June 11, 2008

June 11, 2008

By 8:30 we had launched from Wrightsville Access. The storms of the night before brought in cooler, dryer air. The day was sunny and the temperature was about 68 when we started. We wanted to move to river left because there was a bunch of rocks and riffs on the right side, so we paddled diagonally across the river skirting the rocks. It seemed to take forever. The river at that point is close to 1-1/2 miles wide.

We had tailwinds!!! Not strong ones—just steady soft rolling waves that were rolling WITH us! That made the day very pleasant. And combined with lower temperatures, nothing could be better.

We thought we would be making real good time because of the tailwinds, but we forgot that we were in Lake Clarke which is an eight mile lake formed by the Safe Harbor Dam. We still made better than three miles an hour. It is extremely wide. We didn't see much wildlife.

At Safe Harbor Dam we had two plant employees portage us around the dam and into a park maintained by the plant that borders the Conestoga River. The river was fast flowing into the Susquehanna and we were only about ¼ mile up. Back in the main river we tried to eat lunch in the kayaks while turning back and forth through whirlpools, I saw a muskrat on the shore. My first muskrat sighting.

Back in a lake again—Lake Aldred. It's between Safe Harbor and Holtwood Dams. It's about 7 miles long. Unmoving water but we still had tailwinds. The plant employee at Holtwood was right there when we dragged through the mud at the ramp. He drove us to Muddy Creek Access which is about three miles downriver and below the low water and rocks.

The tailwinds seemed to diminish and the temperature seemed to have risen. We went past the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station and were surprised there were no stacks like we saw at Three Mile Island (or Berwick). We headed for shore and the end of our day at Peach Bottom Marina on river left at mile 17-1/2. The marina is ½ mile up a creek that has a railroad bridge at its mouth. We didn't notice the marina and continued about a mile past that to some houses and such that we assumed had the marina among them. After a cell phone conversation with my husband, we found out that the marina was under and beyond the railroad bridge one mile back. Only one more day to go!!