Day 3: Commando Camping

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I hope you haven't given up on me; I worked everyday this week. I can always count on work to suck all the creativity from my soul. Also, I started on this post a few days ago and it got lost. For some reason, I absolutely cannot stand to do something twice. So, it has taken every drop of self discipline that I posses (about two drops) to sit in front of the computer and try to muster any details at all from my memory and write something that isn't an abomination. Good luck, kind reader:
Here we are at Cartersville, the deceivingly small town. My map had this block of houses labeled in bold letters, making me think it was an actual town. You know, with a store, where I could get a nice cup of coffee, a Dr. Pepper, and a new bag of M&Ms. Water crept into the bag from the day before. James River flavored M&Ms are not very good. Luckily though, there was a trash can at the ramp so we were able to get rid of some weight. But, there was no restroom. That would have to wait.

What can I say about Cartersville, other than "disappointing"? Quaint. Quiet. I can't help but to wonder where in the hell these people work. The houses in Cartersville were quite old, but maintained in very good condition. It's one of those places visitors say, "Man, I'd love to live here," and the locals say, "I'm sick of this one horse shithole."

To be fair, Cartersville was very quiet and charming. The houses were all quite old and probably nested well-off people that enjoy quiet, country living and taking care of the old structures. Just don't plan on using it as a restocking point if you are on the river. We obviously didn't see this place during our brief visit. For that matter, we only saw two people: A retired man splashing his fishing boat who didn't know where Cartersville was, and a woman who tried to run over us with her car.

The man with the boat immediately reminded me of my grandfather. Before hitting the beach, I noticed his well kept beard and white hair. He didn't let the image of my grandfather down as we reached the beach and he started into a conversation as if he had known us for years. Apparently, he loved to fish. When he found out we had come from Charlottesville, he went into a story about his trip down the James some years back. He didn't go as many miles as we did, but it still took four days for his journey to conclude. His boat drifted most of the way as he fished the banks of the James River. At night, he camped on islands, eating the fish he caught during the day.

As he told his story, his eyes wondered far off, not really looking at anything. It was apparent he was reminiscing, and he loved to fish. He made a couple of funnies, giving us a pretty good laugh. During the few moments we were in his company, I was a little kid again, hanging out with my grandfather-the man who can make anybody laugh, build anything, and do no wrong.

The rest of this story is coming directly from memory, which is about as good as pulling it directly from my ass. If any of it is wrong, I will update it. The way I see it, this is my story and I can tell it however I want.

Day 3 turned out to be the most beautiful of the whole trip. After leaving Cartersville, we paddled along the expansive James River, again sometimes being so far from each other we didn't talk for a few hours at a time. B.I.L. paddled the banks, again, trying to find treasure. I on the other hand, don't enjoy the threat of dead trees falling on me, so I stayed near the middle and enjoyed the easier paddling of the faster water there.

Everybody thinks I'm kidding when I mention dead trees falling into the water. During a day trip on the Rivanna River last Spring, I witnessed a hawk landing on the top of a dead tree trunk. As he touched down on the jagged stump, about 30 feet in the air, the dead trunk gave in and fell to the water with a tremendous splash. An almost identical situation happened about 25 yards behind B.I.L. on this day. There was no bird, but a large limb fell from the top of a tree and crashed into the water, directly where B.I.L. had been paddling a few moments before. Told ya.

I think MapQuest is on to me. Shhh. I can't save the map anymore and write on it to show you what we did. When I right click on the map, it zooms now. It used to let me save it. Damn, you mean I have to come up with my own maps? I can't just pira...borrow them from MapQuest, anymore? What's the deal?

I can't remember how many miles we paddled for this day. I'm sure B.I.L. will let me know, and I will add that later on. We did at least 30 miles. There was a little blotch on the map marked, "Public Use Area". Hoping for a campground, we paddled like mad to get there. There is a clearly defined island on the map called Sabot Island. I was using Sabot Island as my landmark to locate the "Public Use Area," but there is a difference between maps and the real world. The little river that hooks into the James to form Sabot Island, called Little River, is really little. I never saw the little bastard, and therefore could not tell the difference in Sabot Island and the regular bank. This bit of il-navigating ultimately led us to a pretty cool camp site. You'll see what I mean, later.

