AMC Paddle: Wickford, RI

 Schedules have been particularly busy this spring, so squeezing in time for local adventure activities has been somewhat difficult. This AMC paddle was down in Wickford, Rhode Island, about 1:15 from home.  It was to be my first time out in my sea kayak this season, so I was really keen on making this trip.

The day started out perfect with a crystal clear blue sky, no mention of rain all day, with temps on the water around 80 and in the water about 65.

Wickford is actually a village in the town of North Kingstown Rhode Island, just south of Quonset Naval Air Station on Narragansett Bay.  Quonset is the where the famous Quonset Hut was first manufactured.  Nowadays, they have a really cool air show there every year in the spring.  Today's paddling party consists of 6 guys.  We put in from the beach near the Wilson Park fishing launch about 10:10am, winding our way through Wickford Harbor and out into open water.

Our first point of interest was circumnavigating Fox Island.  Since, it's privately owned, we couldn't land and explore here, but we did see the house and windmill.  Next, it was off to the Plum Beach Lighthouse, underneath the Jamestown Bridge.  Alex says he's seen this lighthouse plenty of times crossing the bridge on the way to visit friends in Jamestown or Newport.  Looking at the bridge from the exit of the harbor, I never thought we'd be able to paddle all the way down here, but we did.  My apologies for not getting any cool pictures here, but there was no way I was opening the hatch to take my camera out while paddling in open water.

After that, we started to make our way back to find a place to eat our lunch.  We stopped at Rome Point, part of the John H. Chafee Nature Preserve.  Harbor seals are known to stop over here on their migrations to and from Maine.  The views were beautiful.

We stopped right around high tide, so the boats were going to stay put.

This panorama shows the calm waters of the leeward cove.

On the bay side, the beach is rocky instead of sandy.

Here's the western section of the Jamestown bridge where we were just paddling.  You can just barely make out the lighthouse in front of the 5th "Y" pylon from the left.

From town, you can follow a sandy trail all the way out to the end of Rome Point .  The trail information makes it clear that it is "dog friendly" trail.

This is a shot of "the narrows", captured as I walked up the trail a bit.

Out toward Jamestown, some sailboats are taking advantage of the moderate breezes and clear blue skies.

  After a nice lunch, we worked our way along the shoreline back into the harbor (still some significant paddling to do).  When we made it back, I found that we had traveled 12.1 miles with a total paddling time of 3:35.  We didn't really take any breaks so I was sore on Sunday, but it was worth it.