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Ch. 4 — Sorry, Friend, Your Campsite is Under Water.

Beard’s Bluff sits at river mile 81 of the Altamaha, the picturesque coastal fishing village of Darien being river mile 1.  The bluff itself is barely noticeable, but the spot is, indeed, a foot or so higher than the surrounding swampland.

Perched there is the Adamson’s complex, a proudly spartan, arrogantly rustic place that is typical of the fish camps and boat ramps – there are about 30 – along the lower 100 miles of the Altamaha.

Adamson’s features a campground, cabins, screened cookhouses, canoe and kayak rentals, ice, bait, cold drinks, cold sandwiches, hot food on occasion, a jukebox, bumper pool, and guide service.

“You Mr. Smith?”  the manager asked as I got out of the car. I replied that I was. Over his shoulder, I could see the swollen river, moving at a speed that was unexpected and disturbing.

“We called your house and left a message, but you were gone, I guess.” He looked at my diminutive Tracker, no doubt comparing it to the local vehicles like his pickup, the tires on which were as tall as my roof.

I interpreted the look as a compliment for making it down the flooded road in such a half-pint car. It probably wasn’t.

“A message?” I said.

“About the high water. It’s risin’ pretty quick. We might have to leave after a while. The campground’s already under water.” He pointed to the camping area near the edge of the river. It was, literally and totally, under water.

I glanced around the little settlement. In addition to the campground area, it consisted of an office/restaurant/store/bar/gameroom building, a row of cabins and cookhouses, and a collection of sheds, all of it high and dry except for the campsites.

It was a little after 9:00 a.m. and still chilly beneath the canopy of trees. Two homely little dogs arrived to inspect me. I reached down and scratched their ears, glancing from the swiftly moving river to the submerged campground and back again. I thought uneasily about the long ride back to the pavement at U.S. 301.

Ch. 5 — Paddling to the Put-In

The manager’s companions were a 40-ish fellow who didn’t say much and two good-natured boys of about 10 and 17, all of whom were outside the office, painting the porch steps. The manager and I went inside.

The place was decorated with an eclectic mix of hunting and fishing trophies, newspaper clippings, beer signs, and other memorabilia.  I opened a package of peanuts and a can of Coke and sat down. The manager summed up the situation this way:

At normal water levels, he would shuttle a paddler like me upstream on the river for a leisurely float back to the camp. But at flood stage, the Altamaha was no place for an amateur. Not only was it dangerous, but a daylong float would be over in an hour or two.

That left Beard’s Creek. The creek and swamp were still safe to paddle.

He proposed to shuttle me inland, deep into the swamp, on upper Beard’s Creek. I would follow the meandering stream back to its confluence with the Altamaha, then turn south and return to the camp a short distance on the river.

“At least that will give you a few hours of paddling,” he told me. “After lunch, when you get back, we’ll probably know if the water is gonna run us out of here.”

“Just one thing,” he cautioned. “When you reach the river, stay back in the trees. It won’t be a problem to work your way back here close to shore. You’ll see.”

I had no idea where I would spend the night – in my tent, in a cabin, in a Brunswick motel, on the hood of my car – but an uncertain plan was better than no plan at all. I paid him for a kayak with gear, a shuttle, my peanuts and Coke, and a Snickers bar for later.

The two boys were assigned to take me to the put-in. I took some time to walk around and inspect the place, then returned to my car and changed into river clothes.

Joey, the younger boy, boosted the two dogs into the bed of a truck and climbed in, all three beaming with anticipation. His older brother Danny waited nonchalantly beside a rack of canoes and kayaks tied to the side of a storage building.

I put on a fleece vest, paddling jacket, and river shoes, grabbed lunch, filled my water bottle, and joined the two boys. Danny helped me select a well-used kayak of uncertain lineage, which we piled into the back of the pickup.

Danny grabbed a second kayak and hoisted it aboard. “The road is under water up ahead,” he explained. “Can’t drive all the way to the put-in, so I’ll have to paddle with you a ways and show you where the creek is.”

Paddling to the put-in. An interesting concept.

Ch. 6 — “Just Go Where There Ain’t No Trees.”

Danny and Joey and the dogs and I bumped along for 10 minutes down a sandy road that followed a ridge through the scrub oak and palmetto. The route was dry and readily passable, but the swampland around us was inundated. Eventually, the road topped a slight rise and led down the other side, straight into the drink. We had arrived at our temporary put-in.

I stood at the end of the road and peered into the trees. No ground was in sight in any direction except back the way we came. The water moved slowly and silently. Here and there, ripples formed as the flow accelerated around a tree or through a branch.

The wide expanse of water made the swamp seem surreal, superimposing a perfectly flat floor on a landscape otherwise devoid of geometric shapes. Very cool.

We dragged the two kayaks to the water’s edge, and I looked around for my sprayskirt, in vain. Danny said I wouldn’t need it. He had brought neither sprayskirt nor PFD for himself. I shrugged and wiggled into the cockpit.

Leaving Joey and the dogs at the truck, we paddled off down the road, Danny in the lead. A few minutes later, at the first curve, I swung my boat around and looked back. Joey waved and blew the horn, setting off a chorus of barking.

Navigation in a flooded swamp, I found, is by dead reckoning. That long, narrow space with no vegetation sticking up? Must be a road. I shared my observation with Danny.

He agreed that the dearth of trees overhead was a sign we were proceeding more or less along the roadbed. But he said route-finding on the flooded creek would not be so straightforward.

“Trees will be down, bushes stickin’ up,” he told me. “Sometimes the creek gets narrow and you have a solid canopy overhead. You might lose the channel and drift off into the swamp.

“If you do get lost, remember that the water is draining toward the river. The current will take you there eventually, with or without the creek. But mainly, just pay attention, and go where there ain’t no trees.”

“Here’s the creek,” he announced. He wished me a good trip and departed, and I stroked forward into Beard’s Creek at last.

To be continued.