Anne and I paddled kayaks from the Stella Bridge up Hunters Creek to one of my favorite kayak accessible camping spots. We got drenched by rain when we were less than a mile from our destination. When we arrived at the spot I had chosen to overnight camp, our first order of business was to set up a shelter and get into dry clothes. Everything that wasn’t in a dry-bag was wet. Fortunately, all of the things we needed to be dry were properly stowed.
It was a noisy night, with fireworks displays all around us, but they ended around 10pm. After that, it was quite peaceful. I woke up a couple of times to strange noises, but I fell back asleep easily. I was well rested in the morning.
It was a pretty morning with intermittent sunshine and no rain, but we could hear distant thunder. The radar showed the stormy weather was south of us, but it was expanding in our direction. We both knew it was only a matter of time before we would encounter rain. So, we had an early lunch and packed up to leave just before 11:00. Obviously, we weren’t in a huge hurry.
We did get rained on for most of the paddle back, but the winds stayed relatively calm which helped a lot, even if we were getting soaked. We were also being helped along by an outgoing tide. I’m not sure exactly what time it was when we got back to the boat ramp; it was starting to rain again, so we focused on getting loaded up and into the car. I do know we got back around 12:30, so we did pretty good time for a 3.5 mile paddle in inclement weather.
All in all, it was a good trip. I suppose, had I known the weather was going to be like it was, I might not have gone, but I’m glad I went. We really lucked out, because it could have gotten very windy, or we might have encountered lightning. As it was, the lightning never got close to us and the winds were unusually calm.
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