Paddling Trips on West Neck Creek,  January 2004 and Spring 2004

I went paddling twice on West Neck Creek smack dab in the middle of Winter.  We had a very warm temperature spell right at the first of the year and I was able to get out in my new kayak for just the third and fourth times.  I managed to make one more trip on West Neck in very early Spring.

I took no pictures on any of the trips but here is a picture of my put in......

Dozier's Bridge (Princess Anne Road crossing over the upper part of West Neck Creek) put in.  Not very enticing but it is better than you might think once you are out on the creek.  This picture was taken in mid Winter and after an extended period of North winds which can lower the water level significantly.  The shot is taken facing the South which is the most navigable part of this creek.

Trip #1:  My first West Neck Creek trip was a mid week experience.  I took off early from work with the intention of paddling from Dozier's Bridge to the Indian River bridge down South.  I did not make it to the Indian River Bridge.  This part of West Neck Creek is manmade.  It was dredged in the 1940's to drain swampland North of this area.  The creek makes a straight run from this put in for about a mile where it makes a dogleg to the left.  I did not make it much further than that as I ran into a lot of fallen trees courtesy of Hurricane Isabel.  I have never paddle where there were things in the water and while navigating around the trees was fun,  having to push over some of them was not.  Being a beginner I was still unstable and unsure and gave up after hitting an area with many fallen trees.  While this was a neat and fun experience I soon got tired of hearing military aircraft at ear numbing volumes.  I have nothing against the military but did not realize that this creek fell under such a heavily used flight path.  My trip back was uneventful and I saw no wildlife other than small birds.

Trip #2:  My second West Neck Creek trip was on a Saturday.  No jets!  This made the experience much more enjoyable as you cannot hear cars after leaving Dozier's Bridge.  You feel like you are in the middle of nowhere.  This trip was a copy of my prior trip except I did brave the fallen trees and was rewarded with a paddle all the way to the Indian River Road bridge (about 3 miles or so).  The last half mile prior to Indian River Road is where the waterway returns to a natural waterway.  I saw some turtles and egrets and the shoreline was much more interesting.  I really enjoyed that a lot.  My return trip was a bit tiring and the sun was starting to drop quickly.  I worried that I spent too much time heading South and would be punished by finishing my paddle in darkness.  I had a particularly hard time traversing over one area of fallen limbs.  On the way down (South) the trees readily pushed down into the water while I paddled over them.  On the way back (heading North) they acted as barriers because of the way they were pointing.  It took a lot of maneuvering and pushing with my paddle to get them out of the way and down into the water where I could get around/over them.  I made it and was worried now even more about paddling in the dark and it was getting chilly.  Mind you,  this is Southern Virginia Beach and my version of chilly is definitely not all that scary.  Anyway,  I surprised myself by really putting on a pace and getting back to the launch ahead of dusk.  A little cold and tired but definitely happy that I braved the trees to go to Indian River Road.

Trip #3:  My last trip (for now) to this upper part of West Neck Creek was intended to be exploratory.  I decided I would try to head North (towards my neck of the woods) and see how far I could get.  This was not a very nice trip.  The area North of Dozier's bridge was very ugly and had a lot of trash in it.  The water didn't look so good here either.  I managed to make about a mile or so before I was doing more poling than paddling.  It started raining on the way back but it wasn't unpleasant.  I decided to head South into the area of the creek I had paddled twice before.  I was surprised at how much it had changed.  The water level was significantly lower and did not make for a pleasant paddle.  I went to the first bend and then headed back.  Not a very good trip to remember the creek by.

While this waterway is not very big it did have a big impact on me.  I have since been paddling tributaries of the North Landing River and enjoying the solitude of them much more than the Lynnhaven River and Broad Bay areas where I thought I would be doing a lot of paddling.