River Bend and is one of our very first Stewards. Her lilting laughter carries
a long way over the waters when we are paddling. She adds much pleasure
to our trips.
This is Scott Brown of Morehead City and Elmer Eddy of Trenton at our put-in
at the County Club ramp. If you use these facilities which are private, please
identify your selves as being Waterway Stewards and that you are picking up
all trash as you paddle. Or you can pay the fee if you wish to.
his boat at the Pollocksville ramp. Leo resides in Emerald Isle. That is Dale
Weston from Jacksonville up front. They arrived to meet us even before we,
paddling, reached the Quaker Bridge Road #1121 a distance of about 2 miles.
Leo and Dale continued motoring up strem to almost Trenton. So we feel sure
one can put in there and paddle without obstructions all the wasy to New Bern.
Things like this should de removed bank to bank. They are a hazard to
navigation.It is not hard to imagine what the hazards are as the water rises
and falls as it just did with our prolonged rains and then Nichole on top of all
that. More importantly, there are thoseand of these in all differnt shapes and
sizes. Right now, the trees are still covered with leaves to make matters worse.
Collectively, all this mass slows the natural flow of the river and causes our
floods to rise a foot or higher than is necessary.
This extra foot or so of water causes many a farmers field to become flooded
and damage his crop and also floods many a home and business unnecessarily.
FEMA money should be used immediately to clear our streams and let them
flow naturally. We are still in the Hurricane Season! This will also put a lot of
people to work immediately and save FEMA funds in the future.
downstream into the Neuse River. (A freind told us about his fishing trip out
of the New River Inlet. He said the trash was visible for miles out into the ocean.
With the changing winds and the tides a lot of it will end up on our beaches!)
shore. It was a wilderness area. It would sink in deep water. The flood must
have left it here.
These leaves are caught on an incoming tide in a very slow moving eddy.
the reflection in the water too.
flood waters. There are thousands of existing obstructing things like this all the
way up to the origin of the Trent River up near Kinston.
Now add inumerable more on all of the tributaries and we have a very
signifacant slowing down ot the natural drainage of this entire watershed.
Without all of these partial obstructions in the watershed, the natural open,
free flowing clear channels, bank to bank, could have drained the entire
watershed to much lower levels in the period between the days of prolonged
rains and the arrival of Tropical Storm Nichole.
We believe this would have reduced the flood damages considerably!
This reasoning and logic applies equally to all rivers and streams in our
Coastal Plains.
Thanks again, Joanne.
This was a most unusual trip. The weather report for this area said 20%
chance of rain after 2:00. Intermittent slight sprinkles began off and on at
12:00. We did not darn our rain gear. Then, of course is when the heavy rain
came about half way thru the Air Base area. We had planned to eat our lunch
at the Air Base ramp.
boat and we cruised at about 5 miles per hour down to the Pollocksville ramp.
We know it was raining along the coast in the morning and that this is probably
why so few showed up. For any of you who did not make this trip you can begnnning
on this Friday and continuing through the following mext five days with excellent
weather. We did pick up all trash until the heavv rains came about halfway trough
the Air Basse property. Good paddling and thanks, Elmer
The following is from Matt Rosso: (dated 2010-10-25)
Elmer,
Just went to Queens Creek and Picked up the inland end Sunday. Beautiful
area and now clean. No trees down where we were, the river is cleared of debris.
Matt
Thanks Matt and congratulations. Elmer