A solid downpour and the waves lapping within a foot of our tent woke us up EARLY. Mad props to my roommate Ilana for answering a frantic 6am phone call asking what time high tide came in the Chesapeake Bay; turns out we juuuuuuust barely scraped by without getting washed away. We went back to sleep for a few hours to try to wait out the wind and rain, and to give me as much downtime as possible to regain some energy before getting back in the boat.
The rain eventually let up, so we balled our wet and sandy gear into our portage packs for one last day of paddling. The departure from Hart-Miller Island was a little sloppy as we tried to force ourselves into the surf, but we managed not to dump the boat and once on open water the conditions were much more pleasant. The paddling was bittersweet; we were wet, cold, covered in sand, and I was still sick as a dog, but the end of our adventure was in sight. As we discussed the depressing process of reintegration into the “front country” (and the list of things that had happened on the river that we could never, ever tell our parents about unless we wanted to instigate a life-threatening cardiac event) the mainland grew ever closer and the “miles to go” number dropped steadily.
That number dropped even faster the moment we rounded the corner of North Point State Park. The wind picked up and suddenly the waves swelled to the point where the crests were over our heads. It was all we could do to balance forward motion with keeping water out of the boat.
At one point we passed a lone duckling, separated from its family, frantically paddling for shore and losing ground; Steve saw my heart melt and yelled something to the tune of “it’s natural selection, which is what I’m going to do to you if you flip this boat trying to save a duck”. (The mental image of that doomed duckling haunts me to this day. Sometimes when we’re drunk Steve likes to bring it up, because he’s an asshole like that, but at least he always concedes that I didn’t dump the boat.)
We made it about a half mile under those conditions before we were forced to accept impending doom if we tried to continue. The Baltimore harbor was just around the next spit of land… and we would undeniably be swamped if we tried to get there. We crash-landed on the shoreline at the edge of the lawn of the last house before the border of the State Park, and unceremoniously dragged Blaze of Glory down their driveway to sit on the curb and call our ride for an early pickup.
The fact that we had made it to within Baltimore County limits wasn’t nearly as comforting as the bottle of whiskey we dug out of my portage pack.
Steve’s dad, the ultimate support driver, came to pick us up and shuttle us back to civilization. After an uncomfortable Olive Garden experience (THEY SAID THE BREADSTICKS WERE ENDLESS!), a lukewarm shower (we didn’t realize the hot water wasn’t turned on), and a long battle with Steve’s mom’s wifi, we had a couple of semi-celebratory Rifton-brewed beers and caught up on three weeks’ worth of John Oliver. Out of sheer determination not to have to re-make any of the beds, we spent the night in sleeping bags on the floor of Steve’s mom’s house watching ‘X-Men’ and trying to find a way to avoid going back to the real world.