Another Rec Boat Fatality

On Sunday, November 22nd, while we were paddling around the Cranberry Islands, Monica Estes, 56, launched her Old Town Otter from the public launch at Manset, less than three miles from where we launched. Little else is known about what happened next, but two days later her boat washed ashore, followed a day later by her body. Her life jacket was found inside the kayak.


As is often the case in the death of a solo paddler, we know very little about what happened to her, but we read between the lines of the reports that surfaced. I become morbidly anxious to gather any details I can from what little the newspaper accounts offer, but two significant details stand-out: the type of boat she paddled, and the PFD- stashed inside of the boat instead of worn. There’s no mention of cold water gear or any other safety considerations, which probably translates to lack of all of the above.

We don’t want to be disrespectful to the victim, but we wonder what happened, and we want to prevent it from happening to us or to others. The circumstances are similar to the death of Susan Wakelin off of Deer Isle on September 11, 2006. Wakelin, 65, took a brand-new Old Town Otter out for a short coastal paddle. To her credit, she wore her PFD and left plans with family, who notified the Coast Guard when she didn’t arrive on time. Beyond those precautions though, she wore no cold water paddling gear or a sprayskirt, and carried no other safety gear (VHF radio, flares, cell phone in a waterproof container, etc.).


Old Town’s web site has this to say about the Otter: “Comfortable, stable, lightweight and affordable, the Otter is Old Town's solution for family water fun. Its superior design tracks better and paddles easier than others in its class.” The site makes no claims about where the boat should or should not be used. At just under ten feet long, with a 28.5” beam, the boat is unlikely to be quick, but its beaminess and flat bottom are sure to make the paddler feel stable, as though capsizing just isn’t possible. If it does capsize, the lack of any built-in floatation makes it unlikely that a solo paddler would be able to reenter the boat. Most likely, one end fills with water, while the other end points straight up out of the water. For maybe $100, the boat could be equipped with bow and stern flotation bags, but the struggling paddler would still be dealing with a large volume of water in the boat.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the Otter and other similar rec boats, is that it is built and marketed to people who want to get on the water easily, with little commitment to learning skills or even basic safety precautions. I’m guessing that the salespeople don’t disabuse them of this approach. The boat is priced at just over $300, so the financial commitment to having proper gear is also de-emphasized. One could easily spend more on basic safety gear than on the boat. The sense that the boat is so flat-bottomed and beamy gives buyers the idea that it will never capsize, especially if they plan on staying close to shore and returning should the conditions turn rough.

When we launched that morning, the seas were fairly rough, even for experienced paddlers. Winds were probably in the 15-knot range. There were waves... all coming out of the north, while the incoming tide came from the south: a recipe for bumpy conditions. For us, this was fun, but we took it seriously. We plotted a course that took us first into the wind until we neared the shore of Great Cranberry Island, then let it take us downwind. Contrary to the newspaper’s claim, and the weather forecast, the conditions became calmer in the afternoon. Those photos of us (in the last blog entry) in fairly calm seas are in the middle of the crossing back to Seawall. The shots of us surfing, are taken within a few hundred feet from shore, so paddling close to shore (as rec boat enthusiasts inevitably plan on doing) is not always the calmest, safest place to be. Those waves would have easily capsized a rec boat.

How could the deceased paddler have stacked the odds more in her favor? For less than $100 she could have carried a VHF radio. For under $30 she could have carried flares. And she would have carried both of them in her PFD... which of course she should have been wearing. The newspaper didn’t say what clothing she wore, but for $150 she might have worn neoprene or a wetsuit, which could have bought her some time in the water before hypothermia disabled her. Even in the summertime, the water in this area rarely rises ten degrees higher than the water in which she died. I have no idea what skills she possessed, but anyone who paddles should learn rescue techniques, and anyone who paddles alone should learn self-rescue techniques.

