Salem Lake

Here's one of the nicest reservoir paddles I've yet to enjoy!  What makes a Salem Lake paddle so pleasant for area paddlers is that while the lake isn't really that big -- about 360+ acres -- the lake bends and arcs in such a way as to have you think that you're really further away from your launch point that you really are.   The picture below doesn't show the entire lake body.

Plus, if you take the left finger of the lake, you can paddle underneath Business I-40 and watch the trucks and cars rumble loudly overhead.  Then you can congratulate yourself for being on the water and not on the interstate!

Vital Statistics:  Because Salem Lake is a city-run park, you have few more rules than usual to abide.

First, the park has hours and whatever the hours are, the lake closes 30 minutes before that.  So, if you're looking for a Spring paddle and the lake closes at 5 pm, you need to be off the water at 4:30.  Also, unlike other paddles at Jordan Lake, for example, you can't get on the water until the park opens, usually somewhere between 7 and 9 am, depending on the day and season.

You must also wear your life vest and you cannot swim in the lake.  Period.

If you decide to fish from your kayak, then you must have a fishing license, which you can purchase at the park office.


Boat Ramp:  Yes!  A nice one at that. It has one of the more generous areas for boat prep.  Because Salem Lake is popular for fishing, you'll likely see a good many people fishing off the pier or launching their own small boats as well.


Restrooms:  Yes!  Up at the park office.

Rentals? Yes, but they are seasonal and dependent on water temperature.  After the water temps drop below 65 degrees, the city doesn't rent canoes or kayaks.  Usually this means rentals are available from April through October.


Fees:  Yes!  This is a Winston-Salem city park, but both residents and non-residents must pony up a launch fee.  The city website gives fuller details, but I *think* I recall paying $4 a boat on the several times I launched here.

You can also buy a season's pass if you really like paddling here.


Other Amenities:  What makes Salem Lake so nice is that you'll find a few picnic tables scattered about as well as a seven-mile trail circling the lake.  It's a great walk, and if you paddle, you're going to see lots of happy people out walking or, perhaps, riding their mountain bikes.    So, you can paddle and explore an urban environment as long as you like and then stretch out the lower body with a walk.

Another side benefit to a paddle here is that you'll likely chart a route to the lake that takes you past Old Salem.  If that happens, and if you like indulging in North Carolina history, you can add to your outing by stopping by Old Salem and walking about there.

What Might You See?  A good-sized population of coots likes to winter at Salem Lake.

Lake Jordan - Ebeneezer Point

Of the two excursions I've enjoyed at Lake Jordan, this one is the better.  Like Farrington Point, it is open 24 hours a day, but unlike Farrington Point, the two double ramps are farther apart, which means that loading and launching your kayak may be a touch easier due to lack of competition for ramp space.  

The main thing to have  a happy trip is to resist the urge to turn into the camping area because the boat ramp isn't there!  You'll see a low sign just past the turn in to the camping area that indicates that the boat ramp is another half mile up the road.

Vital Statistics:  You can find the Ebeneezer boat signs in Wilsonville, where CR 1008 crosses US 64.  Once you put in, you can once again design whatever sort of reservoir paddle you want.   I've paddled both right (toward the camping area, seen in the picture) and left (toward the bridge) from the put-in.  

If you paddle right toward the camping area, you'll see a small bit of beach that you can beach on.  Be aware, though, that most of the beach is reserved for swimmers at the campground.  

Boat Ramp:  Yes!  But...on my trip here I saw poison ivy right up to the edge of the concrete ramp.  Be alert.


Restrooms:  Yes!  No worries about poison ivy in this part of the equation!


What You Can See:  Big ol' reservoir.   However, if water levels are down and you paddle close to the waters edge, you will likely see remnants of fresh water mussels where birds have dined.  You'll also see cool root systems of trees close to the water.  And as always as Lake Jordan, you stand good chances of seeing eagles.


