The Kayak Chronicles ©
by Darren Caffery
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LITTLE EGG HARBOR - GREAT BAY - TUCKERTON, NJ
Sunday August 13, 2000
The relaxing part of the paddle in the secluded tidal estuary of Great Bay
Paddling diehards from the
Jersey Shore Sea
Kayak Association for this trip included myself and Tom in our Hobie Pursuit
SOTs and Eric, Dale and Ken in their closed decked boats.
After some scrambling around on a partly cloudy Summer Sunday
morning, we finally found Great Bay Blvd. off Rt. 9 and launched at Little
Sheepshead Creek which is part of the Great Bay Wildlife management Area. Greenhead
flies were bad and began to attack the minute our vehicle doors opened, but bug
spray with lots of DEET controlled them. Once we were on the water, they seemed
to disappear. A few mosquitoes and greenheads weren't going to keep us from
paddling the area anyway.
Circumnavigation of the old fish cannery in the Great Bay
We agreed our paddling tour would be a circumnavigation of the old Cannery and Seven Islands to Little Sheepshead Creek and then a paddle of the circuit back to our put-in. This took more than 4 hours which was more than we had planned for, especially with the impending thunderstorms and ominous clouds overhead.
A short break for some lunch...and good thing
because little did we know... 
After we stopped at the bridge to have some
lunch, our relaxing trip turned into a test of our endurance and persistence.
Even though we knew the tides, there was no way to go with them at the
time of day we were there. As we exited the narrow estuary on our route
back to the put in, we ventured into a more open area of the Great Bay.
Paddling this small section was brutal with high winds and currents
that brought us to a virtual standstill even while paddling. Paddling our
hardest, we were only gaining a seemingly short distance, yet we needed to
persist. There was no resting with this current and wind. Even
a momentary rest of the paddle would mean a loss of several yards and we
would never have made it back to the put in before the storm arrived. We
knew we would approach the inlet that would take us out of this open bay area
and back into the safety of the more enclosed estuary but we just could not seem
to reach it fast enough. We all just paddled very hard, digging
deep to propel our vessels forward without losing velocity and grunting
from muscles which were we fast becoming like rubber. My transcendental
paddling techniques allowed me to persevere the fierce elements of Mother Nature
that demand her respect. It is intense periods of paddling in elements
like that which test our strength of body, mind and spirit. Although we
paddled like this for only 30 continuous minutes, it felt like 2 hours, fighting
Mother Nature's intensity until we were finally relieved to see our inlet.
One by one we entered the safety of the inlet estuary, sighed in relief
and rested our arms, minds and paddles without fear we were going to be blown
backward. We paddled a nice slow pace at this point as we were all pretty
worn out from the previous 30 minutes. We could see our take out area in
the distance but we knew we still had some distance to
paddle.
Continuing the circumnavigation of the old fish cannery of
Great Bay 
Deciding to explore what he thought might be a more direct and quicker route to the take out, Eric separated from the rest of us. He was soon stopped and severely delayed in a maze of tidal estuaries. Although he had to backtrack a few times he was always within sight of the take out area. He arrived back at the take out about 35 minutes after the rest of us. So much for shortcuts! We all had our gear loaded before the storm hit and were safely on our way home from what turned out to be a very rigorous and intense paddle trip. Needless to say, I slept like a baby that night.
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