In addition to the circumstantial similarities of the two deaths, they each might have been prevented had even one safety measure been followed. And perhaps more to the point, once anything went wrong, there was little hope for either victim, since neither had any options for helping themselves.

Maybe it’s really pretty simple: plan on capsizing. Some people assume that they will eventually end up in the water, while others assume that they won’t. The ones who prepare for capsize stand a better chance of survival than those who don’t.

To read the Bar Harbor Times article, click here.

Baker and Cranberry Islands

Five of us met at Seawall in Acadia National Park and headed across to Great Cranberry Island in a stiff northerly breeze. It was just after nine in the morning and we had all day, which these days translates to until about four in the afternoon. My only paddling in the Cranberries had been in September, with Todd on our trip up the coast, and ever since then I’d been aching to get a closer look.


Not long after crossing Western Way, we found a nice mellow swell splashing in among the rocks. Nate and I established a trend for the day: we paddled into an area and began discovering its features, only to look up after about fifteen seconds and realize that Rebecca, Barbara and Peter were waiting for us far away. (That’s an exaggeration: time passes quickly when you’re in the rock groove). So we’d catch up, find some more rocks and do it again. We felt naughty, goofing off when we should have been moving along. But that’s why we were there. Or no, actually we were there to get further and see more places... just in less detail. Of course we wanted both.



We stopped at Crow Island to check out the campsite, surprising a trio of small deer, who sprinted away from us, finally stepping into the water and swimming across to Great Cranberry. They swam surprisingly quickly, and climbed up the rocks on the other side with admirable finesse, shaking off with white puffs of moisture erupting around them.


As we headed over to Baker Island, the wind calmed down some. We sat in a grassy meadow and ate lunch. What do we talk about when paddling? A common recurring theme on this excurson was the keeping of poultry, with an emphasis on slaughtering them. I’ll spare you the details.



Some boats come equipped with rock magnets, while others seem to prefer staying outside the surf zone. After we left Baker Island to head around Little Cranberry, Nate and I once again lagged behind. You know you need to keep moving, but somehow your bow just points to where all that white spray is exploding around the rocks. At the end of the day, sure, I remember the relatively flat stretches, but the scenes that readily flash into my mind are those ones in the rock zone, surf crashing everywhere, a little uncertainty about how the next moments will play out as the backflow sucks out beneath my hull and dark spots are revealed as rocks. The stern starts to lift and... anything could happen next. In the best of scenarios, you’re propelled gracefully over and through an obstacle course of rocks with a few well-placed strokes.



What makes it so fun and addictive? There’s lots of answers: connnection to the sea, adrenaline... It’s one of those activities that puts you right in the moment, when there’s no room in your mind for anything else. And I know that I’ve only scratched the surface of it.



As we crossed back over to MDI, the pre-sunset light was gorgeous. We’d had a 12-mile paddle on a sunny day, played like kids, seen the wildlife, and even ate well, all in good company. We returned to the put-in and, finding the surf breaking over the ledges, burned-up whatever energy and daylight we had left trying to catch a few of the waves.

Going Out For Indian Food

We almost went camping tonight. The impulse came a little late in the day though, and then it occurred to us that we’d have two hours of daylight, followed by fourteen hours of darkness. And as nice as it is to hang-out in a tent off on an island for the six or so hours you’re not sleeping... we changed our minds. If we had gone, I’m sure I could have gone on about how nice it is in the dark with the sounds of waves crashing on the granite. But this couch is also nice, as is the reggae in the background, and the miracle of electricity and all the other magic that allows me to post this to you.


Between the short days and the usually sketchy weather we get this time of year, it takes some effort to get out there. Rebecca and I had a good trip yesterday, out among the islands west of the archipelago: Mark, Scraggy, Sparrow, Ram, Hardwood. It’s a fun loop- eight or nine miles of fairly evenly-spaced islands along the edge of Penobscot Bay. We took a break on the ledge on the south side of Mark Island, which was sunny and warm, just out of the wind. We were feeling kind of lazy, and once we kicked-back on the warm granite, could have easily stayed all afternoon.


