It’s the busy season. The fall and spring bring an enormous amount of travel for me with work. Between this past weekend and the first week of November I can look forward to being on 9 flights, staying in 7 cities and visiting three countries.

Busy.

Busy looking out airplane windows at bodies of water as they slide away underneath me wishing I could be exploring them in the Capella. Rivers, lakes and oceans. All calling out. Out too be seen, explored, visited and met with enthusiasm.

Back on the ground this past weekend before I headed off to my first city and conference I visited an old stand by. Lake Lenape and the Great Egg Harbor River in Southern New Jersey.

From the web:

The Great Egg Harbor River is a 55.0-mile-long (88.5 km) river in southern New Jersey in the United States. It is one of the major rivers that traverse the largely pristine Pinelands, draining 308 square miles (800 km2) of wetlands into the Atlantic Ocean at Great Egg Harbor, from which it takes its name.

Great Egg Harbor (and thus the river) got its name from Dutch explorer Cornelius Jacobsen Mey. In 1614, Mey came upon the inlet to the Great Egg Harbor River. The meadows were so covered with shorebird and waterfowl eggs that he called it “Eyren Haven” (Egg Harbor).

In 1992, the United States Congress designated 129 miles (208 km) of the river and its tributaries as the Great Egg Harbor Scenic and Recreational River, as part of the National Wild and Scenic River system. It is the longest canoeing river within the Pinelands. It can be paddled for 47 miles (76 km) from New Brooklyn, near Route 536, all the way to Beesley’s Point.[3] The river is noted for its tea-colored “cedar water”, the product of the iron and tannin content of the fallen cedar leaves along much of its length. It provides abundant habitat for waterfowl in the region. The fish populations include striped bass and alewife herring.

The Northeast has been under the deluge of many a day of rain over the past month and the water levels and swift moving current of the river was a sure sign of it. Levels were as high as I have seen them and many landing sites were now unavailable for landing as their small beaches were underwater.

I started the day by putting in on Lake Lenape and paddling North into the upper reaches of the river. It was a cool over cast day with a few stray sun rays making their way through the clouds to add a splash of light on the leaves that have begun to show their fall colors. It was work getting up the winding narrows of the river with the current running very quickly. The tea colored water bubbled and frothed and submerged logs and twigs danced and bobbed with the constant push of the flow. Constant edging, sweeping, ruddering and leaning was needed to keep the boat on course up the river. Fun indeed.

I pushed up the river for a few miles finally landing on a large beach that was well above the high levels of the river. There I enjoyed the solitary comfort of a quiet lunch listening to the wind in the trees and the burbling of the water as it rushed passed. With my upcoming travels in mind it was a wonderful break and I savored every minute of nature around me, soaking it all in.

Heading back was a fun and very fast paddle maneuvering around obstacles and working with the current around bends and twists ending all to soon back on the lake. Bringing me back to my path of upcoming travels, the river ahead. It will be a few weeks before I can again climb into the Capella and set of on another paddle. Until then, magazines, videos and the blogs of fellow bloggers will keep me going with the paddling spirit as I travel “up river” by land and air.

Yes, I will be busy, but part of me will be on the river, lakes and seas of my imagination, paddling forward to get back.

I have written many times on Lake Lenape and the Great Egg Harbor River on this blog, a beautiful place to paddle in Southern, New Jersey. Read the posts.

View the gallery of images from the day on the water.