Another difference between real life and maps are the symbols used to mark riffles and rapids. It is the same symbol. The little riffles in the Rivanna River are marked with the same symbol as the class V rapids in downtown Richmond. This means you cannot tell from reading a map if that water you hear up ahead is a riffle, a class V rapid, or a waterfall. An area that we took a particular interest in was a squiggly line (riffle, rapid symbol) running across the blue part of the map that denoted the James River, near a group of islands. Islands and squiggly lines on maps are a good recipe for rapids. I held the map in my lap and navigated our way, very well, through the group of islands. The squiggly lines turned out to be small riffles that we named "No Problem". This part of the James River was extraordinary. Islands broke the river apart and turned it into large streams, some smaller than the Rivanna River. The James bubbled over rocks and through islands, resembling a mountain brook. It really reminded me of places I visited with my mom and grandparents as a kid in Montana. Traversing this area made me think very hard about a paddling trip in Montana. The Montana trip idea was killed this night while I was trying to sleep.

The sun was going down and the shadows from the banks were getting longer until they finally traversed the width of the river. By this point, we had left the islands, I had missed the upstream point of Sabot Island, and we were coming up on a small group of little islands that were not on the map. Although a river only runs one direction, I was lost. I had no idea where we were in relation to Sabot Island and the islands we were now entering were not on the map. My navigation skills had been promising to this point. But at the moment, I couldn't figure out where we were. I hollered at B.I.L. to pull into a beach if he found one because I needed to pee. Actually, I needed a guise because it was getting dark and I had no idea if we had passed the "For Public Use" place or not.

B.I.L. found a great sandy beach on the first island of the group. I landed my boat and began studying the now useless chart. "Did you see the tip of Sabot Island, yet?" I asked B.I.L. acting like anybody could miss it if I did. To my relief and disappointment at the same time, B.I.L. had not seen it, either. We stayed on the beach for a little bit as I peered at the chart. B.I.L. followed a sandy path behind some trees and found the Eden of campsites. The other islands had "No Trespassing" signs posted all over them, but this one was not marked. B.I.L. took this photo the next morning. Notice you cannot tell we camped there. This was a priority for us on all of our campsites. I wish more people could camp this way.
B.I.L. was awesome about the whole ordeal, so we decided to make camp on this spot. We named this one "Probably Private Property, But Who Cares, I'm Tired." In about half an hour, we had our boats hidden on the sandy path, the tent was pitched, and B.I.L. was starting the stove. As normal, I was running my mouth when B.I.L. shhh'ed me. I could tell by the look on his face I needed to shut the hell up, so I did. Then I heard it, too. Voices. We immediately dropped to the sand, hoping to not get caught. This just turned into a situation of Commando Camping, a term coined by B.I.L. Some dork in a Hobie Kayak was paddling upstream without a PFD or shirt, even though it was getting rather cool at this point. He rode the small rapids next to our campsite back down towards a friend in a canoe, who was waiting downstream. He never saw us, and we didn't see anybody else the rest of the night.

The photo above shows the kayaks hidden on the sandy trail. The campsite is to the left. Can you guess which shadow belongs to which person?

I tried to stay up until nine that night so that I could call the blog from B.I.L.s cell phone, which remarkably had coverage. At about 8:30, I was dead to the word, curled up in my sleeping bag prepared for the coldest night during C.R.A.K. This is what killed the Montana expedition idea. Knowing we would be reaching Richmond the next day, we agreed to get up early and leave as soon as there was enough light on the water. We also had a time frame of only a few hours in which my wife's wonderful sister could pick us up once we reached Richmond. Will we make it? Stay tuned...



Fair winds and following seas...