By Bob Sofaly
The Island News
Twenty volunteers manned 15 kayaks early Sunday morning, June 23, in an effort to clean up the litter from the marsh and feeder creeks from parts of Battery Creek and Beaufort River.
With the trash too remote to be picked up any other way than with the shallow drafting boats able to slip in and back out without disturbing the surrounding pristine wetlands, the Beaufort Litter Patrol decided to do something different about the remote pollution in the waterways.
“We have been picking up litter by foot for three years,” according to Ashton Cradit.
This year, though, they decided to attack the growing problem of litter in the water. Cradit said attacking the problem from the water side might be more complete. She said they partnered with Coastal Expeditions Beaufort which specializes in kayak tours and the inaugural Creek Sweep was born.
“It took a year and-a-half to get everything worked out,” she said as 15 kayaks, some privately owned by participants, lined up on the banks of The Sands Beach. Some were seasoned kayakers; others had less experience. Some were were guides with Coastal Expeditions Beaufort. All had the same desire to clear the marshes of trash.
Little Phillip Ramirez was there with his mother, Carmela. When asked if he was a kayaker, he assured this photographer that he knew what he was doing.
“I’ve done this before,” he said. “Just once, but I know what to do.”
The group launched their boats and paddled up the Beaufort River to the shores of Fort Frederic near the U.S. Naval Hospital, slipped their shallow drafting boats in and back out of places where nobody could ever access without damaging the fragile, estuarial makeup of the local environment.
The volunteers were given rubber gloves, orange plastic trash bags, life jackets and gripping devices before heading out. And if one didn’t bring a kayak, one was provided, complete with a paddle.
For safety reasons, they all moved together, hugging the shoreline and checking out each feeder creek making up the marsh. Moving slowly, so as to not miss any trash or damage the marsh, they moved back out to main waterway and onward to the next remote creek.
By 11:30 a.m., all the feeders from Fort Frederick to the observation tower at the end of the boardwalk had been cleaned out. Nothing had been damaged, and the kayakers returned to base with large smiles and a keen sense of accomplishment.
