It got pretty warm today. The low tide was around midday. The sky was mostly overcast, but there was only a light breeze, so I had to make a dash for it and hope for the best. The image on the left illustrates the wardrobe I chose for the occasion.

When I arrived at the creek, the tide level was pretty low, so I was emboldened by the possibility of playing in some of my favorite mud. I hustled to my really deep mud spot, but I wasn’t sure the tide would be low enough for that spot. Paddling to the mud hole, I gauged that the tide was not still going out, which gave me a clue that the tide would soon be coming back in. I wonder if my tide table is running a bit late this time of year. I really should put together a spreadsheet of actual tide observations vs. the tide chart, over the course of a year or two, so I can learn from my experience. The tide chart I use is just a rough approximation, because my play spots are 4 to 6 miles from the ocean, if you follow the creek. That creates a time delay, so I use a chart for a different location that seems to match pretty closely to what I observe … most of the time.

Okay, enough about the damn tide. It took me a while to decide what to do, but I knew I wouldn’t have much time, so I decided to make due with the first location I visited and shoot an “explorer” video. Of course, my explorers seem to gravitate towards deep quicksand (or quickmud, if you will), but that’s just an occupational hazard for a mud enthusiast.

I shot a few minutes of exploration scenes before I got trapped in quickmud and drowned. The saga will be mercifully short; partly because the tide was coming in by the time I got to the final scene, and partly because the mud I drowned in was the thinner stuff, which makes for a pretty quick sink.

By the time I was climbing out of the mud, I heard a voice from the creek. It was coming from a spot with a clear view of where I had to emerge, still muddy and wearing really short shorts with no underwear. Once I got my gear loaded, I paddled as quietly as I could down the narrow canal leading to the creek, listening to the voice and hoping I’d get a break. As it turned out, they moved up the creek to the spot where I would have cleaned up. I decided to clean up just around the corner from them, as much as I could, and paddle back up the shallow canal to get dressed. I was standing, up to my waist in water, and up to my knees in mud, when the fishing boat came around the corner, and I was face to face with two curious fisherman. They were friendly, and we exchanged a few words. I told them I was muddy from having been up the channel, shooting video, and I was washing off. All of that was true, although I left out some details. I got washed up well enough to get back in my boat and paddle up the creek to a more private spot. The first two fisherman didn’t really get to see what I was wearing from the waist down. As luck would have it, I paddled right into another fisherman, still dripping wet and clearly wearing very short cut-offs. I’m pretty sure my junk wasn’t hanging out anywhere, but I couldn’t be too sure. I exchanged greetings with the third fisherman and paddled past him. A few minutes later I arrived at a private place with a sandy bottom where I could strip, get clean, and get dressed in dry clothes. There was probably a deer hunter in a nearby tree, watching me.

The image on the right is how I looked when I was done shooting.

I almost didn’t venture into the swamp, today. I was running late, I had the wrong boat loaded, and the wind was gusting pretty hard. I packed a pair of gunmetal gray shorts, in case I did manage to go mudding. When I arrived at the water, the tide was all the way out, and it wasn’t very low. After paddling my canoe (not my kayak!) against the stiff wind for a while, I realized that I was going to have a hard time getting to the mud hole that would be usable at this tide level. I would have to paddle about 2 miles, and by the time I got there, the tide would be coming in, again.

I shot some wildlife video, and I tried my hand at fishing. Shooting video was nearly impossible, while the boat was being buffeted by the wind. The fish weren’t biting, either. So, I decided to paddle to the wooded spot, with the peat mud. When I arrived there, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to make the hike to the mud with a tripod, two cameras and my gear bag. I considered that I could fish some more and go home. There was no shame in going home clean, or so I told myself. Finally, I got up my nerve. My trail was overgrown, so I hacked some grass out of the way with a machete. I collected my gear and started into the woods.

When the mud hole came into view, it looked good. It had no standing water and the surface looked very inviting. Looking at the image on the right, how could you not want to jump into that? So, I changed into the gunmetal gray shorts and set up some shots of me, walking through the swamp, climbing onto the tree you see in the picture below, and literally jumping into that mud. The mud was thick, so I only sank up to my crotch. What ensued was a long, slow sink that was all recorded on video. Needless to say, I didn’t make it out alive.

I should mention that these video frames are not from the video. They are from the out-takes. However, I thought they looked pretty good, so I used them to illustrate this blog entry. Here is one more, from when I was climbing down from the tree to move the camera.