Tip About Reservoir Paddling:  I'd go in cooler weather.  One of the counter-intuitive things I've learned is that paddling on a warm day can make for an even hotter outing on the water.  YMMV of course.  Also, if you want to begin to hone your skills with handing choppy water, a reservoir is a good place to do so.  You don't have to learn about currents, tides and chop at the same time.   If the weather is cooler and you want to go test your wet gear, reservoir paddling might just fill the bill.

Lake Jordan - Farrington Point

Everybody starts somewhere, right?

Farrington Point on Lake Jordan served as my very first put-in for self-guided paddling after purchasing my kayak.  Here I proved that a person needs only two inches of water to tip herself out of her boat.   (You can tell from the sand beneath the water in the picture below how close I was hugging the lake's edge that first day. In fact, you can see the edge of the water.)  For sure, I needed to learn how to pop in and then pop out of my boat without flipping myself over, something I can now do.

It was a grand, if laughable, experience, especially considering that on this particular day the 13-year cicadas had emerged from their homes (or maybe it was the 17-year cicadas, I don't really recall) and were singing their hearts away.  LOUD.   But I didn't know about the cicadas at the time and became more than a little concerned that maybe Shearon Harris nuclear plant (on nearby Harris Lake) was getting ready to blow.   The whirring of the cicadas was deafening.

But if you're in/near the RTP area, and especially if you live in/near Chapel Hill as I did at the time, Lake Jordan is a great place to get up to speed with paddling basics.  In addition, you  just might see some bald eagles and herons as you paddle about the lake.


Vital Statistics:  Since you're on Lake Jordan, you can paddle whatever reservoir route you concoct.  What a lot of people do is paddle left underneath the bridge into the upper reaches of the lake so as to scout for eagles.


Boat Ramp:  Yes, four that are popular with local fishermen.  Because kayakers show up here often, boat etiquette abounds.


Restrooms:  No.  You are strictly on your own.    If you decide to take your hygiene requirements to the woods, be sure you know what poison ivy look like.  The woods are full of it.


Where to Paddle:  For my maiden voyage, I paddled left underneath the bridge on Mt. Carmel Church road and headed toward the upper reaches of the lake.  I didn't go as far as I will next time, mainly because I was learning all kinds of balancing techniques for sitting in the boat and I was thinking about that pesky nuclear plant.


What You Can See:  You'll see that the pictures for this entry don't show the same season (one late spring, the other fall).   Not to worry.  It occurred to me in snapping these that if you go in the fall (or late summer when there's drought), you may have more opportunities to beach your boat on the revealed lake edge to get out and look around.  You may also see remnants of roads that once traversed the area before Lake Jordan was built and dammed.  


Anything Else:  Yes!  Lake Jordan is a big recreation area, and if you want to camp and paddle, you'll have lots of choice in campgrounds.  New Hope Point, Poplar Point, Crosswinds, Vista Point, and Parkers Creek areas offer camping.   Check the NC state park website for availability.


And about entering/exiting your boat:  here's the non-intuitive trick about entering/exiting your boat.  You boat is actually more stable if it's in the water than if you try to keep either the bow or the stern propped on dry land.   Resolve to get your feet/shins wet, and you will be less likely to flip your entire person out of your boat.

Cape Fear River / Carolina Beach State Park Combo

This is one sweet paddle, and I'm going to apologize up front for not having more pictures.  As we launched our boats, I was convinced that there wouldn't be much to take pictures of.

Wrong!

The route hugs the side of the Cape Fear River, and because that land is part of Carolina Beach State Park, you see no development.  Only birds (ospreys), sand dunes, and coastal vegetation.  And, lest I forget, jumping mullets!  (Can't beat jumping mullets!)  I  highly recommend it.

Vital Statistics:  This paddle is about three miles long, but if you have the skill and stamina to do so, you can add more distance.

