Kayak Virginia Beach

Flag Day - Knott's Island Bay - Swan Island

Today was a return to Knott's Island after a a very long absence, and looking at my list, it has been almost 3 years since my last trip here. Had a guest with me today, and I was hoping that we would be out of the smoke, being this far South, and the forecast calling for a South Southwest wind. When we initially arrived, it was pretty smokey, to the point that we could not see across to Corova Beach.
After launching we headed South, and to the point and Swan Island, and to poke around the marsh there. We took a turn in to one of the first inlets we saw, and we introduced to our paddle partners for the rest of our trip, Yellow Flies, which made for a pleasant trip. As we and the Yellow Files rounded the Southern end of the island, we noticed what we initially thought was a house, but as we approached we soon found out that it is the Swan Island Club, a hunting club that as far as I can tell dates back to 1838. The facility look like it is pretty nice.
We then proceeded North to explore the marsh, and the plan was to continue up the shore line before returning to the Brumley Road Launch. When going to a new place I normally print out a satellite map for reference, but for some reason today I did not (Add to that, Garmin Sucks in North Carolina). So as we were looking for a passage to the North, and dealing with a lot of grass and MillFoil, along with fairly shallow water we were looking for the quickest way to the main channel, without back tracking. Well we couldm't find one, so we ended up back tracking anyways. The back tracking was rewarded, as we were coming out of what we thought was a possible passage, we were rewarded with seeing a couple of Deer crossing the channel.
We did end up back tracking the majority of the way, but all in all it was a good trip...