The Sixth Voyage of the
Chick-a-Dees

Segment 05, Day 4 – Wednesday, 04/07/2021

CT Segment 05 Tates Hell, Sunday Rollaway Camp to Crooked River Camp 44

We didn’t get a sunset last night, but the sunrise over the marshes this morning was heavenly. A heavy dew had fallen leaving our tents very wet so we were in no rush to break camp. We slowly gathered our gear, leaving the tents for last, and made a few trips down the tramway to the launch site with our dry bags.

With all these launch sites that only afford room to load 1 kayak at a time, I have figured out a little system that works for me. While Dena was loading up, I arranged all my gear at the top of the bank the way things would be loaded into the kayak. The 3 stern bags on the left, the 3 bow bags on the right, all the items that are stowed on deck or behind my seat in the middle. After Dena finished I moved my kayak down from the top of the bank into the water into loading position and it took me less than 8 minutes to join her on the water. Maybe I’m starting to get the hang of this!

It was just a few minutes before 10 am when we hit the water again. Another late start, but we were in no rush and our tents were at least 1/2 dry. I think I’m going to buy a small dry bag just for the tent fly and start storing it separately so the fly doesn’t get anything else wet.

Today we started with the salt marshes but gradually shifted into pine forest habitat with some hardwood uplands. This second day continued with blue skies and puffy white clouds and we saw quite a bit of wildlife, noticeably absent on our first day out. Turtles and small gators were sunning on downed trees, red-shouldered hawks screamed from the forest, warblers twittered in the undergrowth along the banks, Vultures – both Black and Turkey – circled overhead, Anhingas were out fishing the waters.

For a couple of miles we saw quite a few Great Egrets, many in breeding plumage, so we figured there was a rookery nearby although since they were congregating probably no nests up here yet. And we spotted at least 5 Swallow-tailed Kites although none came close enough for a good photo.

Two kind of funny things happened this day. First, a little gator – about 30 inches long – swam out from the bank straight at my kayak. I think he was curious. I was stopped taking a photo of the clouds so I remained still to see how close he would get. He swam up to within about 8 feet of me, his tail lashing smoothly back and forth, then he brought his front legs forward to put on the brakes. He sat there for about 30 seconds looking at me while I talked to him, then swung around 90 degrees and took off lickety-split for the opposite shore.

The second funny happening concerned our navigation skills. (Ok, MY navigation skills!) I saw a nice looking “creek” through an archway of downed trees off to our left and decided to investigate. We paddled under the criss-crossed trees, past a downed tree with a huge root ball, then out into a gorgeous and large stream. We paddled up it just a bit, then back down and back through our tunnel to the river and continued on our way. 20 minutes later we were again passing the same huge root ball. The “side creek” we had investigated was the river! We could have taken a short cut across an oxbow in the river and didn’t even realize it. That will teach us to navigate by the seat of our pants instead of checking things out on the GPS we both carry!

At 1:45 we pulled into the landing for our campsite at Crooked River Camp 44. There is a picnic table right on the water and that area is supposed to be designated “Campsite Z”. There’s room for 1 or 2 small tents beside the picnic table but 4-Wheelers have churned up the mud pretty badly in creating a circular drive just beyond. Campsite Z is supposed to be a free campsite for long-distance paddlers only, but the signs designating it as such are missing. I know the local CT Trailmaster reported the missing signs to both FPTA and the State Forest last Thanksgiving (11/20/2020) because when he tried to camp there while doing his beginning of season maintenance survey the folks in the reservable campsite #44 gave him a hard time believing that the picnic table and space belonged to their reserved site. But still no signs put up in the 5 months since – just 2 empty holes where someone had pulled out the sign posts.

A older man with a pickup was waiting for us at the landing. He had brought his little terrier named “Baby” and a young woman out to see the site. The woman was out exploring so we never met her, but the guy was a local who fished the area a lot, so we chatted about the river and pet his dog while we unloaded.

The reservable camp area #44 is just up the road and much closer to the water than at Sunday Rollaway – about 100 feet – in a nice grassy clearing off to the side of the road. This landing is also a little wider and we were able to unload both boats at one time after removing some oyster shells so we could pull the boats 1/2 up onto the sand. We set up camp quickly to take advantage of the sunshine to complete drying out our tents. I put up a clothes line between two trees and the wind and sun dried out the tent flies and our damp clothing. We ate dinner at the picnic table then put together our chairs to relax and read for a while.

The one unfortunate thing, is that all the campsites along the river are accessible by vehicle, and that evening there was a steady stream of people driving around, up and down the roads, in and out of the campsites. We were visited by several cars – either just out exploring or maybe coming to see if they could camp here for the night. I guess there were 3 funny things today, because I had stripped down to my underwear so my paddling clothes could dry on the line and every time a truck or camper pulled up I had to jump behind a tent. I finally got tired of that and put on pants and a shirt, even though they were still a little damp. Of course, no one showed up after I was fully dressed!

We had a nice sunset through the pines trees which cast a little bit of pink on the water at the landing. By 8 pm the bugs were out but we were snug in our tents.