A Quiet Day

I set out just after high tide, but the water is higher than normal, I'd say maybe 6 or 8 inches.  The remains of Hurricane Dorian passed by in the last few days.  While it was well out in the ocean and we saw only a couple windy days, a storm surge seems to still be present.  I wasn't sure when I headed this way if I'd have enough water to take my favorite route up through the Sneak, but it is clear that it will go.  So, I head up the Neck River.

6 Willets and a Dunlin, 3 Dunlin just past the first bend, 2 more Willets, 2 Great Egrets well out in Ox Meadow, and a Least Sandpiper.

5 Willets and a Dunlin

Fall is coming and the marsh is starting to tinge with red and brown.  The water is calm, the air not quite still and the sun pokes through the clouds from time to time.  The marsh is exceptionally beautiful today.

Mom passed on last summer and since then me and my brother have been distributing her ashes.  Some of them are halfway around the world, some have gone to her birthplace, and others went to a midwest forest where she would take us when we were kids.  She was a water spirit for sure, a teenage member of a synchronized swimming troupe and holder of most if not all of the Red Cross swimming and lifesaving certifications.  So, I brought some of her ashes here - a water place - a river that if I could only paddle one place, this would be it. 

Cedar Island

The first pinch goes into the water at the bend in Bailey Creek with the beautiful view of Cedar Island.  The second goes in the Sneak.  It's my private place, the one spot I try to show friends when they share the canoe.  It is also the center of the Willet nesting grounds and they are particularly attentive parents. 

Another pinch goes in at the Big Bends, then more between Duck Hole Farms and the colonial smallpox cemetery that can't be seen until the leaves fall, then another at Foote Bridge.  The final pinch is put in the river at a log jam a 1/3 mile above the bridge where very few people go.  The off-white grains settle on the shallow bottom.  It's the only time I bother to watch.  Then, I turn and head back out.

It has been one of the finest of days on this river.