The Kayak Chronicles ©

by Darren Caffery

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ASSATEAGUE BEACH BUMS & CAMPFIRE ZEN

Assateague Island National Seashore, Maryland

April 17-20, 2008

On the first night of camping at Assateague National Seashore, I got to test out a new Therm-A-Rest camp mattress. In the past, I had used the Therm-A-Rest ProLite3 which I liked because it packs real small, is lightweight and still keeps you warm when the ground is cold.  The Pro-lite3 is great if you are tight for space, unfortunately, I have just never found it to provide enough comfort for my back while sleeping. With this in mind, I purchased the Therm-A-Rest Luxury Camp mattress from Campmor and although it doesn't pack as small, it provided much more comfort than the Pro-lite3. The space I compromised in my kayak hatch with this larger mattress was well worth it.  I slept like a log on my first night!

On Saturday morning, at around 7 am, I awoke to a beautiful clear sky, and bright shining sun over the bay.  Air temps were already in the 60's.  After breakfast, we started the arduous task of breaking down our camp and hauling our gear back down to the landing because our next night was going to be spent at the Pine Tree site.  We would have a 4-5 mile paddle from Green Run to the Pine Tree site and since it was a beautiful day, we decided we would just take our time and enjoy this spectacular Spring weather with a relaxing paddle to the next campsite.  
 

By time we loaded our gear and shoved off into the bay, it was almost noon. Paddling conditions were perfect. Temps were nearing 80 and a slight headwind kept us cool from the midday sun, but did not make paddling difficult.  We only paddled about 30 minutes before we landed our kayaks on a beautiful, small stretch of white sandy beach to have lunch and relax a bit.  We laid out some blankets on the sand, and ate lunch.  A few horses were grazing in the distant marshes behind us.  While Chuck took a snooze and Tom did some beachcombing, Joyce attempted to nap, however  I disrupted it with my mid-afternoon chatting. Too much vitamin water I guess.  After about an hour, Chuck and Joyce launched back into the bay while Tom and I enjoyed a little more time on the beach. At about 1:40 pm, we launched back into the bay on a northward course towards the Pine Tree backcountry campsite.  We kept a nice steady paddling pace as we observed more horses along the shoreline and as we made our way to Pine Tree.

After we set up our campsites, there was still some work to be done.  Joyce went right into her tent to make up for the nap I disrupted on the beach while Chuck, Tom and I gathered wood for the evening fire.  There were quite a few big logs which would not fit into the fire ring, so with the help of small camp saw, Tom and I cut down some of the larger logs into pieces which would fit better in the fire ring.  When Joyce awoke from her nap, she put out another spread of cheese and crackers and some of us drank a little more wine.  After our little happy hour, Joyce rallied the group to go talk to some of the other campers at the site and after some brief socializing, our group took a nice hike to the beach.

As the sun went down the temperature began dropping so when we returned from the beach, Joyce was ready to start the campfire. We lit the campfire a little after 7:30 pm as we began to prepare for dinner.  Tom and I cooked a pre-packaged three cheese tortellini which we covered with a garlic and basil pesto and some sauteed grilled chicken strips. It was dee-licious! I'm not sure if it was all the carbs we ate, or the wine, but after we all finished eating, we simply sat around the campfire and enjoyed  a very quiet sort of "after dinner daze".  It was one of the most relaxing campfires I've experienced in a very long time.  Campfire Zen - Crackling wood, red hot burning embers, the warmth of the campfire, good friends, a full moon, and the sound of the surf in the background. After a while, a small nocturnal bird started chirping in a thick patch of briar behind our tents. It had a whip-poor-will like tone but wasn't the exact whip-poor-will call. We capped off the evening by roasting marshmallows with the telescoping forks.  Some of us made smores with Hershey's dark chocolate.  Most of the group retired to their tents before 10 pm and luckily, the bird stopped chirping.

On my late night trek down to the porta potty, I carried a small propane lantern to light my way through the dark trail and unfortunately, on my way back, the lantern knob hit my leg, and turned off. I had no matches in my pocket to relight it and I had no other light. With no light, I ended up veering off the trail and stumbling through thick patches of briar, just missing a few heaping piles of horse dung. Ugh.  Luckily there was just enough light from the moon to find my way back to the campsite. Without that, I might have been wandering aimlessly into the wee hours of the morning, cut up from briar, and smelling like horse poop!  All I needed now was a horse to start chasing me like the one that chased Tom the night before. Anyway, I returned to the campsite safely, without incident and retired to my tent for what I "thought" would be a good night's sleep.

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