You launch from a nice, if small, sandy beach to the left of the Carolina Beach State Park marina. Then you hang a sharp left and paddle south.  After some paddling, you'll reach, on the left, a small bay.  (One fellow at the launch called it a "dredge pond." I guess one man's dredge pond is another man's bay.)  Whatever it is, you can circle the edge.  Then before you return, you can stop at a small sand bar at the neck of the bay for a stretch break.

As you paddle south, take care to avoid the channel the larger boats use over to your right.

The picture looks north up the Cape Fear River.  Inset between the two fingers of rocks on the right is the entrance to the marina.  Don't go there.  The second instance of water is Snow's Cut; don't go there either.

Also, do NOT head west.  You'll be in the major shipping lanes for Wilmington.

Boat Ramp:  Yes!  Sandy beach for us small boaters!  If you don't have a kayak, you can rent one from a  rental kiosk there.  Also, because you're launching from a sandy spot, you will have no ramp contention from the marina. The state park charges a fee to launch ($6 at this writing), so that keeps  some traffic down as well.   Still, the parking lot is generous and you can find grassy spots to place your boats as you take them off your car.


Restrooms?  Yes!  Up at the Marina office.  You'll also find a small selection of snacks up there.

What Else to Know:  You are paddling in some strong water.    Prior to wetting my bow, I was a wee bit concerned about the match between my stamina and the water since they don't call it Cape "Easy - Peasy."  I figured there's truth in naming, right?  And the day I paddled, the wind was shipping just some.  No bonafide whitecaps, but small chop.  Plus, I was paddling against the incoming tide.  But by staying relatively close to the river's edge, I was able to enjoy a really fine excursion -- and had an easy-peasy ride back to the launch.

Snow's Cut: Just Don't Do It

The first trip over the US 421 bridge spanning Snow's Cut at Carolina Beach is likely to thrill you.  It did me!  For starters, you're going to feel as if you're flying.  (Great civil engineering design for that!) Then you're going to see an thread of water that looks pretty benign, like a friendly little river.  And then you're going to think, "this would be fun to paddle."

Well, stop those thoughts.  Just stop them now.  Because from all of the research and conversation I have gleaned, you don't want to be there.  

Why?

Because that ditch is, apparently, anything but benign.   (For that reason, you get no picture of the beast.  You get a sincere and heartfelt warning instead.)


Snow's Cut links the power of the water flowing into/ out of the Cape Fear River to the power of the water of the Intracoastal Waterway.  That's a lot of power, especially considering that the Atlantic Ocean is just over the dunes and islands nearby exerting even more force. And if that were all you had to worry with, that would be enough.  But it isn't.  There's more, even after you add in the wind conditions.

As large boats and yachts traverse the cut, they each create a wake which might, under more open circumstances, be fun to ride.  But the circumstances of Snow's Cut are not open.  You're in a steeply-sided ditch.

What happens is that the waves of each wake roll to the sides of the ditch.  Then they bounce back, creating what is called a recursive wave.  You don't want any part of a recursive wave.  Seriously.  You and your little kayak stand to be tossed about in a bad way, possibly flipped and/or smashed on the sides of the ditch.

The first time I heard about recursive waves, I was paddling in Lake Superior.  The day before, an expedition (12 kayakers / 6 boats,  i.e., tandems for more stability in the big water), was stranded on the cliffs of Pictured Rocks because they paddled too close to the cliffs on a mildly blustery day, and were subsequently trapped by the recursive waves.  By all accounts, they were lucky to survive.

So, in Snow's Cut, you face the power of the tides, the power of the current, the power of the wake,  the effect of the winds, and the treachery of the recursive waves.  In short, you face a stretch of very confused and unpredictable water that is looking to send its power and energy somewhere.  And you can then add in a multiplier effect if one yacht is cruising in one direction and another yacht is cruising in another direction.

To underscore the power of that confused water, consider this:  Snow's Cut has been connecting the Intracoastal Waterway to the Cape Fear for about 80 years.  In that time, the ditch has eroded from its original 30 foot width to about 400 feet.  

