Wild Horses Couldn’t Keep Me Away

So I had big plans this past weekend. A couple of friends and I were supposed to head up into the mountains, pitch a tent, and spend a few days with nature. We were even planning on doing some white water rafting on Saturday. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Everyone decided to back out on me and that left only me and my friend Michael left.

Now don’t get me wrong, Michael is a good guy, but I don’t really think spending that much time alone with him, away from civilization, is a good idea. It’s just not my thing. But since I had the whole weekend blocked off with no plans anyway, I decided to go visit Michael at the beach, where he is spending his summer. Now the one thing to know about Michael is that whenever I’m around him, girls always seem to be much more interested in him than they are of me. And this is a good thing. I went down to the beach to drink, not to meet girls. Girls just distract you from the booze.

But, as luck would have it, Michael had another idea in mind. He figured out that we could borrow some kayaks from some of his friends, paddle out to an island nearby, and camp out there for a night. Now that’s the kind of adventure I was looking forward to for the weekend! So we resolved to get an early start on Saturday so we could get everything together and head out.

Of course, being the lazy bums that we tend to be, we didn’t quite make it out of bed until almost noon. And we still weren’t prepared for the trip. So we set out to collect the gear we needed. I already had a sleeping bag, a camping air mattress, a tent, and some food. Really, all we needed was to requisition some kayaks. As it turned out, both kayaks we borrowed were owned by girls. I don’t know about you, but it seems a bit odd to me that two rough and competent woodsmen would be begging girls to borrow some gear. But hey, the girls were cool and loaded us up with everything we needed (apparently we needed life jackets to protect us and oars to actually make the kayaks move, go figure).

So, after getting everything together, and listening to Michael moan and groan as he tried to decide what to bring with him (I was more or less already packed when I left home) we finally got both kayaks loaded up and we were ready to leave. We could have just taken one kayak that fitted both of us, but that would have required teamwork and cooperation, two skills that we have a tendency to lack. It was almost 3pm by the time took off from the public boat ramp in Beaufort, North Carolina. Better late than never, I guess.

I must have made the comment about a hundred times on Saturday, but the weather was absolutely gorgeous. I could not have asked for a better day. 84 degrees, beautiful blue sky, very little cloud cover, almost no humidity, and a nice gentle breeze keeping things cool. It was just perfect weather for our little expedition. And there were plenty of other people out enjoying the day as well.

Now neither Michael nor I have ever done anything like this before. Sure I’ve been camping plenty of times and have hiked on many, many mountain trails. But this was the first time I ever used water transportation to reach my campsite. But hey, I’ve always said experience was for wienies, or at least that’s what I was telling myself when we embarked on this trip. Luckily, this was a great first trip to take. The outer islands shield the inner waterways that we were paddling over from most of the oceans waves and currents. The only thing we had to worry about were the wakes from speed boats zipping by. So we favored somewhat more shallow waters where the boats with outboard motors couldn’t tread.

So we took our time paddling along until we reached the wetlands area about halfway to our destination. We cut through the edge of the wetlands, taking some time out to watch the diverse birdlife that inhabited the area and enjoying the extremely calm waters the wetlands provided. Then we pressed onward. It does take a lot of work to paddle your way through the ocean, and sometimes it seems like we weren’t making any progress at all, but in all honesty, it didn’t take too long for us to reach our destination: Shackleford Island. In all, our water journey took less than two hours.

After a short hike to the ocean side of the island, which was far less populated by the boaters, we found a suitable site and set up camp. After pitching the tent and wandering around taking in the natural wonder of the ocean and the island, we decided it was time for dinner. For our evening meal, I brought along some MRE’s. That stands for “Meal Ready to Eat.” Yes, yes I know, “Ready to Eat Meal” makes much more sense but then the abbreviation would be REM and there’s already a band called REM. And you know the military, they have a thing for acronyms.

Say what you want about the US military, but when it comes to food, they know what they’re doing with the MRE. The entire meal comes enclosed in heavy waterproof packaging, so there was no need for us to waste waterproof bags to hold the food. Each packet contains one main course, a side dish, some form of crackers and spread, a high calorie dessert (M&M’s, Snickers, etc), a spoon, and a small bag of napkins, wet naps, matches, and other useful things. And on top of it all, they cook themselves, so there was no need to bring a camping stove and propane on the trip. Just add water, and watch your food cook. No seriously, you add water, and it cooks. It’s like dehydrated heat. And yes, I know that sounds stupid.

While eating dinner, I realized I made mistakes number one and two for the trip. Number one, I forgot to bring along a knife. You should always, ALWAYS bring a knife when camping. Opening up a heavily sealed waterproof MRE without the aid of a sharp implement is not an easy thing to do, trust me. A knife is a basic tool that can be useful under many situations, so always bring one into the wilderness with you. The second mistake was when I gave my refried beans to Michael to eat. I probably should not have brought the Beef Enchilada MRE on the trip to begin with, but giving your tent mate beans is a bad, extremely bad idea.

So after a healthy dinner meant to sustain a warrior in combat, we cleaned up and got inside the tent. It wasn’t because we were tired or anything, we just wanted to get away from the bugs. And these weren’t just any bugs, they were mutant, bloodthirsty, communist bugs. The things were basically eating us alive. And of course, I made another mistake. I left the tent door open after we set it up. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but that allowed all manner of bugs and mosquitoes and other vampiric creatures of the night to inhabit our sleeping area. So we spent the first twenty minutes inside the tent killing off every bug we could. Unfortunately we could not get them all, and I’m sure the bugs had more than their fill for the night. I have the welts all over my arms and legs that still itch today thanks to them. And believe me, the itching never, ever goes away no matter how much I scratch, or how little I scratch it.

We had just finished our little attempt at bug genocide when Michael noticed something through the screen door of the tent. “Hey look, people,” he said. I turned to look and through the dim light of the setting sun slipping through the horizon, I noticed that those weren’t people.(To be continued next week.)