Carolina Kayak Club trip to Carolina Beach State Park

Thanks to Virginia for organizing this great trip and to Chris for scouting out the campsites at the state park!  We arrived in Carolina Beach Friday night and met at the Tiki on the pier.  Instead of trying to find the Fat Pelican for late night fun, we all decided we should get our tents set up and go to bed early.

On Saturday morning we could not find Chris. He had walked to the grocery store for more food as the park gates were closed. We found him and launched from the marina shore while Chris and Lee carried their boats down a trail to launch.  We paddled through Snows Cut with the tide checked out some marshy areas and had snacks


We paddled out to the Carolina Beach inlet for surf shenanigans. Were Chris looked like a dream on the water.   Virginia was a vision in white. Curry was showing his skills. Lee was getting some of the best rides ever after having a surf class from  Lamar the day before. Lee also had some spectacular wipe outs.  They were spectacular because he held on and did not wet exit and then rolled up when the wave released him. Hurry for Lee; he now has a combat roll!  I had some of my best rides on a longer boat.  I'm really liking the Kestral, but as usually I swam about 3 or 4 times.  I also got to try Rodney's Alchemy and found it to be very forgiving and still a lot of fun in the surf.

.  Afterwards Lee made very very heavy hors d'œuvres, while Chris met up with some friends and participated in a "Hash Run".  Apparently a Hash run is where you run from spot to spot looking for a hash mark in the road that designates a hidden beer , then you run to the next hash mark and find another beer!  Now I know while Chris is so fit; he never stops moving. I'm not certain he sleeps much either.

While Chris was running we went to dinner at Uncle Vinny's.

During the night a big thunderstorm came through and lighting was cracking trees right in the State Park.

The next day we found Chris eating cinnamon rolls with icing before we packed up to leave the park.  We launched at the wildlife ramp on the other side of Snow's Cut. We searched out more marshy spots and got into quite a bit of wind and wake for a flat water paddle. We were off the water about noon before the storm clouds looked too bad.  It was a perfect paddling weekend at the coast.