Layover Day Archives - Susana Field

Layover #2 Butler Island: Day 45, Florida CT Paddle 3.29.18

March 29th, 2018susanafield1 Comment

Dear Reader, Last night the winds stayed down, as if they had better things to do than flap at our tent fly, but by 2 a.m. they’d returned. And by 6 a.m., when it is still pitch black in Florida and you’d think it was still the dead of night but for the clock on your phone and the hunger in your belly, the winds were at full force and John scrambled out of the tents with the stakes, guying out the rain fly’s corners to prevent damage to our tent. We weren’t going anywhere today. That we knew from …

Layover Butler Island: Day 44, Florida CT Paddle 3.28.18

March 28th, 2018susanafield5 Comments

Dear Reader, Last night the marine weather forecasted another day like yesterday – windy in the morning and lightening up in the afternoon. And so we are going to try a new strategy for us. We are going to spend the morning and early afternoon in camp and then launch when the winds are calming. In the Pacific Northwest, where most of our paddling has occurred (John and his friend Bruce were the first to thru-paddle the Inside Passage from Skagway, Alaska to Olympia, Washington in the early 1980s, we met sea kayaking on Barkley Sound on Vancouver Island a …

Layover Sink Creek: Day 42, Florida CT Paddle 3.26.18

March 26th, 2018susanafield3 Comments

Dear Reader, Yes, you read that right. Another layover day. Again we’ve been laid low by the wind, and a cold one at that. Last night’s marine weather forecast had a small craft advisory for today. And Miss Pink and Baby Blue are nothing if not small, with their not-quite 16′ length and their skinny little waists. So today we slept in. Under gnarled trees. And beside others that have lost all but their core. Except to cook, eat and do dishes, we’ve stayed huddled in the tent reading. We hang our food bags in trees if we can, during …

Layover Steinhatchee: Day 40, Florida CT Paddle 3.24.18

March 24th, 2018susanafield2 Comments

Dear Reader, Last night we had a special treat. Fifteen days ago, a twenty-three year old Marine named Esteban Blyar began solo paddling the Florida CT at the Florida Alabama border. He has a facebook page called Kayaking Around Florida, which we started following. He is blitzing his way away Florida, with the goal of beating the current record of completing the trip in 60 days. We’ve been looking over our shoulders for days, expecting him to pass us with a huge rooster tail blasting off his stern. We wanted to make sure we weren’t blocking his way. Last night …

Storm Layover, Spring Warrior Fish Camp: Day 37, Florida CT Paddle 3.21.18

March 21st, 2018susanafield0 Comments

Dear Reader, Today was as lazy as a day can be. The wind blew such that John couldn’t use his stove, so we ate what we could using the microwave this morning, and thank God for the coffee maker. Of note: Sea to Summit bowls are not, repeat NOT, microwave safe. Yes, our bowl now is as bubbled as parts of my skin. Sigh. We did use the barbecue downstairs for our dinner though, with leftovers to eat on the (hopefully) trail tomorrow. I initially couldn’t imagine what I’d be doing by day three in a motel room during a …

Storm Layover, Spring Warrior Fish Camp: Day 35 & 36, Florida CT Paddle 3.19-20.18

March 20th, 2018susanafield6 Comments

Dear Reader, We are in Florida’s remote Big Bend, where the panhandle ends and the mainland heads south (blue and white dot). The smaller blue pin shows where we started and the red pin shows our intended destination for this season. I like looking at this map. It makes me feel like we’re making progress, no matter how slowly. And it makes me feel less frustrated about being held up again due to weather. We arrived here at Spring Warrior Fish Camp and Motel on Sunday after paddling our second-longest day yet in order to get here before the storm. …

Layover Crooked River Campsite X: Day 28, Florida CT Paddle 3.12.18

March 12th, 2018susanafield0 Comments

Dear Reader, As soon as I signed off last night, the rains came and pounded on the tent like a drum and thunder boomed in the distance. Once it quelled, I got up to pee and stumbled to the river’s edge by headlamp. No wonder it’s a swamp. The kayaks were practically floating in the puddles that had formed beneath them even as they sat on high ground. I looked furtively about with my headlamp in the otherwise pitch black of the moonless night, half expecting to find an alligator by my side, and dashed back to the tent thinking …

Layover Appalachicola: Day 22, Florida CT Paddle 3.06.18

March 6th, 2018susanafield2 Comments

Dear Reader, This morning we awoke to a forecast of a south wind with gusts up to 25 mph, 80% chance of rain and some thunderstorms. We had a 20 nm stretch to paddle with a seven-mile crossing. Winds out of the south would hammer us. At 5:00 am John told me to go back asleep. I was happy to oblige. But first I had to photograph the sunrise. And yes, that is another bridge, as seen from our hotel room at The Apalachicola River Inn. Even with our recent layover day at Spoil Bank 2, we were still tired …

Layover Day #2, Wind at Spoil Island: Day 8 CT Paddle 2.20.18

February 20th, 2018susanafield1 Comment

Dear Reader, If you are expecting wild tales of John and me paddling in high winds today, I will have to disappoint you. One thing about being retired is that we don’t really have to be anywhere other than where we are. So if it’s windy, we don’t necessarily have to force ourselves out on the water and beating our bodies up in the process. Fortunately, we enjoy camping as much as we like sea kayaking, so a day on the beach with a good book or two or three is a good day indeed. Sometime we might not be …