tightly filled to where I literally couldn't fit anything else in there even if I wanted to. So the longer the boat, the better for that, as well as it helped in the swells. But I'll get to that in a bit.

Now then, before I get into the real meat of the journey, let me show you what we did. For reference:

• Orange is Friday's first leg, 
• Red is Friday's second leg,
• Green is Saturday (note: it is out along Bull Island and back then out to the inter coastal and back)
• Blue is Sunday's first leg,
• Purple is Sunday's final leg,
• The Yellow spots are the three important points or stops for reference.

Anyways, back to the story and Friday's portion of the trek:

We met at Dave's house and were on the road by 6:15 AM. Probably the biggest thing to remember throughout this entire trip is that all of our paddling was done with 2 things in mind: first and foremost, the tides ruled when and where we could go but we also did keep an eye on the second part, weather and heat. We did most of our paddling in the morning and early afternoon.

As we got into Isle of Palms, we hit our first big snag as there was a bad wreck on the bridge heading onto the island. I could tell that Dave was a bit nervous about this because we did not want to be paddling against the tide, we wanted to be riding the tide as it went out for low tide.

However, we were making such good time ahead of that, that we didn't have an issue, really. We were able to get to the marina still in plenty of time and the three of us packed our kayaks efficiently and in a timely manner. Dave did point out here it was more important to make certain we packed everything properly and not worry about the time. If we needed to, we could wait around until the next tide change, but you could also tell that none of us liked that idea (besides, we all would do plenty of sitting around waiting/relaxing later).

Let me tell you this, a fully-loaded kayak is an absolute bear to handle... on land. It took all three of us to muscle the boats down the slippery boat ramp one at a time to get into the water. But once we were on there, it really was almost a breeze. I was honestly surprised at how well my boat handled under load. Although, looking back, I could have shifted a little more of the weight to the back to help with the skeg/rudder.

Anyways, we were off and rolling around 11:30-noon. We paddled for about an hour and that took us along the intracoastal waterway for a small stretch before we hung a right just after clearing the northern tip of Isle of Palms to cut between there and Dewees Island. I don't know a lot about the area, but Dave informed Ian and me that Dewees is privately owned but you can still get off the water onto the beach. And that is where we took our first break, a quick lunch on the southern-most tip of the main portion of Dewees Island.

For reference, the picture above is a closer view of the marina (towards the bottom and a quarter of the way in from the left) and where we stopped for lunch (top and a little more than the same distance in from the right).

We only took about a 15-30 minute break for lunch before we were off again, and that is A-OK with me. I was ready to get a little wet and experience this trek a bit more.

So, this is a closer view without the line of where we went after lunch, but we took off from the southern-most tip of Dewees and had to swing out pretty wide at this time of day to clear a couple of sandbars that have formed over the last few years. It's interesting to note how much the coast has changed according to Dave over the last 5, 10, 15 years. The biggest changes to the area have been the addition of those two sandbars you see between Dewees/Capers and Capers/Bull but also the erosion of Capers Island's front shore. Seriously, just Google Capers Island Bone Yard and you'd be amazed to see the images (note, not real bones, trees. It's almost 75% or more the beach).

Like I said, we had to go pretty far out into the water and at our furthest point, Dave believes we were about a mile off shore. This was mostly because we were trying to avoid the more shallow waters where breakers were forming. Those could cause us a lot of problems, especially if we weren't paying attention.

But we still had to deal with the swells. We were really lucky all weekend as the seas were relatively calm and only rolling around a foot to 2 feet most of the time with an occasional three-foot swell. This is where the skeg/rudder really came in handy. A lot of people think it is for turning, but it really is more for helping the boat track straight. Yes, I used it and some edging to help with some turns (handles like a dream, surprisingly for such a long boat), but it really helped me out in the swells when I was focused on staying straight.

As we got further and further along, you could really start to see Capers and what Dave and others have said. It is amazing how the forest is right along the beach, but not because it grew that way. Now, you may not believe in global warming, but climate change is definitely happening. And, again, whether you believe we, as humans, are to blame for this or it's cyclical (or a little of both), the tides really are rising. The best evidence is right there on Capers' front beach.

Also as we were paddling, I noticed a lot, A LOT of jelly fish in the water. I hate jelly fish, but these supposedly can't sting you.

Yeah, right.

After nearly 3 hours of paddling, total, we came to the really fun part. As I said before, at the north end of Capers a huge sandbar has formed and it has created 2 channels into that inlet. Since we were camping on the northern beach of Capers all weekend, there was no sense in going around and coming back, so we made a beeline and cut through the breakers of the first and smaller channel.

You can really see the sandbar here, but you cannot see the breakers in that first little channel. They were a lot of fun and Dave had to give me and Ian a little instruction to begin with. The biggest thing to remember when playing in the surf is to let the boat go and to not tense up. As soon as you tense up, you are probably going to flip over. If you don't feel comfortable with a particular wave, just back paddle and it will pass you by, allowing you to try again.

But why would you back paddle? Seriously.

I know, there really are times when that can come in handy, but I had so much fun catching a couple of waves and even had one turn my boat at which point I called upon another thing Dave taught me - lean into the wave and edge and you can surf along the wave. Just have your low brace there to help. And, sure enough, I caught a couple short rides that way and it was just so cool.

After we finally punched through, it was just a very short paddle over to the beach where we scoped out where high tide had been before so we could pitch our tents. We also made sure to pay attention to where the wind was going to be coming from (mostly south to south-west all weekend) so our tents wouldn't blow away. We needed a breeze to keep us cool and keep the no-see-ums and other bugs at bay, but not gail-force winds. FYI, you need a permit to camp overnight on Capers Island and the only two locations you can camp on are the northern tip and the southern tip (then again, I don't know why you'd want to camp amongst the thick foliage on the outer beach or in the marsh areas on the inner part of the island.

After all of that, we went for a short hike along the shore to check out the bone yard up close. It really is amazing to see how the shoreline is claiming the trees and forest. I mean, it is just taking out huge, old trees. But I was also surprised to see more than 10 dead horseshoe crabs. They were all along the beach as we hiked. But, we couldn't stay long because the tide was quickly coming back in and it was close to dinner time.

Now, you can bet I had no problem falling asleep, even on some hard-packed sand. But not before we were treated to one of the coolest sunsets I have seen in quite some time. It was really a good start to the trip.