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Thursday, February 11, 2010

Kayaking new waters


I started writing a blog when I lived in Florida but in a short period of time, lots of things changed and I ended up moving to Bluffton, SC. Although Florida offered excellent waterways for kayaking and exploring, the Lowcountry of South Carolina is another gold mine for paddling opportunities. I got a job working as a kayaking guide for a company located on Hilton Head, SC which allowed me to get paid for something I loved doing for free. The training I received from the Outfitter provided me extensive information about the waters and wildlife in this area. The more I learned, the more I wanted to dig deeper into the history of the area and to become more in tune with the wide variety of the local birds, fish and plants.
The unique aspect of paddling in the Lowcountry is the tides. The Intracostal Waterway in Florida around the Melbourne and Vero Beach area is minimally effected by the tides and seldom experiences more than a few inches of tidal changes on any given day. Here in the Bluffton/Hilton Head area, extreme tidal changes are experienced every 6+ hours that change up to 8-10 feet between high and low tides. The waters are always navigable but where a person can paddle becomes limited during periods of low tide. The types of wildlife also change with the tidal movements. For example, high tides bring mostly diving birds such as Pelicans, Cormorants and Osprey. As the tides go out, the longer legged wading birds begin to show, like the Great Blue Herons, Great White Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Little Green Herons and Oyster Catchers. Nature has adapted each species with unique abilities to survive and find food in this area that changes drastically every 6 hours.
I miss the clearer waters of Florida but there is a mystery with the living, murky waters of the Lowcountry that makes each outing on the water a truly interesting and learning experience. I look forward to writing more about the kayaking in these new waters to share with everyone.
Art Prints

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