On Christmas Day just after noon we eased our kayaks through an inlet covered with large chunks of ice and paddled out into open water.
Our plan, Laird Bagnall’s and mine, was to paddle downstream to the Stennis Lock and Dam and portage over the grassy area west of the dam. There we would relaunch into the old river channel that runs in front of Plymouth Bluff and then head for the boat landing at the foot of River Hill.
A couple years ago Larry Priest, H.D. Taylor and I ventured out from DeWayne Hayes in similar conditions; then the ice was solid.
HD remembers walking on the ice before launching.
On that outing we somehow made it to open water and paddled down to the cypress slough on the north side, which was frozen and impassable.
As we were then, Laird and I were clad head-to-toe in neoprene, i.e. wetsuits. The temps were in the mid-30s after three days of sub-freezing weather.
The day was crystalline, bright and shimmering. A slight breeze rippled the surface of the water.
Like the riverfront in Columbus, the launch at DeWayne Hayes is on a backwater oxbow created by the “straightening” of the Waterway during its construction.
The island created is smaller than the one at Columbus and inhabited only by wildlife. One can access a surprisingly large lake in the island’s interior through a narrow, shallow ditch along which we’ve seen evidence of, but never, an actual alligator.
The passage was navigable and we paddled to the island’s interior, turned south once we reached the lake and navigated a winding channel through the island’s interior and out the downstream side.
“Why don’t we go through the locks,” Laird said, as we approached the dam.
Neither of us had gone through locks in a kayak.
We pulled over to one of the islands that line the channel on the upstream side of the dam.
“We’re about 10 or 15 minutes upstream from the dam,” I told the lock master, who I’d reached by cell phone.
“We’ll have it ready for you,” he said.
As we resumed our paddling, Laird saw something in front of us swimming in the river. Just before pulling over to make the phone call, we’d seen three deer on a small, circular island in front of us.
The deer were swimming across the 200-yard-wide channel.
We marveled at the deer, wondering how they keep warm in the frigid water.
According to a researcher at Tufts University, the white-tail deer sheds its summer coat for a darker, thicker winter coat that absorbs more sunlight and traps more body heat and provides an extraordinary amount of protection from the cold. Deer also have oil-producing glands in their skin that help make their hair water repellent. For more insulation, their bodies begin to retain more fat during the fall.
As we approached the lock, the gates slowly opened. Once we were in the lockmaster phoned.
He told us to tie off to one of the cleats that move with the water level and when we paddled out of the lock, to make for the western shore as there was a tow waiting on the downstream side. The cleat was positioned for a towboat not a kayak, and the water started to drop before we were able to effect a tie-off.
According to information at the Tenn-Tom Waterway Museum (next to the Lee Home) the drop is 27 feet and it takes 30 minutes.
The museum is worth a visit, if only to experience the simulated ride in a towboat on the Waterway, wonderfully narrated by R.H. Brown, formerly of WCBI-TV.
As the downstream gates opened we paddled out of the lock and far to the right of the waiting tow.
At a point formed at the intersection of the old riverbed that leads to Plymouth Bluff and the channel, we pulled over to ready for the final leg of our trip and have a tangerine.
By now the breeze had subsided, and we paddled home on glassy water in the waning winter light.
Birney Imes ([email protected]) is the former publisher of The Dispatch.
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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