The Kayak Chronicles ©
by Darren Caffery
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Paddling the Outer Banks of North Carolina
Circumnavigating Durant Island
Wednesday May 21, 2003
Ever since reading about this
island in Pam Malec's Sea Kayaking Guide to North Carolina, I've been interested
in planning a trip to this area. Although it's only about 30 minutes west of
the densely populated Nags Head Beaches, the remoteness of the area amazed me.
The island is in an undeveloped area which was once used by the US Fish and
Wildlife Service to house the red wolf. The project didn't work too well. All
the wolves swam to the mainland where they still exist today. The island is
still very remote and undeveloped, but is now privately owned. The remoteness
and pristine beauty of the area make it a spectacular place to kayak.
On Wednesday, May 21, our JSSKA group met up with a local North Carolina
paddler, Dan Colodney. Dan previously lived in NJ and after some email
correspondence prior to our arrival to the Outer Banks, joined us for our
circumnavigation.
We launched into Broad Creek near South Lake at about 8:30 am to begin our
counter-clockwise circumnavigation of Durant
Island. Winds were only at 5-10 knots and were not expected to increase at all.
Air temperature was comfortably in the high 60's. This made great conditions for
a paddle along the coastline of some very open water. The sun played hide and
seek behind some clouds all day but luckily, we never saw any rain.
The first few miles of paddling from Broad Creek into East Lake were
spectacular. The lake was lined with seemingly endless acres of hardwood trees.
It was quiet and very serene and the still, dark cedar water reflected the
clouded sky in the most beautiful way. Although we didn't even see or hear any
birds for the first few miles, we were followed by quite a few of those very
large buzzing carpenter bees. We could see Durant Island in the distance as we
paddled a northeasterly course toward it's shoreline and to the entrance to the
Albermarle Sound via Haulover Point. On our way, Dan told us he often sees
black bear and fox along the shoreline of the lake however they did not make an
appearance during our trip.
After paddling about 6 miles,
we took a break at Haulover Point and gazed out at the Albermarle Sound and
distant coastline about 8 miles in the distance to our north. We then continued
paddling westward in the Albermarle Sound along the coast of Durant Island until
shortly reaching the entrance to Tom Mann Creek after about 2 miles of paddling.
From here we got a good view of the two small cottages that were on the island.
Reportedly, Durant Island
is privately owned by a few men who occasionally visit the area to hunt and
fish. The island has no modern services such as electric or plumbing. We also
noticed a small elevated watersupply tank between the two cottages. The
cottages were very rustic and one had a very nice screened in porch to protect
from the local flying nasties which I would imagine could be brutal in the
proper season.
As we paddled past the cottages, I imagined what spending a couple of days might
be like on the confines of the island and in the cottages. It all seemed very
appealing to me.
We decided to explore the creek a bit deeper which got very narrow as we
continued. Thick poison ivy lined the shores of the creek so we were all very
careful not to paddle into the edges of the waterway. The creek was even
quieter than the lake. The sun had started to peek out a bit more and it started
to get warmer. Turtles poked their heads up from the water of the creek as we
paddled by.
When we
were finished exploring the creek, we continued back out into the Albermarle
Sound past a small shipwreck which looked like nothing more than an old rotting
bulkhead. Tom paddled inside it and we snapped a few pictures. We also passed
an osprey nest in a old, dead and high tree on the shoreline of Durant Island.
We soon found a nice white sandy beach where we landed and had lunch.
After lunch and another 3 miles of paddling along the wooded coast of Durant
Island we reached a point of land which then opened to the Alligator
River. The river was calm and the mild conditions made for an easy 4 mile
paddle back to our takeout at Broad Creek. We landed at about 3 pm after about
16.4 miles of paddling.
After confirming our plans with Dan for the next day's paddle, our group of
Jersey paddlers made our way back to the civilization of Nags Head on the
barrier island of the OBX. We all enjoyed dinner and drinks later that evening
at Webb's Crab Shack in Kill Devil Hills. With their bibs on, Joyce and Chuck
enjoyed what looked like a small bushel of hardshell blue claw crabs. They
reminded me of summers at the Jersey Shore.
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