After I went to school on this stretch of water -- and  decided that the better part of valor was to paddle somewhere else -- I better understood why, on a day when I was considering launching at the boat ramp in Carolina Beach State Park to paddle Snow's Cut, the attendants at the Marina looked at me with alarm on their faces and said, "You're not going to paddle there, are you?"   I was about to do something incredibly foolish.   And who wants to be stupid to that degree, right?

Masonboro Island - Southern End

Looking to paddle near Wilmington?  Then an excursion to Masonboro Island may quickly appear on your radar screen.

However, trying to paddle to Masonboro Island may also frustrate you because the standard advice for paddling to Masonboro Island is to use the Trail's End put-in and travel to the north end of the island.  However, this advice comes with a huge caveat:  time your visit at high tide.

Now if you're like me -- that is, you're just beginning to understand and interpret the impact of tides on paddle trips -- then that advice is useless.   Do you put in at high  tide?  An hour or so before?  Once you paddle over at high tide, how long do you have on the island before you're faced with a paddle back over a low tide?

The reason for the advice is, well, reasonable.   The sound side of Masonboro Island tends to mudflats and salt marsh at low tide.   If you don't time your trip just right, then you're hauling your boat through the mud.  When that happens the good times are over.

You likely recall as I do that high tide comes around twice a day.  Soooooo, if you paddle over at, say, 9:30 in the morning, do you have to wait to paddle back at 9:30 at night?  Uh-oh....we're in trouble.....I'm not paddling at night....

Because I had visited Wilmington twice before and been thwarted both times by tides and wind conditions, I was looking for a different way to paddle to Masonboro Island.  It's tough for personal time, good weather, and well-time tides to come together at the same time.

So, I bailed on the Trail's End route and used instead a route to the southern end of Masonboro Island (marked by the red arrow in the picture above) using the Snow's Cut boat ramp (not on this signboard).  If you study the picture, you'll also see an indicator for the Trail's End put-in as well as the marshy patches you've got to paddle through if you opt to paddle to the north end of Masonboro Island.


Vital Statistics:  If you put in at the Snow's Cut boat ramp, Masonboro Island is about two miles one-way (I think), maybe a touch less, via the Intracoastal Waterway.  Once you put in, you'll want to go paddle north just a bit, then hug the mainland side of the channel to dodge the large, very fast boats creating lots of rollers to ride as well as any tidal action that might sort-kinda pull you out through Carolina Beach Inlet into the Atlantic Ocean.  (People do paddle around Masonboro Island the entire 18 miles.  I'm not one of them.)

Then, when you are even, more or less, with the southern tip of the island, turn right, cross the Intracoastal and then ride the small breakers to beach your craft.  You can then get out want enjoy the island without worrying about a dropping tide.   (DO NOT enter Snow's Cut.  More on that in an upcoming post.)

Boat Ramp:  Yes!  But it's busy.  It has upwards of 90 parking spaces and was nearly full when I arrived at 9 am.

One the day I visited, the grey trout were biting and the fishermen were driving like the Joey Chitwood Hell Drivers through the parking area to get to the ramps to launch their boats to get to the fishin'.  But the good news is that the boat ramp has three ramps, and the right-most ramp is more narrow than the other two, so smaller boats tend to put in there.

Restrooms:  Yes!  Portajohns, possibly seasonally provided.  Still, some facility is better than none.

What Will You See?  Great views of the water front of Carolina Beach blending to outer Wilmington, lots and lots of pelicans, lots of boats, and then a really fine sandy point to land and walk on a near-pristine beach.

I was particularly taken with watching the pelicans dive.  I'd seen them in action before, of course, but this time I saw them close and personal.  As they dive, their short little legs wobble as if they're trying to prevent the dive they just initiated.  Pelicans have indeed devised a tough way to feed themselves.  Seeing them up close also allowed me to see the incredible curvature of their bills as well as watch the prey  go down the hatch.  Their neck skin is thin indeed.

