Trip Report: Cedar Bayou
by Natalie Wiest

I put a last minute notice out on the HCC List about an exploratory trip on Cedar Bayou; Will, Travis, and Emily Blumentritt, and Marilyn Kircus took me up on the challenge and we duly met on the banks of the bayou on Sunday morning, September 17th. Marilyn and I dropped her car at Thompson’s Bait Camp on the bay; and met the Blumentritts at Holloway Park about 10 miles upstream on Cary Bayou, a tributary of Cedar Bayou. The forecast for the day was building rainshowers, and it was overcast but comfortable as we shoved off.

The tributary bayou was more than adequate to float our boats to the much wider Cedar Bayou. My understanding is that it is paddleable for several miles upstream as well, but I haven’t located other public access points less than the 10 mile or so marker where the right of way to the feeder road of I10 has some potential; but lots of saplings and trees in the water that would make maneuvering a bit of a challenge. Some day I will check it out, but not this one.

We quickly noticed how commercially navigable the bayou was; within a mile or so we came to a barge and pushboat at what Will told us was the Bayer Chemical plant. I characterize this bayou as the one with the most metal in and on it – beside the very seaworthy barge and pushboat here, there were derelect boats rusting in the water, active gravel mining,

Gravel mining apparatus

major steam power plant, steel beam storage, and a most interesting railroad liftbridge just downstream of Roseland Park. Power boat traffic was very limited, no doubt thanks to the forecast, because we know Roseland Park is a popular place for water skiers and jet skis.

Electric generating plant

Going, going, going – sinking shrimp boats in the bayou

Will wisely decided he would limit his family’s canoe trip to the 5 miles to Roseland Park; Marilyn and I pushed on for the bay in our sea kayaks. One short rain shower came over us upstream of Roseland; but Marilyn and I didn’t make it much past the railroad bridge when the bottom fell out of the clouds. This shower too was of short duration, but we noted the dark clouds forming on the horizon and decided we’d go for the shortest path to the cars, not the meandering path through the lower wetlands and swamps I’d hoped for earlier.

We took a shorter man-made cut to the bay. I noticed from a quarter mile back that the bay waters were rough, and the wind was in our faces. The storm was building – we had decided to not wear sprayskirts, and quickly came to rue that decision. A squall line of heavy downpour and high winds caught us several hundred yards out into the bay.

Stormy weather ahead – those dark storm clouds delivered

I slowed my pace into the wind, knowing that one big wave over the cockpit was going to fill the boat with water. I was paddling my little EPI Sea kayak, so low to the water I had good reason for my concern. Marilyn was paddling the Eddyline Falcon 16 that I’m usually in – and hung over me with her camera every time I got in and out of the little boat, sure I’d turn it over. Thankfully she never got the opportunity for the shot she really wanted, me falling in the water. However, even in the much larger (by comparison of these 2) Falcon, she too was very worried in the wind and waves. Ellington Field reported gusts to 35 mph – I wouldn’t be surprised that they reached that level where we were in the bay, with a long and unprotected reach of open water. Despite the odds against two blondes at sea in a rainstorm and high winds, we made it just fine to the bait camp, only to discover Marilyn had left her keys in my car at the putin! Oh well, all’s well that ends well, and this was a swell trip. We’ll be doing it again, and next time, explore more of the marshes. The five mile trip at the top is a very pleasant one and would be a good place for club trips – although perhaps not advised on warm days when the skiing and motor boat crowd is running about at high speed.

Natalie Wiest

HCC Paddler