Adopting an Island

Often, on our evening paddles, without giving a lot of thought to our destination, we head straight out on a route that takes us first to Steves Island. There, after two miles of paddling, floating among the boulders on the south end, I like to pause and catch my breath, deciding where to go next. It’s a good place to pause. I’ve found myself admiring the island more and more: its pocket beaches and boulders, some with spruce trees growing on impossibly thin soil. From a distance, Steves’ profile is distinct, the trees tapering in height toward the prevailing winds of the southwest. That’s what you see before even getting out of the boat, and the island is so small, you can see quite a lot of it from the water.


Steve’s is state-owned and part of a network of islands managed by the Maine Island Trail Association, which maintains a network of publicly accesible islands, some with campsites. While the organization relies on membership dues and donations, most of the work is done by volunteers. One such opportunity is the Adopt an Island program. Island adopters regularly visit their island “as casual island caretakers and ambassadors of responsible recreational use”.

Peter and Marilyn are stewards for Rock Island, a natural choice, since they can monitor the island from their home with a pair of binoculars, and they enjoy using its beach to practice rolling. They obviously enjoy doing their part to look after the island. As I took my breaks off of Steve’s, I started thinking maybe this was something we could also do. So we signed-up as stewards of Steve’s. I was surprised no one else had already claimed the island; after all, it is very popular, and a short trip from Stonington.



A few evenings ago, Rebecca and I made our first visit as island stewards. A sailboat was anchored off the north end, where a family was camped, but the other campsites were empty, and mostly clean. I picked up a tiny amount of garbage... the most egregious in the form of a plastic bottle. Even the beaches were free of man-made debris. According to law, we left the washed-up lobster buoy there. Apparently, the people who camp in Steves’ four campsites take pretty good care of the island. So this gives us a good excuse to get out of the boats and spend a little more time on an idyllic island, as well as a chance to give back a little for all the enjoyment the islands provide. If it goes well, maybe we’ll adopt even more.

Surf Lessons at Popham

Todd, Peter and I drove down the coast for a surf class at Popham Beach. For me, in addition to instruction in a skill that I knew little about, it was a rare, mid-summer excursion off the island. We went looking for dinner in Boothbay Harbor, where restaurant greeters, one even dressed in a Sou’wester hat and tall boots (it wasn’t raining) competed for our business. Instead of lobster boats, the harbor was full of cabin cruisers and other recreational craft. People drove in circles looking for parking spaces, and then waited in lines. We weren’t in Stonington anymore.

But not far from all this, deep in the woods, we found the home of John Carmody of Sea Cliff Kayakers. John showed us the P&H kayaks we’d be trying out, and then went over our plan. In the morning, we would drive to Fort Popham and take a short paddle over to the beach, where, depending on conditions, the current and sandbars would provide us with ample opportunity to experiment in the surf.




Admittedly, I felt a little nervous as we launched and headed out. This was something new. Would I do alright? How would my flatwater roll work in the surf? I expected to need a good roll, since I would undoubtedly get clobbered by a wave or two. I felt determined to push beyond my comfort zone. I cooled off with a roll, beginning to feel more in my element. We reached the sandbar where small waves were coming in, and plunged in, getting a feel for it. When I capsized in the shallows, rolling off of my (helmeted) head, I began to feel even more comfortable. By the next time I capsized, I was having fun.

Peter catches a wave

Our time on the waves was punctuated by breaks on the beach, during which John critiqued what was working for us and what wasn’t. The first lessons involved the more utilitarian aspects of handling a boat in the surf: launching & landing, bracing and generally how to stay upright. We progressed into handling a boat on a wave, working on edging the boat rather than relying on the paddle.

Meanwhile, countless girls in bikinis strolled the beach. Unfortunately, I have no photo to illustrate this point... or much else for that matter. I tried to stay focused on learning something, and when I did snap a photo, it was usually blurred by water on the lens. We’ll just have to do it all again. By late afternoon, we were catching waves, sometimes even staying on them. Peter demonstrated that it all worked the same with a Greenland paddle, and at one point Todd spun his paddle overhead, demonstrating... something else. For me, it felt great to catch a sizeable wave (sizeable to me) and instead of just capsizing, riding it, adjusting my speed to keep the stern at the crest.


We met John at a coffee shop in Bath, and discussed what we’d learned, and what we needed to work on. Later, at a Thai restaurant in Belfast, the three of us came up with a page of notes, trying to remember all that we had learned, which turned out to be considerable. As the sand continues to sift from our gear, we look forward to our next chance to get out in the surf.

Escape From Stonington

I started Monday morning like most: a cup of coffee and The New Yorker while occasionally looking out over Stonington Harbor. This time though, instead of the Adirondack chair in the front room of our apartment, I was on Rock Island, sitting on a rock (of course) above the broad, sandy beach, looking north at the harbor. I could see the windows in our apartment, a mile away.



We’d hoped to get a little further. The plan was to leave soon after work on Sunday evening, but while we can get out the door reasonably quickly for a paddle, adding camping gear took much longer than expected. We were on the water at ten of eight. The sun sets at 8:20. As we paddled away from the ramp, a dense fog settled-in. I took a bearing on Rock Island just before it disappeared.

