Kayaking on the Herring River, Harwich MA, June 2009

We are hosting the teenaged daughter of a close friend for a few days here on Cape Cod while before she visits her aunt down in New York City. The weather hasn't been great, but yesterday was forecasted to clear up, so we looked around for an outdoor activity.

We ended up letting our guest choose between a whale watch and kayaking with the Mass Audubon Society, and she picked the kayaking trip.

The trips are run by Mass Audubon's Long Pasture facility. The cost is $40 per person, and all equipment is provided (although some people on the trip did bring their own kayaks and paddles). Trips run throughout the summer and can be booked at 508.362.7475 ex. 9355.

The trips are scheduled based on the tides. Ours was a late afternoon paddle, from 3-6 PM.

The starting point was the public landing at the Herring River in Harwich MA.

Here I am, ready to depart.

This is the view from the town landing looking downstream on the Herring River.

And looking the way we were heading, upstream and under the Rt. 28 bridge.

Once all of the group was in the water, we paddled under the bridge and into the salt marsh.

That's my wife, Gynn, in the second kayak. I was in a tandem with our guest. I'd never kayaked before, but I'd done some canoeing. The techniques were pretty easy to pick up. The tandem kayaks had rudders, which were controlled by foot pedals. The single kayaks were controlled entirely with the paddle. Some of the people who had brought their own kayaks had versons with pedal-driven propulsion as well.

This was high tide. We saw willets flying overhead, as well as an osprey landing in its nest. There were also fiddler crabs to be seen on the muddy banks along the river.

The water transitioned from saltier to more fresh as we moved inland.

With more solid ground, there were stands of trees in the marsh.

We spotted some Canada geese, and this mute swan.

The swan took to the air as we passed, clearly annoyed that we were in his territory.

As the water turns more fresh, the dominant vegetation changed from the spartina grass of the saltmarsh to the common reed (Phragmites australis), and invasive species that crowds out the native cattails and is not as hospitable to birds and mammals.

The most challenging part of the paddle was ducking under this VERY low bridge. It was even more interesting when cars drove over it while we were crossing under!

On the other side, we found nesting boxes for tree swallows. Here's one perched on his house.

We also saw a muskrat along the shore of the creek. After a stop to rest in our kayaks, we turned around and paddled into a larger open area of water.

We made a rest stop and hauled out at a little footbridge where we observed more swans.

From there, we headed back downstream.

We saw more birds on the return trip, including a redtailed hawk, a turkey buzzard, and an osprey, plus a snowy egret that was feeding in the marsh.

Here's the group heading back under the Rt. 28 bridge for the landing.

We had a great time. The weather was perfect, and even the bugs weren't too bad. The Audubon guides were great, and they got us up to speed on paddling and shared some really interesting facts about the wildlife. This was a great chance to see the salt marsh from the inside and the really get a close look at some of the local plants and animals.