04/13/2010 - Alabama River Cutoff and Poll Bayou

Launch: Boathouse Landing (west of Tensaw, AL)
To see or download the track of this trip, Click Here.

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1) Today I wanted to kayak Poll Bayou for the first time while doing some training for the upcoming BluzCruz Kayak Race in some river currents. 

2) The BluzCruz race is on the big Mississippi River where there will definitely be some river current to contend with. This is sunrise on glassy Boatyard Lake.

3) The bridge over Alabama River Cutoff going to the unnamed island to the south. Current was 2-3 mph - easy going west but tough on the return trip to the east.

4) The banks around Poll Bayou were clear of vegetation making it easy to get out and hike. There were some big trees in those woods. If you want to paddle Poll Bayou, launch at Bates Lake which is 2 miles to the north of the entrance to Poll Bayou on the Tombigbee.

5) Those are recent high water marks on the trees.

6) The further I went up into Poll Bayou, the more beautiful it got.

7) The moisture on the legs is not sweat, it's sunblock lotion.

8) To explore an oxbow near Wilken Bend on the Alabama River, it required going through a neat tunnel of dense shrubbery.

9) Some of that shrubbery looked like this up close. These are the flowers forming on a Water-elm also known as a Planertree (Planera aquatica), named for the German botanist Johann Planer.

10) The launch site at Boathouse Landing.