I often like stopping at Sparrow Island in the winter when the birds aren’t nesting there, but the high tide had completely submerged the beach. We went on toward Ram, paddling in beam waves, thinking about lunch. But the landing on Ram was in the shade, and the sunlight seemed to be directing us to the boulder-strewn southern ledges of Hardwood Island. I hadn’t landed on Hardwood for a couple of years (and I’m not sure who owns it) but I remembered the steep granite slab sloping down into the ocean and a playground of glacial erratic boulders.



Those boulders are fun to paddle among, especially with a gentle swell from the southwest, but they’re also a good place to pull your boat up, get out the stove and heat up some instant Indian food for lunch. When we say we’re going out for Indian food, this is usually what we mean. And when I say lunch, I mean that meal that happens just before sunset (4:15) which seems to take us by surprise every time. We arrived back after dark.


I have an article in the December issue of Sea Kayaker: "Meandering in Maine: Paddling the Stonington - Isle au Haut Archipelago." It's a destination article, with plenty of information about paddling in this area, as well as a section on paddling among lobster boats. If I do say so myself, it's a nice, concise guide to basic paddling here. I hope you get a chance to check it out!

A Borrowed Cabin

By Monday, it seemed clear that the tiny island we’d planned for Tuesday night’s campsite would get hammered by 30-knot winds out of the east, and at high tide, those waves would be coming pretty close. That’s when I remembered that a friend had graciously offered the use of his cabin on an island close to Isle au Haut. It seemed a good time to take him up on the offer.


After a 3-hour paddle in the rain, Nate, Rebecca and I arrived at the cabin. It took a little tidying up: removing the bird’s nest from the stovepipe, and relocating a few spiders. It had the feeling of a place where someone has spent a lot of time in quiet contemplation: stacks of good books among feathers and rocks gathered from walks, kerosene lamps with crumbling wicks, a bottle of Jim Beam with only drops left. A painting leaned casually against the wall, as though it had been painted from a chair at the kitchen table and put aside in the most convenient place. It featured the view from the cabin, looking down past the tall grass and granite outcrops to the cove with its tiny island and the thorofare, the steep profile of Isle au Haut rising in the background.



We carried the gear from our boats up to the cabin, then went out for a paddle around the island. The air temperature was dropping from the 40s down to the 30s, but we were comfortable as long as we kept paddling. We found some ledges with unpredictable, washing machine currents, and waves breaking in multiple directions. Nate and I goofed around there for awhile, while Rebecca took photos. Seals watched from a distance.


The wind picked-up considerably. We paddled into it as we finished circling the island, and it was hard going, but good knowing that we had a place out of the weather just a short distance away, and that we’d gathered enough fallen spruce to get a fire going in the woodstove.


After dinner, by kerosene lamp and candlelight, we found the backgammon board and played a couple of games. When we went outside for some air, we were amazed at how quiet and sheltered it was just outside the cabin, while down by the water, the wind howled. The air felt cool and clear, the sky thick with stars


In the morning, the wind still howled. Rebecca decided to stay on the island and do some painting, while Nate and I left to paddle around Isle au Haut. Again, it was hard going, paddling into the wind, but only for a couple miles before we were sheltered in the Burnt Island Thorofare, and shortly after in the Isle au Haut Thorofare.


Beam winds and seas kept us on our toes along the eastern side of the island. At Western Ear, we had a short break, seeking shelter behind a boulder from the strong, cold winds before we got back out on the water and warmed-up with some aggressive paddling.



We found a little rock gardening in the wind-driven waves before heading across the south end of the island to Eastern Head, where the gentlest swell provided us with some low-key, very enjoyable maneuvers among the rocks.


