I had the opportunity to go on a neat coastal paddle this weekend around Cape Lookout NC this past weekend.

We started our paddle at the Harkers Island Visitor Center and then went about 3 miles Northeast to Codd’s creek. From there, we traveled around 7 miles down to Cape Lookout and camped right in front of the lighthouse. The surf landing here was quite fun as while watching one of the other paddlers make it to shore, I neglected to keep an eye on the waves and ended up getting hit with a fairly big one. We were out mostly past the breaks, but obviously not far enough, and I got sidesurfed most of the way into shore before breaking out of the wave.

The next day, we traveled around the point back to Harkers Island. On the way, we stopped at a cool island about 1 mile off the point of Cape Lookout, before heading back. There were some confused seas here and I promptly got sandwiched in between two waves and ended up flipping and after getting tossed around a bit, pulled the rip cord. After dragging my boat a back away from the breaking surf, one of the paddlers came over, did a T-Rescue, and got me back in my boat. I remembered to do the T-Rescue properly here and backed my feet into my boat, rather than going in facing the bow.

The rest of the paddle was mostly un-eventful, although I did end up cheating and doing a portage towards the end with one of the other paddlers. He and I were both beat and he mentioned that he was wanting to port over a dune to get into the bay. I decided to go with him, as it would of been a long port to do on your own and I was in need of a 15 minute break. This didn’t end up saving us any time, but we did get to relax and cool off a bit.