Morris Island Kayak Camping

So I was browsing Flickr and came across the pictures from the trip that Jeremy, Jonathan, Chris, and I took one weekend in January of this year (yeah, it was cold).

We loaded up several dry bags with dry clothes, sleeping bags, food, a backpacking stove, and other necessities and stuffed them into and tied them on top of the 2 tandem kayaks and put off by the Folly Beach Pier around 10 o'clock on Friday night. Jeremy and Chris were in one kayak, Jonathan and I were in the other one. We paddled north towards Morris Island, staying just beyond the breakers until we reached the north point of Folly, where we had to swing way out into the ocean to avoid getting rolled where the waves were crashing on sandbars.

As we approached Morris Island we began to look out for an area that Jeremy and I had previously scouted out where the waves had over time washed away the walls surrounding an old rice field, creating a grass ledge right above the beach. Eventually we spotted an area that looked to be potentially the right spot and paddled in toward the beach. Unfortunately, when you tie numerous dry bags across the cords that are used to raise and lower the rudder, that task becomes much more difficult -- as I attempted the process, a wave caught the side of the boat and rolled Jonathan and I up onto the beach. Mind you... the air temperature at this time was about 40 degrees. Thank goodness for wet suits!

Well, we were able to gather ourselves up and began to walk (or run to keep warm) up and down the beach in an attempt to find a place where we could climb up to the ledge... with no success. So we piled back in the kayaks and continued to paddle north along the beach. Once again, we landed and continued the search. Finally, Jeremy came up with the bright idea to run up the beach with one of the glow sticks we had tied to our life jackets until he found our perfect camping spot. We got back in the kayaks one last time and continued our final trek, this time using the glow stick as a beacon.

By this point, it was shortly after midnight and we had travelled 7 or 8 miles from our starting point. Needless to say, we were hungry and tired, yet very satisfied with our journey. Jeremy and I began to unload the boats, starting with Jonathan's tent that we had also stuffed in one of the hulls, and Chris and Jonathan took the tent up the ledge and began setting it up. Once we had gotten all of our gear on the ledge, we pulled the kayaks up, as well -- a good thing since the next morning we discovered a high tide with the waves crashing against the cliff walls.

I then broke out my brand new backpacking stove (the instruction manual since I'd never used it) and began to prepare both the best and worst chicken and rice dish ever. And then, it was bedtime... because it was so cold, we really didn't mind that there were 4 guys in a 3 man tent.

The next morning, I woke up at sunrise and Jeremy soon followed suit. Since Jonathan and Chris are a bit more of late sleepers than we are, we took off to explore the island without them. By the time we returned, they were working on waking up, so we got out the oatmeal, granola bars, and hot chocolate. We then all took off to make an attempt at exploring the old rice paddy.

As we progessed, we began to hear loud cracking noises in the distance, but discarded them as someone pounding a hammer over on James Island. However, the farther we got, the noises grew louder and louder and we began to notice shotgun shells scattered on the ground... not a good combination. About this time, we simultaneously make the decision to get the heck out of Dodge and hear the loudest crack yet, followed by the noise of bird shot raining down around us. About half a mile later, we stopped, caught our breaths and expressed amongst ourselves our disapproval with the rednecks hunting for quail on the Island.

After that whole debacle, it was getting to be late morning, so we determined that is was probably time to start packing up to head back to the mainland. And no, the coming of daylight didn't bring any new warmth to the January air. So we packed everything up, put our wetsuits back on, and set out to sea. Now that it was daylight, we wanted to get some picutres with the Morris Island Light, so took a brief detour past it, snapped and few photos, and continued on south towards the pier.

As we got nearer and nearer to home, the more we realized how cold that we were, even with the wetsuits. Fingers and toes began to grow numb, earlobes started to freeze, but we kept on trooping. Finally, we came to the pier, pulled the boats out of the water, and took everything up to the cars, immediately followed by a heat blasting session to thaw our chilly bodies, as we basked in the excitement of having successfully completed an awesome adventure!