2007-01-20
2007-01-15 Hadnot Creek in western Carteret Cty NC
Today we created a new access point upstream on Old Church Road, State Road #1104, which is far superior and safer. This road is the Old Rte 58 and is now a loop road off 58. This accesss has always been there but was unsuable as the river downstream and upstream was blocked by strainers and fallen trees.
Today, Martin Luther Kings Birthday, we launched our canoes here and paddled downstream. We cleared all obstacles to navigation as we went and we are very pleased to be able to say we left the river navigable so it is now clear all the way to the White Oak River. So a paddler can now set up a shuttle and paddle from point A bridge on Old Church Road to point B of his choice
wherever.
Hadnot Creek drains the pocosins and lakes way up into Croatan Forest. Unfortunately it is not navigable as it is blcked by fallen trees over many years. This is a shame as it would make a wonderful Wilderness Canoe Trail if these trees were cleared to allow navigation. This would be a great attraction for our visiting tourists with canoe and kayaks. It would develop this lovely stream to become a valuable asset and attraction for Croatan Forest.
Croatan Forest Road #127 parallels Hadnot Creek off in the woods on the north side but it does not go all the way through as there is no vehicle bridge over a small creek where 127 enters Croatan Forest.
The upstream access would be on the short road between roads 127 and 3014 and200.
This would add 2 more miles of excellent paddling to Hadnot Creek. We have scouted part of it by walking down through the forest. It is beautiful in there.
Elmer Eddy
Elmer, The White Oak River Trashman
Stewards of The White Oak River Basin
101 River Reach Drive West,
Swansboro, NC. 28584
910-389-4588 e-mail: elmer@whiteoakstewards.org
Please visit our website: http://www.whiteoakstewards.org/
"If no one litters, there will be no litter!”
2007-01-17
2007-01-02 Boathouse House Creek
Elmer Eddy
Elmer, The White Oak River Trashman
Stewards of The White Oak River Basin
101 River Reach Drive West,
Swansboro, NC. 28584
910-389-4588 e-mail: elmer@whiteoakstewards.org
Please visit our website: http://www.whiteoakstewards.org/
"If no one litters, there will be no litter!”
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2007-01-06 Stones Creek Camp Lejeune
2007-01-06 Stones/Millstone/Muddy/Mill Creeks
What a gorgeous day to be on the water in the middle of winter. 76 degrees and sunny. It was pure pleasure
all day long. It was also like paddling in a wilderness area. We never saw another person on the water. These pictures
will give you some idea of what we did see and enjoy so much on this lovely day. We put in at the ramp on the Rifle Range in Camp Lejeune off Route 210. This was our take out too. We put in at 10:30 and took out at 3:00. As we paddled away from the ramp it looked like we were paddling into paradise. For us we were!
A view of Stones Creek. We paddled down the left shoreline and up a small unnamed creek on the left.
A view of Millstone Creek. We paddled up as far as we could until blow downs stopped us.
Dale paddles up Millstone Creek
A resurrection fern on a dead cedar.
Another resurrection fern, which was very large and beautiful in the sunshine with Spanish moss hanging below on a dead cedar.
Elmer sporting his Santa whiskers! That is a lovely, bright green, solid moss bed around the base of that tree.
A Class One blow-down on Muddy Creek where we had lunch! This was the upstream end of our trip this time.
What have we here??? This was found washed up on the shore at the end of Muddy Creek Road where it meets Stone Bay.
???? It is probably the strangest piece of "litter" we have ever discovered. That is a Timex watch wired with electric connections duck taped around a clear plastic bottle. It is numbered 18 in three places. That is a clear white plastic tube partially filled with a red liquid as were two more inside. Perhaps they glow in the dark when light hits them. It was also marked "Non-explosive, training aid".
Buzzards! A huge flock of them hovering around. Probably a dead dear in the woods. That wing appeared golden in the sunshine. Other birds we saw were pelicans, ospreys (two, apparently staying all winter), great blue herons, kingfishers, a woodpecker and various song birds.
When we came back upstream on Stone Creek every supporting column of the old bridge remaining standing across the river had a bird sentinel standing on it.
A very friendly cormorant who did not want to fly away.
Seems he liked Dale.
Finally, the take off.
We scouted a concrete landing, SVL 410, at the end of Mill Creek Road on Mill Creek. This a view from the landing toward the mouth of Mill Creek where it empties into Stone Bay on the New River.
This brought to an end a lovely and exciting day of exploration and adventure into the unknown for us. Litter and trash were non existent on the creeks. The small amount we collected was along the shore of Stone Bay in the New River.
The participants were Dale Weston from Jacksonville, Ed Gruca from Emerald Isle, to whom we are indebted for the great pictures, and Elmer Eddy from Swansboro.
Next Wednesday is predicted to be sunny and 50 degrees. We are planning to return to Pettiford Creek. Please plan to join us if you can. More later.
Elmer Eddy
Elmer, The White Oak River Trashman
Stewards of The White Oak River Basin
101 River Reach Drive West,
Swansboro, NC. 28584
910-389-4588 e-mail: elmer@whiteoakstewards.org
Please visit our website: http://www.whiteoakstewards.org/
"If no one litters, there will be no litter!”
2007-01-10 Pettiford Creek
2007-01-10 Pettiford Creek
We had a great mid-winter paddle on this creek today. This is the first large creek off the White Oak River on the Carteret side as one paddles up stream on the White Oak River.
Unfortunately there is no public access to Pettiford Creek. This is dead wrong. Carteret County should correct this immediately. We will send copy of this report on today's paddle to the Access Committee and hope they can get this accomplished so our public and tourists can enjoy paddling this lovely creek which extends all the way up into Croatan Forest.