Also, I found it thrilling to look to the horizon as I paddled by Carolina Beach Inlet (right).  At near water-level view, the ocean appears to bubble as the breakers foam and surge.  Pretty neat!


Anything Special To Be Aware Of?  Yes...besides sunburn, you'll need to watch for the boaters.  The boaters in the larger, faster boats seem, on average to have little regard for the "No Wake" signs.  Even homeowners have posted placards asking for "no wake."  Those pleas don't seem to cut much ice with these guys, many of whom look like Papa Hemingway as they lean into the breeze to get to the fishin'.  (Old Man and the Sea, anyone?)  The most considerate boater of all was a guy in huge catamaran, so high off the water that for a moment I thought I could paddle paddle underneath him (not that I would).  He eased through that part of the channel and left little to no wake to ride.

Do you need a kayak with rudders for this trip?  Maybe so.  My boat (a 14 footer) has a specially shaped hull that compensates for the lack of a true rudder/skeg combo, so I didn't miss the stability.  If your boat is short (say 11 feet), you might not want to try this trip unless you're really comfy in your boat.

Finally:  Time on the Water.  Depends on your strength and the current in the Intracoastal.  On the outbound trip I felt like a world-class Olympian due to the  current, and on the return, not so much.  I was combating the outbound current and some fatigue.   That said, allow at least three hours for the trip.


What I've Read (But Not Tested) About Tides:  I understand that the first hour a tide begins to change, it does so slowly.  It picks up speed as it approaches hours 3 and 4 in the 6-hour cycle.  Then it slows again as either high tide or ebb tide is reached.  So, I infer that if high tide is at 9:30 am and I want to use the Trail's End put-in, then I should be paddling by 8 or so to be able to go over (still on the high tide) and come back two hours later (or so) without risking the mudflats.   (The route is thought to require 20 - 40 minutes, depending on your paddle speed.)   YMMV.

Mountain Island Reservoir

This reservoir excursion is great for paddlers in the middle of North Carolina:  no long trips to the mountains or the coast.  On the day I visited, far less boat traffic was apparent than I think would have been on Lake Norman, which is north of Mountain Island Reservoir.  Plus, because much of the area borders other interesting places -- Latta Plantation and the Carolina Raptor Center -- you can cobble together a nice, day-long outing.  Another plus is that if the weather sends you a fine day, even in the winter, you can get here and enjoy an excursion quickly.  As you can see from the picture below, I paddled here in mid-autumn.

Vital Statistics:  Since this is a reservoir, you're on your own to design a route.

But I highly recommend that when you depart the cove where the boat ramp is located, you turn right and paddle up to a sand bar where, if you're paddling with a lot of friends, you can enjoy a game of volleyball!  If not that, then you can beach your boat, take a few "survivalist" pictures to amuse yourself later.  (See picture!!!!)  I think that, unless water is being released from Lake Norman, the sandbar is always see-able.  And, if memory serves, you need to  bring your own volleyball.  The net is (or, at least, was) provided.

To spot this reservoir on the map, look west of I-77 and north of I-485.    By the way...if you don't own a Delorme North Carolina Atlas & Gazetteer, go get one.  It's the best tool to use to figure out water, roads, and boat ramps.

Boat Ramp:  Yes.  I paddled this piece of water about a year (or so) ago, so when I revisit, I'll update this info with a picture of the ramp at Neck Road, in Mecklenburg County.  I do recall that it's a nice ramp, with nothing tricky about it.

Restroom:  No.  You'll want to take care of this chore at one of the shopping areas nearby.

What You Will See:  Nice-sized reservoir.  It's not huge in the way that Lake Norman is, and because of the surroundings, it's not overly loaded with houses and private docks.   But it's big enough so that you won't feel as if you're paddling about in a bath tub.