Springtime on Isle au Haut

I paddled beside Rebecca as the western sky took-on a rosy, decidedly evening feel. “Well,” I said. If we don’t want to get into camp late, we could always stop somewhere else. Steves Island, maybe. We’d get a nice sunset on Harbor. Or Kimball- we’d be most of the way there.”

“That could be okay,” she said, but didn’t break stride. Isle au Haut rose as a backdrop, still mostly obscured by other islands, and we kept paddling as if to get those islands out of the way.

“Of course,” I added, “we’d have the current against us in the morning.”

“And fog. It’s supposed to turn foggy and rainy. I’d rather get there.”


This last minute, tardy departure felt too usual for us. We were always running late, getting things done at the last minute. We were lucky to have even launched on Monday. The tasks were never finished, and the longer we stuck around, the more the phone rang and the emails came: it seemed irresponsible to be leaving at all. That afternoon, I’d walked into the back of the darkened gallery just as a man on the sidewalk tried the locked door and saw me. To be polite, I opened the door to tell him we’d be closed for a few days, but he didn’t care about that. “Is there a restaurant around here,” he asked, “that serves lobster?” A joke? No- a frequently-asked question. He looked over my shoulder and followed it up with another: “Are you one of the artists?” We launched by quarter to five.

The wind picked-up against us and developed a mild chop. We still had the current with us. At Steves we kept right on going. At Harbor, we paused. The idea was enticing, but we wanted to get there tonight. We wanted to wake up in the morning and have all day. Three all days actually- and another half day on Friday, when we would need to return to Stonington and open the gallery. After which, the gallery would be open every day for the next four and a half months- with at least one of us there every day. It was good we were taking a break.

The current had turned against us by the time we entered the Isle au Haut Thorofare, tilting the buoys toward us. Along shore we found an eddy and passed town: no one was about- just a well-preserved car  from the 1960s rumbling slowly past. The lighthouse beckoned. We arrived at Duck Harbor just in time to get settled-in before dark. 

Duck Harbor Campground has only five sites, all Adirondack-style lean-tos- posh camping on the southern end of Isle au Haut, Acadia National Park’s remote section. Until June 15th when the tour boats start running there, the only likely way to get there is under your own steam. You could take the mailboat into town and backpack or bicycle the rest of the way, or get there in your own boat. I’d made reservations back in early April, which not only held our site, but ensured that we would take the time off for the trip. Two other couples camped quietly nearby.

We spent the next three days walking around on the trails and the rocky shoreline, staring at rocks, mesmerized by waves. Fog and rain came and went and came back again. It was springtime and the plants were just getting started, bright leafy green everywhere, birdsongs a constant backdrop.

The trails were often squishy and damp, but they led to amazing places. We took our time. Rebecca painted. Sometimes I opened a book, or if Rebecca became busy with a painting, I took off bushwacking up to rocky promontories, trying to fill in the gaps of shoreline that the trails left-out.

We both did a lot of staring at waves and rocks. What went through our minds while we stared? Rebecca, I’m assuming, was often going through that process of creating art. How do I paint that? What makes it interesting? Will anyone else see how cool this looks to me? I often found myself following an imaginary kayak in through rocky gaps, tracing its course as it negotiated a turn, got stuck on a rock, and inevitably- pounded by one of the bigger waves that always seemed to follow. Good practice. Maybe better if I’d followed it up with actual paddling... but maybe just as well that I didn’t. 

The days passed. On Friday morning we headed back in the fog. We were in less of a hurry to get back to Stonington. The fog lifted enough here and there to make it more atmospheric than hazardous- a gentle way to return and plunge into our summer.

The Foggiest Place in Maine

 A couple of hours’ drive downeast from Stonington, the Great Wass Island archipelago is a bit far for day trips, but we managed to get there mid-morning on Monday- four of us, and headed west with the current.

We had all day to get around Beals and Great Wass Island- on average, a trip of 14 or 15 nautical miles- and we’d managed to get there for probably the best weather this week would have in store- a little rain, mild winds. Still, fog drifted through, alternately revealing and obscuring our surroundings. In a place known to be the foggiest spot on the Maine coast though, this came as no surprise. 

Barb had paddled here quite a bit. I’d passed through Moosabec Reach once on my way to Lubec, but otherwise, it was all new. What a treat; it’s a very different feeling from paddling a place you know well. Nate often had his card compass out, taking bearings on what islands we could see, and Rebecca, attentive to paddling straight lines on her ranges, kept reminding us that there was a bit more current here than we were accustomed to. This was good practice, since we’d all just had classes.

 
The first task came before we got there: planning. It seemed to be going well, since the current gave us a push down Moosabec Reach and down the west shore of Great Wass. We wanted to round the southern end at around low slack tide, before the wind and current turned against each other, so we ate our snacks on the water and admired the shoreline from a distance. 

But the real fun began as we rounded Pond Point and began following the rocky southern shore. With a 2 to 4-foot swell, it could get interesting.

