Gregg D. Kemp

Carmela and I joined the OBX paddlers on October 17th, the night of the “dying grass” full moon. We met at the boat ramp on the Bob Perry Road in Kitty Hawk and headed out around 5:45 or so. There were 13 of us in 12 kayaks (Carmela and I had the only tandem in the group). We spent about 20-30 minutes traveling through the channels in the marshes to get to Kitty Hawk Bay, on the east side of the Roanoke Sound.

We entered the Kitty Hawk Bay near the hour of the sunset.

The sun set over the marshes around 6:30, while we dined in our kayaks. It was a perfectly clear night, around 68 degrees I would guess - very pleasant.

And the moon rise just a few minutes after the sun set, coming up a bright pink.

The trip back was interesting for us. It was our first night paddle. The full moon lit up everthing pretty well. We followed Inga through the marshes. She knew the terrain, so we stayed close to Inga. The others were well behind us, stopping to retrieve one paddler who went off course a bit. At times the moon was too low to light up the channel in the marshes. Then we heard and saw ripples going through the water. I decided they were otters. Better otters than water mocosins. We took one wrong turn, but Inga recovered from that one nicely, finding a very narrow path through the grasses back to the channel near the boat ramp.

It was a great trip for Carmela and me. I wish I had some photos of the moonlit channels on the return trip. But seeing the sun set and the full moon rise was really special. I can’t imagine a more perfect trip. But, we’ll be looking for one, I’m sure!