We met at 9:00 AM at the bottom of the loop on Pettiford Road off Hwy 58. There is a ramp here on a dirt road off the loop. This is for the use of the residents of this subdivision but they graciously let us use it. We pick up all trash on where ever we paddle and today we did not even use a bag. We had three pieces of litter on the whole days paddle!
On earlier paddles we loaded our canoes to their capacity.
We should have taken a picture of the ramp area. None of us had ever seen the tide so low as it was today. Ed Gruca took all his pictures on the way back when the tide was full. At low tide these marsh grasses were hanging in the air over the water along the edges. There were mussels growing in them.
A view of Pettiford Creek
A view of Pettiford Creek. The Red Cedars have been killed by salt water invasion caused by hurricanes.
A view of Pettiford Creek
This is at the first old dam which was built probably over 100 years ago. It supplied water to water-wheel mill that ground corn for the local farmers. There is another such dam further upstream but blown down trees prevent access. Both of these dams should be made accessible and preserved as historical sites for the public to enjoy.
The side of the old dam is very steep.
Trail running along the crest of the old mill dam which takes you to the end of a trail off of Croatan Forest road #206 off of Millis Road.
This is near the end of the dam as you enter pine forests. We walked the short distance up to the end of the above road where The Izaack Walter League of America, White Oak Chapter,took out a pick up truck load of trash. We are pleased to say we found this areas clean today.
Elmer photographs the group. It was so steep we could have used our boats to toboggan down the grassy slope into the river.
Julia getting her lunch
.
A view of Pettiford Creek. Who said it was a windy day? You don't see reflections like that on choppy water.
Low water on the creek. When we came back down it was high!. On the bank on the left is an access road which we can use from a road just north of Star Hill subdivision. But, Wildlife has it gated off. Please, Wildlife, let us use these Public Lands to access this river.
Art Barlowe "feeling for mullet!" According to Art. This is an age old custom. The mullet group tightly together in deep holes. They bump the long pine pole and he can feel them. Then he uses his nets to gather them in.
We used this mosquito control EPA ditch to get back to the main river after following a side stream up to Star Hill Drive. A few years back Connie Asero and Elmer tried to do this. Just before we got to the river we had to get out and drag our canoe through mud. This one was absolutely without water this morning as we saw when paddling upstream.
From here on this is a specific request to the Access Committee, Croatan Forest, Carteret County,Wildife Commisssion and NCDOT to designate access points and make them usable so the public can fully enjoy every thing this lovely creek has to offer.
#1: Millis Road access. This already exists naturally at the Millis Road bridge. What needs to be done to make it usable is to clear a way through the blown down trees blocking navigation downstream.
#2.
Elmer Eddy
Elmer, The White Oak River Trashman
Stewards of The White Oak River Basin
101 River Reach Drive West,
Swansboro, NC. 28584
910-389-4588 e-mail: elmer@whiteoakstewards.org
Please visit our website: http://www.whiteoakstewards.org/
"If no one litters, there will be no litter!”
2007-01-13 Mill Creek Camp Lejeune
2007-01-13 Mill Creek on Camp Lejeune and New River
The sheltered entrance into Mill Creek from the New River on the left and looking up Mill Creek on the right.
End of paddle up Mill Creek. It was not blow-downs that stopped us. It was low tide. But we
could see that we would be stopped just above this. Mill Creek has a very small watershed
and thus a very small flow.
An opreys nest. A pair apparently decided to stay with us this winter. We saw one carrying
a fish in it's claws with the other following to enjoy their catch together.
Toward the mouth of Mill Creek.
Sneads Ferry Bridge from the end of our paddle. We had hoped to reach Everett Creek
but we did not make it due to headwinds. When we paddle back we went at 4 miles per
hour with the wind and the tide.
Dale is able to leap high banks in a single bound. This is the end of our southward paddle this day.
This is building SRR 226 on the rifle range at Stones Bay.
Trash before we picked up this area. This is at the ramp at the foot of Mill Creek Road. It is
just like conditons at Tarawa Terrace. Boaters who use this ramp clean their boats out here
and throw their discards into the brush and briars where it is very difficult for us to get it
and clean up the area.
The same area after we had picked up all of their discards. (We really did not get them all.
We did not have the tools to get through the heavy, congested brush and briars to reach
them
The Stewards of The White Oak River Basin with their day's trash collection. A wonderful
summer like day on the river which we enjoyed very much.
Elmer Eddy
Elmer, The White Oak River Trashman
Stewards of The White Oak River Basin
101 River Reach Drive West,
Swansboro, NC. 28584
910-389-4588 e-mail: elmer@whiteoakstewards.org
Please visit our website: http://www.whiteoakstewards.org/
"If no one litters, there will be no litter!”
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2007-01-15 Hawkins Creek Swansboro NC
2007-01-15 Hawkins Creek Swansboro, NC
These pictures portray what we were able to accomplish in a very short
This is the Child Care Center of the Church at the corner on the west side of Hawkins Creek.
This is a view from the parking lot of the church. The east bank of
Looking downstream from the end of the large culvert which carries the creek under West
Ed Gruca of Emerald Isle with our new saw at the put-in.
Elmer Eddy
Elmer, The White Oak River Trashman
Stewards of The White Oak River Basin
101 River Reach Drive West,
Swansboro, NC. 28584
910-389-4588 e-mail: elmer@whiteoakstewards.org
Please visit our website: http://www.whiteoakstewards.org/
"If no one litters, there will be no litter!”
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