Placentia, Black Islands

 
With a forecast for an unusually calm day-  hardly any wind and temps up to forty, Nate and I launched in Bass Harbor and paddled straight out to Placentia Island. Not long ago I read “We Were an Island,” by Peter Blanchard-  the story of Art and Nan Kellam who lived alone on Placentia Island for 35 years. In 1949 Art left his job in the aerospace industry in California, and the couple bought the 522-acre island for $10,000- a little less than what they sold their home for. They made the two-mile trek to the island in a wooden dory, and built their home from the remains of a homestead that had been abandoned for nearly a hundred years.

We landed at a gravel spit and followed a trail uphill until we came to the remains of the Kellam’s home- just a foundation marked by a bronze plaque. The Kellam’s donated their island to the Nature Conservancy, who is letting it return to its natural state. They left the Kellam’s porch swing though, in the process of slowly rotting into the ground. It’s a good spot to sit and ponder the Kellam’s time here.

As often happens, we progressed along Placentia's southeast shore without expectations and started having fun. I'd paddled past this shoreline before, but in the getting from Point A to Point B mode. I'm finding it harder to fully enjoy that "just getting there" approach. I like to move-in closer to shore. The experience of close contour paddling along the shore is an entirely different experience from paddling even a hundred feet out. You experience a bit of the land as well as the sea (as Nate is doing in the photo above- there was much more water there just a moment earlier).

From a ways out, the shore often presents a unified band, but close-up, there's often plenty of depth to that band, and that's where it get's interesting. On Placentia, we found bluffs and beaches. Off the southwest tip, as the incoming tide built-up speed, we found an eddy that curled back on itself and the incoming swell. This whole group of islands is subject to strange, tough to predict currents as the tide moves in and out of Blue Hill Bay. After a break on Little Black, we proceeded up the east shore of Black Island where we found some nice slots in the pink granite shoreline (above and below).

With minimal swell, this was a fun spot. With a bit more, it might be tough to paddle so close to shore. I've been paddling along a lot of shoreline lately. After some places I think "that was interesting enough," but I know I may never return. Others, like this, I feel a sort of urgency to get out there and discover what it has to offer. The current and the conditions obviously make it a dynamic, quickly-changing place to paddle, very different from one hour to the next. In that photo above, just wait another twenty minutes and we could paddle through that slot. The chart lists tide rips north of Black, but at mid-tide we found nothing- we'll have to try it on a falling tide.

The Kellam's two-mile trip to Bass Harbor in their dory often took around two hours. Ours was quicker than that, but if there's one thing to learn from their example, it could be the merit in slowing-down. They took the better part of a lifetime to get to know one island, and I suspect that in the end, there was still more to discover. So these are notes from just a few hours in their neighborhood. More, I hope, to follow.

Lunch on Gooseberry

 

Dick and Kale met me at the ramp in Stonington. Temps hovered around freezing with a breezy north wind, but the sun on my face felt warm. The breeze gave us a push as we paddled toward the sloping profile of Steves Island.

 

I hadn’t paddled here in awhile. Lately I’ve preferred to car-top elsewhere, getting better acquainted with areas I don’t know as well, a satisfying process as I stare at the chart and see the pieces coming together. The satisfaction deepens when you return and see those places at a different tide, or in different weather, and your experience with a place starts to take on layers, informed by what happened each time you were there. 

A few weeks ago, paddling around Bartlett Island off MDI, I remembered how a group I had guided there started singing. As I paddled, the song came back to me- not the popular rock band’s version, but the students paddling their kayaks version. The song drifted through my head as I slowed to stare at tall icicles dripping down the cliffs. Then, below those icicles there was movement, and a coyote took a good look at me before loping off into the woods. And so another layer was added to my experience of the place.

 

 

But in the Stonington archipelago, my adopted backyard, there are enough layers of experience that they all blend together. I've paddled certain routes enough that it sometimes feels like a routine evening stroll, my mind wandering among my thoughts as much as the landscape.  Other times, it’s all still new. Having someone else along adds a whole new dimension. We paddled to some favorite spots: the tiny island paradise of Steves, McGlathery with its boulders perched on sloping slabs of granite, and on to Gooseberry, where we took a break. Out of the wind, with the sun on us, we felt plenty warm.