Gooseberry Island

So we only managed to get a mile away from home. We didn’t care. We pitched our tent and had dinner as the dark and fog closed in. Soon we heard the faint sound of a motor and an occasional toot on a fog horn. This didn’t seem strange until we realized it was going back and forth, in circles, and we heard something about the Coast Guard on its radio. We tuned-in the VHF and discovered that someone had apparently shot off a flare, and the Coast Guard was searching for a vessel in distress. We listened, walking the beach which was the same aqueous grey as the water and sky. Dreamy. We woke in the daylight to the sound of several nearby lobster boats. And then, over at the quarry on Crotch Island, granite cutting began, which is not a quiet task. We were in a beautiful spot, but we hadn’t exactly escaped Stonington.



Later, while paddling along McGlathery Island, I heard a breaking wave, and turned in time to brace into it before it carried me up onto a ledge, where I spent several precarious minutes holding myself upright while I waited for a big enough wave to get me floating again. I had been minding my business, not even goofing around... really. My helmet was safely packed in the front hatch. Good thing Rebecca was there, otherwise... we’d have no photos of it.



We spent the day meandering around the archipelago: Gooseberry, Fog Island, north past Southern Mark Island toward Saddleback. We had some nice wind and waves for awhile, and looked forward to taking a nice long break (the rest of the afternoon) at a favorite sandy beach, but discovered it was occupied by a couple of other kayakers.



We wanted our own island, so we went to another, a state-owned island which, depending on the tide, may have a problematic landing and launch. Good thing. You can figure it out if you want to go there, but for now, it’s my secret new favorite place. The steep, rocky shoreline can be walked in about ten minutes. We spent hours there: enough time to watch a thunderstorm approach and pass to the north (phew) and enough time for Rebecca to start a couple of small paintings and for me to finish reading my New Yorker. We had escaped Stonington.

Southern Mark Island

We had enough food and water to spend another night out, but there was work to tend to at home, where we arrived just as it grew dark.

Our Own Private Idaho
(That's Rebecca on the right).

Around Isle au Haut

One price we pay for living in such a superlative paddling spot is that we make much of our living in a short, but intense period of time when everyone else seems to be having all the fun. Over the weekend of the fourth, I spent long days in the gallery, chatting with hundreds of people, smiling until my jaw hurt. This was after a long week of similar days, my mornings and evenings spent in the gallery, getting ready- five days straight with no paddling. I got out Sunday evening with Rebecca, but still, by Monday, the long hours of pleasant chit-chat and repeated conversations had begun to grind away at my soul. The best antidote was a long, strenuous paddle.

On the west shore, Kimball Island in the background.

On the phone, I told Todd that it was about time we went around Isle au Haut again. He had work to do, but I heard Wendee in the background saying just go. Magic words.



Isle au Haut lies around six miles from Stonington, the hilly backdrop to most of our paddling in the archipelago. At six miles long, by two miles wide, the island has enough shoreline to take up days of exploration, but for a one-day circumnavigation from Stonington in eight or nine hours, one needs to paddle quickly and minimize the dilly-dallying. Still, thinking of the cliffy south end shoreline exposed to the bold ocean swell, we packed our helmets; you just never know what you might run into.


We left at high tide, just after eleven. While this didn’t put a lot of current behind us, we wouldn’t be fighting it. Taking a wide, open route to Ram Island, and across to Kimball Head, we paddled quickly, despite a beam wind that kept us doing sweep strokes for the first eight miles. After Kimball Island, we turned toward Isle au Haut, seeking a little less wind, and arrived at a beach just past Duck Harbor in a little over two hours.

Western Ear

Toward the south end of the island, the coast turns increasingly rugged. A remote section of Acadia National Park, this third of the island is wild, the shore uninterrupted by summer homes. Hikers occasionally watched us from atop the shoreside cliffs. At the southwest corner, amid a rolling fog, we paddled around Western Ear, where a mild swell made for some fun among the rocks, and even though we still had far to go, we took our time exploring. This was the reward for all that quickly-paced paddling. This is where you can lose track of time for awhile, just having fun, occasionally pausing to savor the coolness of those rocks, or the echoey feeling inside a chasm where the swell gently moves you up and down, the water dripping from a wall of seaweed.


By the time the tide turned, we were headed back, arriving in Stonington after about 23 miles of paddling in eight and a half hours.

Hey, that's me on the left!

It's interesting to contrast this excursion with the last (and first) time we circumnavigated Isle au Haut, almost two years ago. Back then, the graceful power of an open ocean swell beneath the boat was still new to me, and when Todd paddled into the bottom of a tall slot in the rock, it seemed a strange and iffy thing to do. Now those rocks seem to exert their gravity upon us (even as I sit here at my desk in the gallery). We were less certain of our abilities, but were willing to push the boundaries. Lessons and repeated practice continue to push them further. Now if we could just sneak in a paddle like that at least once a week, we can work up to the thirty-mile trips.