By the Sea, By the Beautiful Sea

Since I returned from my epic 11-day "paddle to the sea" last week the question most friends have asked is, "Did you make it all the way?"

Yes, I did make it, but after I'd finished we loaded the canoe and it only took five hours to get back home. Though I was very happy to see my wife, my dry house, my dog, there was something sad about reentering the current of the modern world, and that little bit of sadness is one of the emotions I have not been able to shake.

One of the most profound insights I had on this trip was sitting on Haltiwanger Island, in the middle of the Broad River above Columbia.  It was the morning of Day Six and I was deep into "river time."  I realized that six days was once the proper amount of time for a human being to travel 90 miles to Columbia, and every hour we've subtracted from that total through our ingenuity and technology has been earned at a great premium, mostly to the planet and its ecosystems.

 On the morning of the 11th day Steve Patton and I were sitting in our last campsite. We figured we had about 20 miles to go to reach the sea. I'd reeled off a short piece of dental floss and measured the final Santee River meanders on the 11th full-page from the SOUTH CAROLINA ATLAS & GAZETTEER I'd ripped out and carried with me all the way from Spartanburg.

We planned on following the South Santee channel to the sea, but upstream there's  a tricky intersection where the delta begins and the two river channels part ways. We'd worried since planning began that we'd take the wrong channel.

Two friends had rented a john boat with a small engine and were to meet us on the South Santee, shadowing us all the way out to the ocean. They would give us assistance on our return through the delta once we made the sea.
"Maybe they're lost," I said as the U.S. 17 bridge came into view about noon. "Maybe we're lost," Steve said. "This is the North Santee boat launch, not the South Santee."

After lunch we made cell phone contact, connected up with our friends Chris and Tom, and paddled hard for two hours toward the sea. We were in the Santee Delta and the wind whipped around, but for the first two hours the tide with still with us.

Then the tide turned, and it was self-propelled torture for the final miles.

About 3:30 we finally rounded a point and saw the opening between Cedar and Murphy Islands-the sea!
"There it is," I said. "That's what the river's been looking for millions of years."

A little after 4 p.m we finally made the sea, but instead of paddling on toward Africa, turned and surfed the canoe back to a white sand beach on Santee Point.  

This summer I plan to write a book about my experiences-eight days on the river with my friend Venable Vermont and three more with Steve Patton-but making it to the sea was my biggest goal, and I made it, and there is no sadness in that.