As a payback to the club for a miserable Zoom meeting experience, and because I just darn sure wanted to get back on the water again, I coordinated a trip on Armand Bayou for Saturday, January 16. Despite the short notice, I soon had a trip capacity 10 folks signed up.
Even before we got to the water, two cancelled, but the rest of us got to the Bay Area Park ramp to stare in astonishment at the lowest water level we’d seen there. Those strong north winds the days before blew a lot of water out of the bay and therefore also out of Armand Bayou. Here is what it looked like from the boat ramp: (see below) No way to floatable water from here except through many feet of soft squishable mud. Alternate putin – from the floating dock. After careful consideration, four more folks dropped out, but helped the hard core among us get our boats in the water – and our bodies safely onto said boats. (see below). Even at that, Christy had a near miss on her launch from the lowest part of the dock. Tim in his canoe and I in my large cockpit kayak launched from the higher part of the dock right where this kayak fisherman was putting his SOT on the water. Fran followed Christy’s lead with a little less drama.
(click to enlarge)
Knowing that Armand Bayou has suffered a lot of subsidence, I felt sure the old, original bayou channel would have plenty of water for paddling and it did. The additional benefit of paddling this day was the abundance of wading birds on the mudflats right next to the channel. They were having a feast day on the crustaceans and other mud-dwelling critters that were now exposed.
Flock of white ibis, the immature ones are brown.
Lots of exposed mudflats
Tim Brooking (below) in his beautiful solo canoe
Fran getting a good look at the yellowlegs.
Below, a closer look at the yellowlegs. I believe these are the greater yellowlegs with those long bills, but perhaps they are lesser yellowlegs?
We opted to eat in our boats. Winds were very light and from the northwest this day, with a downstream very slight waterflow. Made for a relaxed munch and float back downstream. The pace of our trip was quite relaxed too, a fine day to take in the bayou, the scenery, the critters while sitting back to enjoy the day.
A single mature brown pelican gave us a good close view.
Can you spot the single little blue heron fishing from a stump on the shoreline?
Below is an aggregation of the foraging birds. If you look closely, there are white ibis, snowy egret, great egret, tricolored herons, and the yellowlegs all feasting together.
Our wildlife viewing wasn’t just avian. We scared up a herd of feral hogs. They were on a peninsula separated from the mainland by deep, sucky mud, and I came around the corner just in time to get a shot of the last big boar slurping through the mud. Sorry for the lousy photo.
Alas, all good things must come to an end, and here is Tim doing the hero’s dismount from the standing position in his canoe. Thankfully no one was taking a photo of my less dramatic, but still successful, dismount from my kayak in the same location. Christy and Fran tried a shore dismount but I believe they would not recommend their route of crashing through thick cane. In any case, we spent over 3 hours paddling a total distance of 5 miles. It was totally delightful, wish you could have been along for the ride.
Natalie Wiest
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The author, Natalie Wiest |