Day 27—Port A, Day 6 — Poling Cutter’s Loop

I wish I could say we kayaked Cutter’s Loop but the low tides required us to “pole” our way through the mud flats. The kayak rental guy, Hector, tried to dissuade us from kayaking today because the tides were so low, but we insisted because we wanted to see the shore birds up close in the little shallow areas that we can’t access by Chris’ boat. We spent close to two hours alternating between poling through the mud, being sucked into the mud when we got out of our kayaks to pull them free, and occasionally, actually paddling. We were restricted to one small area across the Port Aransas channel from the launch area. It was the only real paddling we did all afternoon.

I didn’t take many photos today because I was worried that I might get my camera wet. For most of the outing, I kept it in a dry bag in the kayak but did take it out a couple of times. Once, to document our folly of a trip, and once to take a couple of photos of a bird I’d never seen before, a Reddish Egret.

In the first photo, Susan is in the distance, actually paddling through a deep spot of probably 8 inches, Chris is to the right, portaging his kayak across the mud, and I, or more accurately, my Keens, as I sat still, unable to move, stuck in the mud.

This Reddish Egret was not afraid of us and it was delightful to watch as it danced and ran through the shallow water after fish.