Meandering into the wind back toward Stonington, we hopscotched in the lee of islands: back to McGlathery, over to Spruce and on toward Hells Half Acre. Wherever we stopped, the beaches looked inviting with little to visually suggest that it was January. In colder months as the water cools, the algae thins-out, and the water turns clear... inviting even, if you weren't moving just to stay warm.

Despite the name of this blog, I sometimes wonder how long I can keep writing about paddling around Stonington and keep it interesting, at least for myself. One way is to get out of Stonington and then return. I like Thoreau's often-quoted statement from Walden: "I have traveled a good deal in Concord...". A case could be made that experience is experience, that it is just as rich to travel in small circles and get to know your backyard as it is to make an extended journey. I love reading accounts of extended journeys, yet I often read with a skeptical eye when the author claims more than he should about a place he glimpsed for a tiny fraction of its (and his) history.

There are too many variables: the tide, the weather and season, and perhaps most importantly- what's going on in the author's head. I think I've been skimming over the surface in these dispatches, and maybe that's all I will ever do. But when we land on some of these islands, or when I let the waves toss me along their shores... it's hard to describe the feeling. I walked among the sun-warmed boulders on Gooseberry and felt something bittersweet, that I loved it so much I didn't want to leave. I could only express this to my friends by saying something like "I really like this place." For now, I'll just leave it at that.

The Union River

A few days ago, on a day forecast to be not too cold, but a bit blustery, I met Nate and John in Ellsworth for a trip up the Union River. Nate happens to live right at the mouth of the river, so we launched from his back yard and headed upstream.

 

We were a little late for high tide, so we paddled around -and sometimes through big sheets of ice that had loosened in the current and drifted downstream. We found eddies along the shore that helped carry us along. It is a surprisingly woodsy stretch of water, considering the shopping plaza sprawl not far away. And, thanks to a denser fish population, the river is probably a more dependable place to come across seals and eagles than out among the islands. 

When I think of Ellsworth, my first image is of the gauntlet of commerce one passes through en route to Mount Desert Island or the Down East coast. It's the place we put up with if we feel the need to go to a big box store, but there is also a nice old, lesser-traveled downtown with a great theater, shops and restaurants. So, arriving through the city's back door on the Union River is a reminder of why all that civilization ended-up there in the first place. It's a small miracle that most of the river is fairly undeveloped. Even in town, there's stretches of forested shoreline with granite outcrops rising out of the water. Past the public ramp is an solid stretch of industrial development: the water treatment plant, an oil tank farm, and a hodge-podge of buildings turning their backs to the river. There's been some efforts for the city to buy some of the waterfront to take better advantage of the river, but it's a slow process.

The current increased as we made our way around a bend and passed beneath the bridge. I've driven over the bridge countless times, and I've always glanced down at the river, wondering what it would be like down there. Now I know: it's better than being up there.

Just upstream from the bridge we came to a rapids. Nate paddled as far up into it as he could, surfing on a wave or two, but it wasn't passable.

Even if it were, we wouldn't get past the Leonard Lake Dam just upstream. But it made us think about warmer days, portages, following the river to its source. We ate our lunch on a park bench, just below the library, and paddled back downstream.

Hardhead & Eagle Islands

On the west side of Deer Isle, there’s a beach in Sylvester Cove that, in the summer, has a sign that reads “No Kayak Launching”. There’s no sign there now, so the other day I launched there, followed the shore along Dunham Point, and headed-out to Hardhead Island. Snow came down lightly, and the far-off islands were now and again obscured by drifting grey clouds.  

Hardhead is a “bargain island”; it feels much more “out there” than it really is. A mile off Dunham Point, it’s a big hunk of dark rock rising straight out of the sea. Unlike its name though, it has a fuzzy crown, with tall, inviting grasses atop it, mixed with the usual thorny, drysuit-grabbing bushes. In the summer, the island is off- limits, due to bird nesting.

