My buddy Brian and I have come up with the great idea of kayaking from my house in Newport, NC to his house in Portsmouth, VA this summer. That is a 250 mi, 10+ day trip along the Outer Banks; ouch, we better start training now.
Brian just bought his kayak this weekend, MLK Jr. weekend, and with highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s we decided to take a camping trip to Shackleford Banks and the Cape Lookout National Seashore.
We started out at Shell Point, at the Cape Lookout National Seashore Visitors Center on Harker's Island, and kayaked out to Shackleford Banks. The 2 1/2 mi trip took about 45 min.
This was the maiden voyage for Brian's kayak. An Old Town Cayuga 146. I have an Old Town Dirigo 140.
After setting up camp on Shackleford we kayaked over to Cape Lookout Lighthouse on South Core Banks.
We then went across to Cape Lookout Bight hoping to find some clams. I bought a clam rake a couple days prior and was hoping to find enough for a nice appetizer. You can see the lighthouse in the background.
We were successful and found 26 clams in about 45 min.
We then decided to kayak into the Atlantic for a more direct approach to our camp. The lighthouse is in the background and the bight is off the picture on the right. We kayaked about 10 miles the first day.
I brought along some butter and garlic and steamed some clams on the beach. It was a terrific appetizer after a great day of kayaking in January.
The next morning we basically back tracked, clammed some more on the bight and returned to the camp via the sound and broke camp. The Shackleford Ponies were around were we pulled ashore. We actually saw a lot of the ponies both days.
We raked in 6 dozen clams at the bight and took them home for steaming and to make some chowder. This was an amazing trip for January. Unfortunately the cold weather is on its way and it will probably be a couple months before we get weather like this again.
