Kayaking trips along the legendary Outer Banks of North Carolina. Our most popular and nationally recognized program!
Your adventure begins....
Monday morning, you pile into the
van with the rest of your group.
You and everybody else are a little
jittery; apprehensive, but excited
too. You sway from side to side
as the van rolls along two lane
roads through Eastern North
Carolina, passing fields of
tobacco and swampy tracts of
pine trees.
Suddenly the land ends.
You're
crossing a bridge, and gazing for
the first time at the water you'll be
paddling on all week.
Piling out of the van at Harker's
Island, you're quickly at work
organizing your gear while your
guide divvies up water and food.
After stuffing and cramming your
dry bags into the hatches of your
slender boat, you're sliding your
kayak into the quiet water behind
a jetty. Coming around the end of
the jetty, you see nothing but
open water between you and
adventure.
Led by your guide, surrounded
by your troop it's time now to put
those skills you learned yesterday
to work. Cool salty water splashes
over you occasionally as your
kayak cuts through the
waves. Conversation isn't really
possible; you have to yell to make
yourself heard over the wind, but
you don't very much mind being
left to your own thoughts as you
paddle.
Your guide stops paddling and
gets out of his boat. You're
amazed to see him standing
there, surrounded by miles of
open water, the water hardly
reaching his knees. Now
everybody's out of the boats. It's
a sandbar; a good spot, and a
good time, for a break. Across the
sound, you see pelicans skim the
water with open beaks, catching
bait fish as they fly. Wild ponies
leisurely graze on the grass
growing up through the water on
another nearby sand bar. Hopping
back in your boats, you continue
paddling to your first destination.
You learn to prep your kayak for
the night to keep critters out. After
a quick dinner under a picnic
shelter, you carry your tent and
bags across the island to the
beach. You set up your tent,
tucked between protecting sand
dunes.
It's been a day of new
challenges, big and small. Now's
it's finally time to slow down, to sit
and watch the crashing waves
until the last rays of sunlight
disappear. The moon rises above
the horizon.
Knowing a day of long-distance
paddling will begin very early in
the morning, you crawl into your
tent, and are soon lulled to sleep
by the rhythm
of the
waves.