Hand in hand with its bargain island status though, Hardhead Island may beckon unprepared mariners from the relatively calm waters off Dunham Point out to an area that can quickly turn hazardous. It looks so close. But as the water in East Penobscot Bay moves north and south, Dunham Point and Eagle Island funnel that water into a mile and a half-wide gap and the currents increase. Add to that some significant fetch to the south, and the ingredients are there for some chaotic water.

 

 The only recent kayaking death off Deer Isle (the only one I’m aware of) happened in this area in 2006. Back in 1873, a pair of Eagle Island residents drowned here while going to Deer Isle for supplies. I keep this information somewhere in the back of my mind, reminding me to be aware of the tide and weather, no matter what it looks like out there.

 

After a quick hike up to the top of Hardhead, I paddled-on to Eagle Island, passing the lighthouse and following the shore to its calm, western side, where I followed wide pebbly beaches and pulled-up to eat my PB&J. Eagle has a long history of habitation, but is now reduced to one year-round family and a small community of summer residents. 

There are even some rental homes. At a little over a mile long and a half-mile wide, Eagle is just big enough to explore much of it on a good morning walk. Paths range over the island, connecting the broad beaches and rocky headlands. All of this is private property where I’ve never walked... but could if I rented a house there for a week sometime. And it’s in a nice neighborhood for paddling: Butter, Great Spruce Head, Bear Island... just a hop over to North Haven. Such are mid-winter fantasies. 

 

I followed the cliffy eastern shore, admiring the storey-high icicles dripping from the forest above. The snow was coming-down heavier now. I aimed for Hardhead and headed back across the bay. By the time I pulled up on the beach in Sylvester Cove, the islands were all obscured.

Newbury Neck

It had been breezy all week, but the forecast for Friday looked good- just for one day before the wind picked-up again. So, continuing my exploration of Blue Hill Bay, I drove to Newbury Neck in Surry and set-out to paddle around the southern end.


The eastern shore of Newbury Neck is consistently settled, but spacious with grassy pastures spreading down to gravelly beaches. I paddled against the incoming tide, but managed to catch eddies close to shore, and made good time to High Head. I slowed-down to drift below the serpentine igneous bluffs, dripping with icicles. The land here may be all privately-owned, but the owner, who has a house on Burnt Point, has left much of the southern end of the neck untamed and beautiful.


A dark, massive front eased-in from the west as I rounded the southern end, connecting the dots with recent trips: Long Island, Blue Hill, Morgan Bay. I took a fifteen-minute break on Jed Island and spent the next fifteen minutes restoring feeling to my fingers with some all-out paddling.


Back at the car, I loaded-up, aware that it would probably be my last paddle of the year. It was a good way to end 2011 and think about the year to come. There’s always something new to find out there, always more to learn, whether it’s how best to maneuver the boat, or learning the lay of the land and sea. The more I discover, the more I feel almost overwhelmed by how much I don't know, by all the places on the chart that I haven't seen, and the more driven I feel to keep at it.


So, with such an obsession, who needs resolutions? Happy New Year.

Winter, One Day at a Time

As it gets colder, my paddling excursions become tinged with desperatation to make the most of whatever tolerable weather comes along. I check the forecast compulsively, watching for any window of opportunity. Lately, that's any day above thirty degrees, with winds mostly under ten knots. And since I've had a little more time lately, I've been car-topping the kayak to check-out some areas I don't have time to drive to in the summer, when I work more. Also, I try to choose a route that might be more sheltered from the wind than other areas.


One day I took a tour around Blue Hill Harbor, and out past Parker Point as far as Blue Hill Falls. I like all the nooks and crannies along this shore, many of which have perfectly-situated cottages- all pretty much empty this time of the year. It's impossible to paddle here without being wowed by- and maybe even a little jealous of all these century-old architectural fantasies. In one cove where the ice was building-up, I came to an impasse and had to retrace my route to get out.


Another day I took a spin around Morgan Bay, just east of Blue Hill. I ate my lunch at the head of the bay, in a sunny spot out of the wind, thinking "this winter paddling isn't so bad." But I arrived back at the launch after dark, strapping the kayak to the car with numb fingers, thinking "this winter paddling is nuts."


