Saturday, June 9, 2018 - Baum Road - Smith Creek, Chesapeake, VA
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I launched today at the Baum Road launch and paddled down Smith Creek (a tributary of the Northwest River) which runs along the south edge of Northwest River Park in Chesapeake. It was supposed to be hot and humid today and the creek has a lot of shade, so I figured it was a good choice.
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I pulled into the little parking area at the launch (which is nothing more than a clearing along the bank). As usual, there were no other vehicles parked there. There's only room for a handful of vehicles but that's more than enough for the usual traffic.
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We haven't had a lot of rain lately, so the water was pretty clear. When we get rain, the creek can get a muddy appearance due to runoff from the nearby farm fields. But not today. In fact, the beginning part of the creek had a bit of a film on it due to lack of traffic on it. But that quickly cleared a little bit in.
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The creek is very protected and was calm all the way down until it opened up and met the main river. As you will be able to hear in the video, I heard LOTS of birds in the trees. There were lots of dragonflies flitting about. I always like to watch them dip down to the water and quickly fly off. I saw a few turtles. They are usually very quick to slip into the water as anyone approaches.
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I like paddling on this creek. There's also so much to see. And there are plenty of small side creeks to explore.
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The weather turned out to be great. It was warm but not bad at all. And the humidity didn't seem bad at all. This was a nice easy paddle. No wind, calm water, great scenery.
2 hours and 10 minutes on the water and 3.6 miles on the GPS. Scroll below the pictures to see the track map.
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Edit: Here's the GoPro video.
