Kayak Camera: Trip 2

Wow, I'm beat.  I've basically spent the whole day either working on the river, kayaking for fun alone, or kayaking with friends.  The camera-traps have hopefully been working hard lately, so I have taken my mind off of most of them for the past day or two.  Today was dedicated to the Potomac River.

The wee hours of the morning have been calling my name lately.  I was up and at it at 5:30 in the morning to see the sunrise on the river while on a kayak.

I hit the water just as the sun had come up over a ridge on the Maryland side of the Potomac River.  There was another man taking out a nice bass boat nearby so I said hello and paddled onward.

The point of getting out this early was to  not only see the sun rise over the river, but to just relax alone before the work day started. This sunrise just happened to be the earliest of all sunrises because of it being the day of the summer solstice.

I completed 12 laps from Virginia to Maryland and back and paddled a little upriver to an island to take a short break.

Silt and dirt were still in the river from rains a few days ago, but the river was flowing at a decent pace.  Cormorants, great blue herons, bald eagles, baltimore orioles, and mergansers were doing their usual calls and activities at this time.

Common mergansers showing their summer colors:  a rusty-reddish head and a gray body

I drifted and paddled back to the Virginia shore where I was greeted by a raccoon messing around with some leftovers in a trash can near the boat ramp.  Clapping didn't make it budge so I got a little closer and yelled at it.  It ran up a tree and gave me a few glares before coming down and disappearing into the woods.