Kayaking to Round Island

This weekend a friend and I kayaked to an island in the middle of the Mississippi Sound called Round Island. This was a practice trip for our ultimate goal of kayaking to Horn Island, and as such, I loaded up the kayak with water and camping supplies to get used the added weight.

Extra paddle, bilge pump, paddle float, trail mix, approaching our destination

Round Island is about 4 miles south of Pascagoula, halfway to the barrier islands of Horn and Petit Bois. A trip from Pascagoula to Round and back is essentially the equivalent of a one way trip to Horn, making it an ideal warm up.

Royal Terns?

The island is very beautiful with plenty of vegetation: orange and white flowers in bloom, numerous palmettos, grasses, shrubs, and trees. Most of the trees, however, are dead or dying, probably due to continual erosion - many of the dead trees are sticking out of the water just a few feet from the shoreline.

The island is notable for the lighthouse that once operated there. The keeper's house was destroyed in Hurricane Camille in 1969, and Hurricane Katrina finished off the lighthouse itself in 2005.

We fought the wind and the waves on the way out, but relaxed and even put up my sprayskirt as a sail on the way back. We did roughly 10.5 miles on the day and are now ready for the real thing!

Sprayskirt not necessary today... as a sprayskirt that is