I will be vacationing at VA Beach for a week in July. I'm looking for
information on places to sea kayak.
Thanks,

Jason

The lifeguards won't let you launch at the beach and surf near swimmers.

If you have a military ID you can launch at Ft. Story and paddle around to the
surf or just play in the mouth of the bay.

Keep an eye out though, once the USN Seals asked me to paddle somewhere else
because they were going to drop a boat out of a helicopter where I was
paddling.

Brian

The Virginia Beach area has a lot of really nice places to paddle.
When I lived there I basically left my boat on top of my truck all
summer long! My favorite place by far to paddle in the area is in
southern Virginia Beach in the Sandbridge area, specifically in Back
Bay. Sandbridge is a very laid-back, vacation/residential area at the
southern tip of Virginia Beach, well away from all the resort-area
madness in the main tourist area. At the bottom of Sandbridge you'll
find Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, and then False Cape State Park
below that (stretching to the NC border). Back Bay is a large, shallow
bay that is perfect for kayaking (it's too shallow for most boats, and
a lot of the area is part of the NWR). The oceanside there is also
fairly pristine, and even during busy summer weekends you're likely to
only see a few people.

For more info see an article I wrote for a local Hampton Roads
newspaper about kayaking in the area. Although the article is geared
to paddling novices, it should provide some good info and contact
resources. (It was written in 1998, so some info may be a bit dated.)

Of course, paddling the ocean anywhere in Va Beach is also quite nice.
Many people paddle up near Fort Story (as another poster suggested)
and in the general area of the north end of the resort area. Again, I
prefer paddling the oceanfront along Sandbridge, as it is less built
up. Even better is to park at the southern end of the island and
paddle south along the Wildlife Refuge coast. I routinely would see
dolphins, pelicans, and even a few sea turtles (scared the heck out of
me the first time I saw one, until I figured out what it was!).

Happy paddling,
Brian W.

"Jason Darby" wrote in message ...
I will be vacationing at VA Beach for a week in July. I'm looking for
information on places to sea kayak.
Thanks,

Jason

Sorry, I posted the message without the link to the referenced article
on paddling in Back Bay. It's at
http://members.aol.com/briwasson/backbay.html.