Camping Day 48

James River SP
Friday August 3, 2007

After breakfast I used our little compressor to pump up the float tube so it would be ready in the afternoon. The plan is to do the upper 6 miles on the James with our kayak's then have lunch and float the lower 2 miles that we paddled yesterday.

So off to the canoe livery to get our kayak's and us up river 6 miles to Bent Creek and the state park put-in. The charge is $5 per boat and another $5 per person, so we spend our $20 and head off.


Unloading the Kayak's at Bent Creek

We paddle up river under the US60 bridge so we can get a look at the public launch area. Then we start our float back to the canoe livery.

Near US60. The river flow is about 1400 cuft/sec

One of several rest stops along the way

On our trip we passed through several riffles which tested us a little and added some new scrapes to the bottom of our kayak's. The highlight was seeing 3 eagles. They flew right over us at a fairly low altitude. One had a fish in it's talons but dropped it when the other eagle made a grab for it.

There was also a flock of geese the squawked at us as we neared them. They would rise and fly a few hundred yards down river only for us to put them up again. One flock however just moved off the river and up the bank until we passed.

There were also some cows in the river near the bank. They just looked at us as we passed by. Oh yeah and just to add variety we had an F14 fly over. Only a single plane. We were later told that it was most likely from Cherry Point.

I just have to take an underwater picture with our water proof camera.
It does show how clear the river was.

A relaxing swim along the way

We arrive at the landing about 2:15 pm. It has been a long but enjoyable time on the river so we treat ourselves to ice cream at the livery store. We also bought another koozie cover for a water bottle, we had bought one before the trip and it worked so well we decided to spend a few more dollars.

We went back to camp and showered off the river and took a nap. Needless to say the afternoon float on the tube would wait for another day.

After super we visited with the camp host and looked over their Arctic Fox TT which they full time in. Their home base is in Suffolk VA.