One day I headed up the Benjamin River, just seeing how far I could get, portaging over a couple of beaver dams until the ice stopped me. I ate my PB&J in a sunny meadow and headed back down the river to Eggemoggin Reach.


The late afternoon sun lit-up the shore as I paddled past until, at Billings Cove, that afternoon sun seemed to abruptly morph into an early sunset. I arrived back at the launch well after dark and cranked the heat in the car while I got out of the drysuit and loaded-up.


I wasn't expecting snow yesterday, but it was coming down pretty hard as I paddled in Union River Bay, along the shore of Newbury Neck. It was just a little colder than previous days, and I had to keep a quick pace to stay warm. The snow tapered-off as I followed the shore around Patten Bay to Weymouth Point, then rode the waves back across.


These have been good trips, yet I'll admit that I'm not feeling super-committed to winter paddling this time around (and it's not even winter yet). I have plenty of numb-finger moments: struggles with drysuit zippers or getting the sprayskirt onto the cockpit rim- things that would be easy in warmer weather. But I can't stand the thought of not getting out. I keep poring over charts obsessively, finding places I want to check-out, and at the same time, watching the weather and the tide charts, and some days it all lines-up. I may not paddle all winter, but it seems impossible to stop looking ahead for that next good day.

Long Island, Blue Hill Bay

I take my first break at a beach at the south end of the island, a crescent of sand curving out toward a small hub island, bristling with spruce trees. A pretty spot: a good place to walk around while I munch my PB&J, sip some tea and try to stay warm. I’ve been paddling for an hour and a half in the sunshine, sweating in my layers, but now the cool air is catching-up. I made the one-mile crossing from the South Blue Hill launch, and for the past few miles I’ve paddled against some mild current and wind, checking-out the shoreline with its deserted summer houses amid leafless hardwoods and occasional spruce.


Long Island in Blue Hill Bay is one of the larger less-developed islands around: 4.5 miles long by 2 miles at its widest- around 4,800 acres. The island is privately-owned, but Acadia National Park holds a conservation easement on it, so the public is allowed access to the unsettled portions... like the entire eastern shore.


As I’ve stood here on the beach, a huge front has moved-in from the west, and the first puffs of clouds start to obscure the sun. I launch and make my way around the southern end, past meadows with clusters of red-berried bushes and beaches, places I’d like to spend a little more time on a warmer day. With two hours until sunset and over eight miles to get back to the launch, I can’t linger, but, now that I’m headed north, the waves and current should give me a little push.


I’m wearing three thin layers of wool and microfleece beneath my drysuit, but my fingers, in thin neoprene gloves, have been numb and tingly for awhile. I try to envision some of that heat from my core pulsing-out to where I need it. Maybe it works. Or it could be that I just get involved with handling my boat as I let the waves turn me to follow the eastern shore. Or it’s the shore itself- I get a weird joy, discovering one wild beach after another, pocketed between arms of stone that I glide past. Whatever it is, at some point this paddle went from a bit of a slog- entirely too conscious of whatever progress I was making along a shoreline half-settled with summer homes, to, well, this.


I no longer notice my tingly fingers. Could be that they’ve warmed-up. Or I just don’t notice because there’s too much else to pay attention to. I don’t want to say I’ve lost myself to the moment. That would be a bit grandiose, and besides, once you think “I’ve lost myself to the moment,” well, that moment’s gone. It could be that the act of paddling and checking-out my surroundings has become more all-encompassing. I’m having fun.


To the west are meadows on another large island- Bartlett, and behind that, the small mountains of Mount Desert Island- nice background, but I’m mostly focused on my immediate surroundings. The shoreline turns steep with rocky slabs sloping down into the water. Occasionally, a cascade of fresh water pours down from the forest, falling over the ledges into the sea. I stop at one of these for another tea and sandwich break and admire how the creek has sculpted the stone.


There’s an entire other world up there in the forest, and I feel bittersweet to leave it behind- yet another place to spend warm days with plenty of sunlight. For now though, I have more time for paddling in the cooler, darker months. The sea has turned calm, and as I round the north end of the island, Blue Hill comes into view, rising over the town and the bay that are named for it. Here and there along shore, lights are twinkling on: time for me to turn on my deck light and get back to the launch.