Day 13 Blog post: Marcus Roberson

Last night I thought I finally heard the real voice of the rivers in my sleep. As I steadily gained coherence, I realized that it was not the elusive presence we had been seeking these past two weeks. It was the sound of a large pick-up truck full of some of the friendly locals screaming, "_____ kayakers!" and "welcome to South Carolina!" and "whooooo!!!" If you read yesterday's post about the place we camped, you can imagine how freaked out we were when we realized that we must have been sleeping in the graffitier's party spot. Woops?

We made some really awesome changes in our schedule today. During our briefing the previous night we all decided to wake up early to paddle out and get good mileage in before the heat of the day. 4:30 - 5:30 breakfast  5:30-6:30 packing and 6 departure. Well... we made it out by 6:30! And wow did it make a difference! We paddled 16 miles from 6:30 to 10:30. Had awesome PB&Js and took a nap under a busy bridge, then set off to find our campsite at 12:30.

6 hours later we still had not found a suitable sandbar to camp at! We ended up paddling 36 miles today, finally finding an old closed down boat ramp behind a thick outcrop of willow trees, at the recommendation of a friendly fisherman. Whew what a long day of paddling, our longest yet! We enjoyed some chili, had a short communications class, and fell asleep to some crazy awesome heat lightning (that later turned into a heavy rainstorm.)

I'd like to leave you dear friends with a song that spoke to me today on the river.

"What I love most about rivers is
you can't step in the same river twice;
the water's always changing, always flowing.
But people, I guess, can't live like that
we all must pay a price
To be safe we lose our chance at ever knowing...
What's around the riverbend.
Waiting just around the riverbend."
-Pocahontas (she knew what was up!)

Day 14 campsite

Many thanks Buck and Frank at Durham's Bluff for the power from their generator to charge our cell phones.

Day 14

Lunch today was provided for us by Mike and Terry of the Great Pee Dee River Watchers at Joystick Landing, SC.

Day 13: We arrived at our campsite - after looking desperately for a suitable location, and after confirming its existence with some local fishermen. We estimate that we paddled about 33 miles today. Quite an accomplishment. We don't have enough powe

Day 13, right after lunch

We had an early start today - paddling by 6:38, which is a major accomplishment for this group of sleepers. The result is a cat-nap at every opportunity.

Day 12 Blog post: Aislinn Dugan

Today was our longest day of paddling so far; we went 28 miles. It was also the hottest day we have had due largely to the lack of cloud cover. We just arrived at our campsite under a bridge and it is 6:30pm. We are all pretty exhausted and sunburned (pfd tans are coming in nicely). Right now I can see Henny Penny is starting dinner, Rickelodeon is journaling to my right, Mater is socializing with some local fishermen, and Marshalldat is exercising his magical fingers. I can't see anyone else but the V.O.R.acious crew is all around me and still keeping it real.
We started on the water at 8:30am and it was scorching hot already! I noticed a lot of erosion along the banks of the Pee Dee today, which I'm guessing is from the flood that happened a few months ago. There havn't been many signs of development along the river for the past few days, only a few scattered cabins here and there. It feels somewhat secluded without signs of society but hearing the birds chirping and fish jumping I am reminded of the many forms of life that we share this river with.
We stopped for lunch at 11:50 on a nice sandy beach and went for a swim. The green heads were out in full force and there were yelps and cries of pain as these colorful flies enjoyed there own lunch.
After lunch we were moving even slower. Tucker and Rick kept us alive with bilge pump showers. We also made a few rest stops along the way. One beach was completely covered with socializing butterflies. We stopped to admire this rare sight and continued on our way with a few fluttering stow-aways who stayed with us for miles.
We made it to the first bridge of the day and our take out under highway 34 outside of Darlington, S.C. Our plan for tomorrow is to start early in order to get into camp early and avoid some of the heat. It's a great plan in theory but I am not looking forward to waking up at 4:30 in the am.

Moon rise

Looking downstream from our campsite under a bridge on night 12.