I would imagine that playing among the rocks and waves is a bit hard for the uninitiated to understand. It might sound a bit like we’re just paddling around and running into rocks. Okay, maybe that’s part of it. As we head into a promising rock garden, we have little idea what will happen. We paddle around and watch the waves come in, see what happens, look for opportunities. Sometimes then, we run into rocks. Sometimes we ride waves over them, and occasionally we get about half-way over before the wave goes away. Nate is pretty good at this.

Often enough, I’m following Nate, saying “you’re gonna get stuck,” or “I think I’ll pass on this one.” His Delphin is getting a few new scratches in the plastic, but with it flat-bottomed stern, it seems to be a perfect boat to balance atop a seaweed-draped boulder and then slide-off with the next wave without getting pitched to the side. Getting stuck makes it all that much more satisfying and impressive when you get it just right.

Some of my favorite moments came as we followed slots deep into the rocks. You might ride-in on a wave, and sometimes it’s tough to tell where it will lead. It gets a little quieter, the sound of surf muffled and distant. It’s a good feeling when you see water washing-in from the other side and follow it back out into the waves.

It’s a lot of fun. And best suited for daytrips where everyone understands that we might hit a section of shoreline that we’re going to take really slowly. It took us about an hour and a half to cover the southern end of Great Wass. And yet, that’s why we’re there.  And of course, it's good practice. Practice for what? Uh, doing more of this stuff.

And when you get out of the bigger conditions and find a few smaller waves, and some challenges that aren't likely to result in your getting pasted onto the rocks if you screw-up, well, it's really really fun.

And it makes lunch especially satisfying when you get to try-out the whale bone furnishings.

The day got away from us pretty quickly, but Moose Peak Light on Mistake Island beckoned, along with a few more opportunities for playtime in the rocks. There's been a light there since 1827, the present one since 1887. The best view... from a sea kayak, just offshore.

We all ventured into a narrow chasm near the lighthouse

And Nate took a swim.

If that wasn't enough, the paddle back to the launch took us past scores of seabirds and eagles watching us from granite-edged islands. Curious baby seals followed occasionally. It turned calm and the sun even peeked-out from the clouds.

All a bit overwhelming... and tiring. We returned home late, and the next morning, if the boats weren't still strapped to the car, it might have all been a foggy dream.

Guides Guiding Guides

For the last few weeks, much of our paddling was aimed at getting ready for last weekend’s three-day class. You could even say that the last few months of Sunday mornings at the pool at the Ellsworth Y were practice and reinforcement. Most evenings last week Rebecca and I watched our instructional DVDs, pausing every now and then to make sure we understood (and sometimes to wake up). So, in the same way that planning for a trip is part of the fun, so is getting ready for a class. Suddenly it became an emergency to get a new short tow figured-out so we could try it in class. 

 

We met Friday morning at Old Quarry. Nine students, all of us registered Maine Guides were there for the first ever MASKGI-sponsored, ACA L4 Open Water Trip Leader training program. I’ll spare you my diatribe about the exam process for Maine Sea Kayak Guides and how it is entirely possible get your license with little or no on-the-water experience -provided you can talk the talk. It’s great to talk the talk (that’s how you pass the exam) but this program is aimed at getting guides to walk the walk.

It isn’t always easy for experienced guides to be open to learning something new. I’m hardly experienced, but it helps to have some faith in your teachers, to accept that they know their stuff.  I’ve had a few classes with Todd Wright and John Carmody, and they are certainly on top of their game. John is one of the few BCU Level 5 Sea Coaches in North America, while Todd holds the highest ACA awards and  is fast on his way to being one of the next BCU Level 5 Sea Coaches. This translates to getting spot-on critique and suggestions. If I received just a few such nuggets over the weekend, my efforts would be well-spent.
 

We chose different locations each day, progressing from a milder excursion to Millet on Friday, to some rocks out around Ram and Hardwood on Saturday. On Sunday we drove over to Bagaduce Falls. It was a good progression. By the time we tried various tows and rescues in the current on Sunday, we’d already practiced in easier conditions, gradually increasing the complicating factors. Of course, we worked constantly on personal boat maneuvering skills.

 

We’ll have an assessment in the fall- a good goal. In the meantime, we all have points to work-on and improve- both while we’re guiding and on our own. Rebecca and I got out for a mid-day paddle yesterday just as the storm arrived. On one level, it felt good to decompress, to get out and just paddle. But after awhile, we started working on what we’d learned. Once again, I’m tweaking my forward stroke- I don’t expect this will ever end. And when I’d gone into a rocky chasm (trying to avoid that bow rudder until I really needed it) Rebecca came charging-in to contact-tow me out... just for fun. 

And in the end, that’s what it amounts to: fun. The first classes I took might not have been as fun- it felt like harder work then, and I learned that I had far to go. I didn’t get it all (still haven’t) in one go- I seem to require layers of instruction that overlap, spaced with plenty of time to try it all out on my own and see how it works. The pay-off is also multi-layered: confidence coupled with a perspective of where my abilities need work. But yesterday I saw a black and white change from just last week: Rebecca maneuvered into that narrow space between the rocks, and I followed her.