By the time we rounded Eastern Ear, I was feeling pretty spent, and could have benefitted from Nate’s practice of eating a Snickers Bar every hour or so. We’d hoped for a little push from the current, but the last few miles were a slog.


Rebecca had a small fire going in the woodstove. She’d spent a quiet day reading and painting from the hillside below the cabin. We got out of our wet gear and sat down for a cup of hot tea as it turned dark.

Rebecca Daugherty: Field, Trees, Isle au Haut, oil on panel, 7" x 5"

On the return trip, we paddled into a stiff headwind again, arriving back in Stonington around mid-day, in time for Nate to go pick his kids up at school. As is often the case, the strong northwest winds we’d paddled into were barely perceptible from Stonington, and it felt strange and oddly anticlimactic to return home and open up the gallery for a few late afternoon customers.

Stonington to West Quoddy Head

Take me to your leader, we come in peace

I’m going to keep this brief. Todd and I just took a longer than usual trip up the coast. Visitors to the gallery sometimes find me with charts spread out over my desk, but in the weeks leading up to our departure date, I had a whole new set of charts to study, and the anticipation of the trip kept me busy as gallery traffic slowed down. Before we left, if anyone asked, we said that we had eight days to paddle up the coast and see where it took us. Our hope though, if weather and conditions cooperated, was to make it to West Quoddy Head, in Lubec, the easternmost point in the United States.

A long journey begins with one paddlestroke

We left Stonington on Wednesday, September 16th and camped that night on Big Baker Island, just off of Swans Island, a short first day to get us started. Our route then took us around the southern end of Mount Desert Island, through the Cranberries and into Frenchman Bay. Along the way, we paddled along the shore of Acadia National Park, where probably thousands of people were scattered along the shore at the popular sites. We were the only ones on the water... except for the tour boat and cruise ships.

Burnt Coat Harbor Lighthouse, Swans Island

In the early hours on Friday, we rounded Schoodic Point as the wind and waves picked up, and made it to an island just off Corea, where strong winds grounded us until Sunday morning. It was a good place to be stuck. We spent our time exploring the granite ledges, reading and listening to the weather forecast, wondering when we could continue. We ate pretty well, too.

We were on the water before sunrise on Sunday morning, which got us around Petit Manan Point in calm conditions, and gave us a long paddling day to make up for lost time. We saw a lot that day, islands that had been intriguing on the chart, but in real, 3-D life, just blew us away: the cliffs of Jordans Delight rising vertically from the ocean, the tempting rock gardening around Shipstern Island, the forlorn lighthouse out on Nash Island. The waves and wind kept us working hard. After nearly 30 miles, we made it to Halifax Island, not too far from Machias, a gem of an island with beautiful views.

The Bold Coast

We would have liked to meander a bit more slowly the next day, but the weather looked good for Monday, and was forecast to deteriorate by Tuesday. It looked like it would be our only chance to paddle the Bold Coast and get to West Quoddy Head, so we got up early again and went for it. We’d heard a lot about the Bold Coast, about the lack of bailouts and its exposure to bold ocean swells and strong currents, so this was a greatly anticipated stretch of paddling. We were lucky to catch it on a relatively calm day, but it was far less wild and wooly than I’d imagined. After a 33-mile day, we approached the striped lighthouse at West Quoddy Head just after sunset, gratefully pulled along by a powerful, river-like current.


I’ve been feeling a bit worn-out since we returned, but it’s a good kind of worn-out. I immediately became pulled back into my land-bound concerns, returning to my usual anxiety that I’m not paddling enough. Looking at the satellite images of the Maine coast with Deer Isle pretty close to the middle, it's hard not to think “why not a trip to Kittery?”

Thanks NRS!

