Kayak Camping
I recently picked up a kayak. I've been loving just paddling around with it, but there are two other kayaking hobbies I've wanted to try. One is kayak fishing (I might write about this later). The other is kayak camping. In the state of Iowa we are allowed to camp overnight along the sandbars of many of our large rivers. A friend and I both agreed that we had to try this.
It started off on a pleasant July afternoon. We began by loading up our kayaks with a lot of gear. My Pakayak has plenty of cargo space, and my friend was willing to sacrifice legroom for a few bulky items that didn't fit anywhere else. Even still, there was a cooler and two folding chairs that didn't fit anywhere. Channelling our inner MacGyver, we built a simple raft for the cooler with a 2x2 board and pool noodles. Onto that we strapped the two lawn chairs.
Once on the water, we congratulated ourselves because our cooler raft didn't sink. However, we did discover that towing this contraption produced a surprising amount of drag. Thankfully, the flow of the river did most of the work.
We started floating about 6 miles upstream from the High Trestle Trail Bridge. Our other car was parked nearly 10 miles downstream (about 5 hours of floating). The nature we passed by along the way was serene. On either side, we were surrounded by a wide swathe of trees. When neither of us were talking we could hear nothing but birds chirping.
After about two hours of floating, we landed our kayaks on a random sandbar. Daylight was dwindling, and we had two jobs. Erect our tent and get a fire going. We gathered pieces of driftwood and labored over a saw to cut logs off of the remnants of a large tree that laid along the shore. Once we had a fire going, we celebrated with a traditional meal of hot dogs and baked beans.
Night settled in. Because the moon was absent and the light pollution was low, the stars were spectacular. We stayed up late into the night chatting, and then caught a few hours of sleep.
In the morning, another fire delivered us scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee. To cook the eggs, I used a new (to me) technique. We first let a few logs burn down into coals. Then we pushed those coals into a pit we dug into the sand. Over that we placed a cast iron skillet. The heat was a little lower than what you get from an open fire, but the technique worked very well.
Both of our kayaks developed Harvestmen infestations overnight. I probably killed 20 of them (if I didn't kill them then they'd immediately stumble back into my kayak). Also, a large colony of beetles had taken refuge under my kayak. Thankfully, none of them were left aboard once I got onto the water. I can be squeamish around insects, and they might have sent me spilling into the river.
The rest of the float was mostly uneventful. We made it to our boat ramp, and I soon arrived home very tired.
I really enjoyed this adventure. Especially because of how peaceful it was. Normally, I'm put off by summer camping because the campgrounds tend to be full and noisy. On the river, it was empty and quiet. Exactly what I'm looking for!
