Claws

I am once again taking advantage of the nice fall weather with my husband.  We have been trying for a canoe trip every few days.  These past few days we canoed Mallows Bay which I had visited years ago and actually posted about back then.

This time we were a bit disappointed.  The weather was calm, beautiful, and just warm enough for the exercise of paddling.  But the water was cloudy, the boats had sunk deeper and became more camouflaged.  It really was a bit dangerous to float over this boat graveyard in the fragile fiberglass canoe.  We were careful and had no super close calls, but it was only at great effort and paddling in only first gear!

The bay opens onto the Potomac River and we had moved out into the more open waters just as one of those 500 HP speed boats headed out to the Chesapeake.  It was far away from us, but we (especially my waterman hubby) knew that we would eventually get some effects from the wake that the speedboat was creating in the distance.  Hubby was smart enough to have us paddle like crazy and tuck behind the large wreck that still sits tall at the mouth of the Bay and whose large hull would break the waves that could tip us over.

A lone crow stood watch over an abandoned osprey nest in the stern of the old grounded ship.  The crow was making some noise at us and I was hoping it was not "Nevermore" as the waves broke against the hull of the rusted ship.  At least it was not a raven.  We paused for about a minute as the succession of waves moved around us.  It was an autumn weekday, so there were not many boaters out and about, thankfully!

As we paddled south along the shore of the Potomac we saw our share of Bald Eagles who seemed passive about our presence and I used sports mode to try and get photos of them with all the movement of us bobbing in the water and them flying in the air.

They are certainly elegant and graceful with those long wings.  They have a wingspan of 5.9 to 7.5 feet, such a great flying machine.

We moved to areas of high cliffs and erosion that line this great historic river as it flows to the larger Bay and then the ocean.  Some trees were claw-like in their death as if fighting to the last.

I was wondering how much the river will swallow in the coming years.  This post is long, so I will stop and not write about the water dogs, the fossil tooth, the huge beaver dam, and our lunch in the shade of some man-made shelter.  Maybe another time.  Thanks for coming along and before you head back,  I really could use some help pulling me out of this craft after four hours!!  I cannot feel my feet.