Peter, McGlathery Island

Recently, my NRS drysuit had some problems. I wasn’t sure if it was covered under the warranty, so I sent it back to let them decide. I wasn’t feeling too good about it, and had started steeling myself to put $500 to $1000 on the credit card for a new one. Drysuit weather is nearly upon us. I’ve been wearing summer gear lately, but there’s a chill in the air, and of course there’s always a chill in the water. Next week Todd and I are leaving for an eight-day trip up the coast, so I needed something soon.

JT in his Nelo sporting a winged-blade paddle

I was amazed when NRS called and told me that, rather than repair the suit, they would replace the whole thing. It arrived in the mail a few days later: the new and improved version of their Extreme Drysuit with relief zipper. I haven’t paddled with it yet, but it looks great: latex booties instead of the old fabric versions, and I don’t know if its my imagination, but the Triton fabric feels lighter and more supple than on my former drysuit. As I write, the neck gasket is getting stretched over one of my camping pots, and I look forward to paddling (tomorrow?) with that new drysuit smell. Thanks NRS!

Nate at Ram Island

I haven't been paddling as much as I would like. The sun goes down shortly after 7 now, so evening paddles are a bit tougher to squeeze in after work. I took Labor Day off though, and met up with JT, Nate and Peter.

Peter at Ram Island

We didn't really go all that far. The rocks got in the way. A very gentle swell made for some forgiving rock gardening at Hardwood and Ram Islands. I spent an inordinate amount of time stuck on ledges. We found a couple of spots that we kept trying again and again, like kids circling around to take turns on a favorite toboggan run. We took a lunch break, and then hit it again at a higher tide.

Michael at Ram Island

It was tough to leave it behind and head back to town.

More Lessons

When we tell people that we’re going for yet another paddling lesson, some look at us oddly and ask “But why do you need a lesson? Don’t you already know how to paddle a kayak?”

Well sure, like most people, we figured-out pretty quickly how to sit in the cockpit and dip the paddle in the water. It’s like saying you know how to play the piano because you figured-out how to push the keys down and make a noise. The simple answer: “We go to learn from someone who does it a lot better than we do.”

Todd in The Keyhole

There’s much to learn, and if you want to do it well, it can take a fair amount of instruction, coaching and practice. And in more extreme conditions, those skills can make the difference between having a wild, adrenaline-fueled good time and... well, a not so good time. Like a lot of things, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it, and the process of learning becomes its own reward.

Michael off Rum Cay

This last week, Todd, Peter and I spent two days training off of Bar Harbor with Mark Schoon-Rice of Carpe Diem Kayaking. Todd and I have been taking classes with Mark for nearly two years, while Peter has been at it for awhile longer. We’re working toward the British Canoe Union’s (BCU) Three-Star award, which is given for proficiency at a long list of skills. Last week we went for a day of tune-up instruction. Yesterday was to be our assessment, but lacking the necessary wind, we opted for another day of instruction, focusing on paddling among rocks and ledges.

Peter off Rum Cay

It was an auspicious day to be paddling in Frenchman’s Bay. Hurricane Bill had just passed by amid much concern, its storm surge dealing a glancing blow to the area. The previous day, a number of people were swept from the rocks at Thunder Hole, resulting in the death of a 7 year-old girl. We headed out as workers attempted to piece back together floating piers and knocked over pilings.

Our fearless leader, Mark.
Below: 4 seconds later

Among these snapshots from our lessons are the ones that exist only in memory, choice moments that leave strong impressions. Many of mine took place under water. If I had snapshots of those moments, they would be of the gauzy light above, and the chaos of bubbles amid churning water, but it’s more the feel of the paddle in your hands, trying to tell if you’ve got it right, and the sense that this roll is coming together or not. We each experienced a moment well above the waves too: bow dug into the bottom, the wave pitchpoling the boat.

Todd... Rum Cay

The swell was too big for us to safely get into some of the choice rock gardens, and when we surfed, we learned to let some of those bigger waves pass. Maybe this is the essence of continuing one’s education: teaching yourself humility and perspective, because if you don’t, it is likely that, sooner or later, the ocean will.