Best laid plans...

There is something faintly poetic about listening to the marine forecast, and familiar. The voice I hear is the same I've heard in North Carolina for three summers now and, though we've never met, I feel as though we could be old friends.

This morning in rainy Beaufort, ready to go but weather-wary after rainstorms and tornado warnings chased me on yesterday's drive to the coast, the small-craft advisory for the entire weekend set the tone. First, I thought, well, it's only 20 to 25 nor' westerlies (onshore) with seas five to seven feet. But common sense, the desire to paddle another day, and a faint voice in San Diego invariably won over; and the fear of being a discussion point on some such forum as paddling.net on the silly bugger who'd heard the warnings but set out anyway.

And I wouldn't want to be remembered as my dad would sing - which I only recently learned, after hearing the tune for nigh on 46 years, is about a chap, Charlie, in fact, stuck forever for lack of a dime, in the Boston subway - "and she never returned, no she never returned, and her fate is still unlearn'd..." (Perhaps that's the only line of the song my dad knows - I'll have to ask him - not much discussion of Boston in NZ, unless you're an NBL fan - though most Kiwis have a good giggle at the concept of "The World Series".)

And another fact learned by repeatedly listening to the marine forecast; when the chap says "small craft advisory until late Sunday", it never changes, no matter how many times you listen to it.

Update: 1622hrs: The advisory is now through 'til Thursday! And I have plans to head down again this coming weekend...

Smell of a wee trip

Off to the coast to Beaufort this afternoon for a weekend's paddling.

This has to be one of the best trips within and out the Outer Banks, and one I never tire of doing. I usually leave early Saturday morning (after staying the night in Beaufort) from the very end of Harkers Island, at the Rangers' Station. You can leave your transport overnight in the station's carpark. The office isn't usually open by the time I leave, so I fax them through a float plan a few days earlier.

Then it's a nice long paddle across Back Sound (scroll right down to the bottom of the map after you've clicked on it to enlarge) before popping out Beaufort Entrance into the big Atlantic.

The 13km (8 mile) paddle along Shackelford is magic - long slow ocean swells, long sandy vista, unspoiled dunes and, of course, Shackelford's famed wild horses, which you can typically see meandering along the beach, sometimes frolicking just for the hell of it.

Saturday's forecast is for westerlies later bearing NW 10-15 knots, so it should be a good paddle sail up the Island, or Banks as it's officially named.

I'll either camp at the Cape Lookout end of the Banks, or tuck myself just inside Cape Lookout for a bit of extra shelter - depends when Saturday night's and Sunday's nor'easterlies kick in. It always amazes me when camping on the Banks, that you can be sitting in your tent gazing out over the Atlantic, watching the sun going down in the west.

And then Sunday, after another long walk along the beach, I'll paddle back to Harkers via Barden Inlet, dipping my paddle to Cape Lookout lighthouse as I pass by.

Well, that's the plan...

Back home...

We had a lovely ten days in Beaufort, a couple of weeks ago... Time scoots.

Amazingly, the kayak never left the roof of the 4-Runner, thus an extremely handsome appendage as we explored the neighbouring countryside, visiting the occasional antique (aka junk) store. I finished my packed three books in three days, thus scarpered quite happily along with FliesWithKiwiBird to all the local second-hand stores (what we call "op shops" in NZ) to find more.

I'm a Ken Follett fan, having met him a few times in the UK, and then brought him out to NYC for a UCL alumni function I organized - so happily downed another of his. I'm also a dead keen fan of Dick Francis, who used to be the late Queen Mum's jockey, and writes a mean mystery based around the British horse racing industry. I've also recently discovered Carl Hiassen, and I get a huge kick out of reading his Florida Everglades-based novels, as invariably they'll be some mention of a place I passed during this year's Everglades Challenge. I also enjoy his not-so-tongue-in-cheek way of exposing the criminal treatment of the Everglades by big business and politicians alike. As I'm a big fan of anything icy and Antarctica in particular, I found a copy of Kelly Tyler-Lewis' The Lost Men. Shackleton's 1914 expedition is an amazing saga, and I've pretty much read everything on his endeavour. In his own book, South, he devotes a chapter to his Ross Sea party, who were to lay the depots for the second half of his traverse. For the first time, Tyler-Lewis' book covers the full story. A good read. Another story that's fascinated me since childhood is the shipwreck of the Medusa. I had the good fortune to see Théodore Géricault's magnificently stupendous and gruesome painting in the Louvre, "Le Radeau de la Méduse", a few years back. I've always wanted to learn the tale behind the story, and found a copy of Alexander McKee's Death Raft. What a tale. I was also lucky to find a copy of The Kite Runner, the first novel by Khaled Hosseini. Another P.D. James sneaked its way in as well. But to cap it all off, I found an old, well-worn copy of Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny - one of those books I've always meant to read but hadn't quite got around to. What a classic. I rang my dad when we got home and we ran through the books - we're big "what are you reading now" talkers - when we got to The Caine Mutiny, he remembered reading it soon after it was published in 1951, and he immediately said, "that was the chap with the marbles". A good memory.

Of course the highlight of the trip was dipping the wee one's toes in the Atlantic Ocean for the very first time! And his very first trip to West Marine, for a bit of hardware for a scheme I have to re-rig my Pacific Action Sail...

Summer hols

We're off to Beaufort, NC tomorrow for our summer hols! Can't wait.

Love the place. We first discovered it in 2004, when on a fortnight's summer break from San Diego, ostensibly for FlysWithKiwiBird's cousin's wife's ordination. Cousin Dick used to be the long-time skipper of Duke's research vessel, Cape Hatteras, whose home port is Beaufort. Dick and Mary still own the lovely house they lived in for all those years and, as they now live in Clinton, NC, we're very gratefully allowed to use the house.

We'll be there for at least ten days, and hope to get baby Andrew out to Shackelford Island to see the wild horses and experience salt-laden-sea-air for the first time. At nearly four months, I have high expectations for him.

So not only will we be packing backgammon, scrabble, pack of cards, a thousand nappies and the last six months of unread Vanity Fairs, but the kayak will be going too. Could well be the perfect holiday!