I’ve been wanting to try paddling in the winter for a while now, but I never had the proper gear to go – until Christmas.  Santa (aka Brian) brought me a wet skirt and neoprene gloves to get me started.  Then I stopped in Survival Products (in Salisbury) to check out their kayak clothing.  Well it was clearly my first visit to that store because they had nothing but kayaks and wood stoves.  And no clothes except for a half price, “farmer Jane”, perfect-size-for-Laura wet suit.  I love the thrill of finding a good deal!

I guess I’m exaggerating when I say winter paddling.  It was almost 60 degrees on both Saturday and Sunday this weekend, but the water temp was in the 40s so still pretty chilly.  On Saturday we leisurely paddled the Pocomoke River, launching in Byrd Park in Snow Hill.  Check out our path:

The best thing about this paddle was how calm it was.  I haven’t paddled water like this in a long time; made for some great photos.  Although Brian didn’t catch any fish and the wildlife sightings were minimal (a few buffleheads and a few eagles), it was SO nice to get outside in the middle of January.  And the highlight of this trip – the goats.  Yup, found 2 goats on an island.

On Sunday we headed out to Assateague from South Point Rd.  The tide charts said low tide was around 2:30 so we had plans to do a bit of clamming.  We arrived at the launch and it was far from low tide.  Just when I think I have figured out all the quirks about tide cycles, we get it completely wrong.  Needless to say we didn’t collect any clams, but it still turned out to be an adventure because of the fog!

I hate to say it, but I actually forgot my phone on this trip.  Brian had his GPS though so navigating through the dense fog wasn’t really an issue, except for the fact that it was really quite creepy.  Not being able to see land in any direction is unnerving.  We only lost sight of land for about 20 minutes but that was plenty!  Because I forgot my phone, here’s the path I think we took: