New Neighborhood

As the season at Old Quarry wound-down, we pondered our next move. Returning to Georgia was not much of an option. When we left in June, the owner of the business was ill and it seemed a long shot that Sea, Surf & SUP would begin to thrive enough to provide ample work. The owner died over the summer and the business has since gone into yet another phase, with another name. So we weighed our options.

We'd worked really hard all summer- barely a day for a break, and, while the pace was sometimes a bit stressful, we loved it. We loved being active, kayaking all the time, in good shape, in close touch with the natural world.  I loved the tan lines from my sandals and the constant sore-muscled feeling of being a bit worked. And money in the bank. When we returned from the symposium in Nova Scotia, it felt obvious that summer was over and it seemed prudent to get south while the getting was good. We might find some kayak work in a warmer place and just keep at it. Or lay low for a bit in the Everglades.

We weighed this dream of warmer climes and more frequent paddling with our love for the Maine Coast, even in the colder months. Several people had very generously offered us winter living accommodations. We couldn't quite make up our minds. Rebecca needed a good spot to paint- a large enough space with good light. The ability to get out and kayak frequently would be a bonus. It seemed we would probably go south for the winter.

But then one day I was giving a lesson and my student told me she had a house that needed sitting for the winter... and it was on the water.  It would give us long months to focus on painting and writing. So here we are, still on Deer Isle. The house is in Sunshine, looking out over Mud Cove toward Eggemoggin Reach and Brooklin. We've been here about a week and a half now. (The first time I wrote that it had been a week, but we don't have internet here).

Last weekend I led a camping trip for College of the Atlantic, and with winds from the northwest gusting into the 30s, we looked for a more sheltered area. We settled on Naskeag Point and camped about two miles from our new winter home. It had been awhile since I'd paddled around here. For the past couple of years I haven't had a lot of personal paddling time to explore semi-local Maine waters. I've usually either been teaching & guiding or researching the guidebook, which took me away from Maine for awhile. So it's been with particular joy that I've found myself revisiting familiar islands, some of which have changed hands since my last visit.

Which isn't to say we don't have second thoughts. I woke up in my tent Sunday morning and it was pretty cold- just under freezing. Okay, it could be worse- it will be much worse, but you find yourself thinking "is this really necessary?" My outlook improved with a little coffee and oatmeal.

So we're getting into a routine here. Most days we stay put for the morning and get work done. At some point after lunch we head out for a paddle, getting better-acquainted with the neighborhood, gaining an understanding of what we're looking at from the living room window. Between us and Plumb Point are a couple of islets and ledges. One is barren of trees, with only a few distinctive boulders that catch the light just so. It already looks like a painting, and I find myself looking toward it compulsively, as if waiting for subtle changes to re-arrange it somehow.

A little farther out there's Bear Island, ringed with pocket beaches and a trail running its perimeter. There's Conary and White Islands, and across the Reach we visited the Babson and Torrey Islands. Little Babson has become a MCHT preserve since my last visit. And the Torreys now have posted signs welcoming responsible use.

At the mouth of Greenlaw Cove, Campbell Island is in the hands of the Chewonki Foundation and still on the Maine Island Trail, despite it's being for sale. As we paddled along its shore I remembered my first visit there, looking for the campsite as it grew dark after a long day of paddling.

Toward the end of Stinson Neck we visited some of the smaller islands, savoring them, taking comfort in their nearness to our winter home. Of course, we don't take that nearness for granted, realizing that at any time the weather might turn cold enough that we won't want to paddle. But for now we're reveling in the abundance of both time and less familiar shoreline to explore.

The Shubie

We gathered near the shore, floating in our kayaks, waiting: nine of us- coaches who'd got together after the symposium to share a shuttle and a ride on the Shubecanadie's famous tidal bore. We'd met in a dark parking lot at five am and drove for four hours, a caravan of car-topped kayaks winding along a quiet Nova Scotia highway. We didn't even know who were in all the other cars until we pulled-off for a coffee and stood in line, a group of tired, but charged-up ruffians in stinky clothes. Finally, the caravan snaked along a smaller network of roads and arrived at the put-in in Maitland, near the head of the Minas Basin. Just after the full moon, or the Supermoon as everyone was calling it, the tidal range was anticipated to be around 54 feet- the largest in eighteen years.

Some had paddled the Shubie before- Rebecca had ridden the chocolate-brown waves the previous year- but for some of us it was hard to imagine the tidal bore- a wave that would, according to prediction, come surging toward us and rapidly fill the basin of the tidal river. "There it is," someone shouted, and it took me a moment to see how the distant water surface had turned bumpy.

We weren't really sure where to position ourselves. A group of Zodiac tour boats also waited nearby and a guided group, led by symposium organizers Committed 2 The Core coaches occupied a stretch in the middle of the river. We didn't want to get in their way, so we held position near the edge, not really comprehending what would happen when the bore reached us. But then the wave came. It seemed to descend almost in slow motion at first, lifting the guided group and propelling them down the middle of the river. Some of us managed to surf the wave as it caught us, but others were piled-up along the edge, pushed higher along the bank by the tide like so much driftwood, unable to maneuver in the shallows, subject to the whims of the current.

I managed to avoid the knot of boats, but still wound-up stranded in shallow water, watching a couple of boats surf away ahead of me. There were a few capsizes in this stretch, and after I got loose, I watched as a standing wave ahead of me rapidly increased in size, roaring as I bounced through it. We all finally gathered on the opposite side of the river and caught our breath. Rebecca's boat had a crack in it- presumably from the weight of the other boats that had ridden over her in the pile-up. I quickly patched the gash and inflated a flotation bag in the front hatch. The water level rose very quickly.

But the tidal bore is just the first of many features. For the rest, we paced ourselves, letting the water fill-in, developing stretches of standing waves that we drifted down into and surfed. I only took pictures in the quieter moments between features, but it's a gorgeous area: tall red cliffs, eroded like the sandstone I usually associate with the southwest US deserts. A rainstorm came and went.

One stretch, known as "The Killer K" (K=Kilometer) produced massive haystacks of red standing waves. Balanced on the crest of a tall mound of ochre, foamy mayhem, I had a moment to think about all the things that might happen next before I was propelled down a steep wave face. I really just had one thought, and I heard it come out of someone else's mouth: "holy shit!" I'm glad someone else said it.

We took some long rides, some through stretches where you could feel the enormous volume of water surging overwhelmingly around you. At times I couldn't tell if I were flying forward over the waves or if they were rushing backwards beneath me: usually a bit of both.

We took short time-outs in the eddies to make sure everyone was accounted for, and kept moving with the amplified current up the river. The sun came out.

We went around the last corner, a reddish bluff protruding into the river, and gathered in the eddy. On one hand I felt like I wanted more- it had been just a few hours of focused paddling. On the other hand, I felt exhausted. The others seemed a bit spent as well; we drifted around the last turns with a dream-like slowness,  paddling up a tributary creek, savoring those last moments on the water before we had to pack our cars and go our separate ways.

Here's another Shubie video from the Committed 2 The Core crew.

Bay of Fundy Sea Kayak Symposium

After we closed the gallery last winter, with an uncertain future and no real commitments, I applied for and was accepted as an assistant coach for Bay of Fundy Sea Kayak Symposium. As it turned out, the timing was perfect to end our busy season here at Old Quarry. We continued to work 70-80-hour weeks until we packed up the car last week and drove up to Canada to catch Bay Ferries Limited St. John to Digby Ferry-- which we boarded with about 8 minutes to spare after we provided entertainment for customs officials for well over an hour ("why do you need three kayaks for two people?").

But the ferry was well worth catching. The crossing-- under three hours-- cut-off the better part of a day's drive around the top of the bay. Not only that, but we started running into paddlers en-route to the symposium who were charged-up and excited- a contagious enthusiasm that made it feel we were part of a pilgrimage of paddlers headed for the southern tip of Nova Scotia.

We camped that first night near Yarmouth, arriving in Argyle early enough on Friday for a paddle. And we ran into our friend Andrea Knepper from Chicago, who joined us for some playtime down at Cape Sable Island.

The symposium brings coaches from around the world to teach in the varied environments near Yarmouth, where the tides rush in and out of the Bay of Fundy and the open ocean rolls-in from the south. There's sandy beaches down at Cape Sable Island, sheltered, island-studded harbors off of Argyle and the glacial till islands of the Tuskets, where the tidal flow squeezes through. In addition to plenty of classes for beginners, the symposium offers opportunities for paddlers to improve their skills in tide races, rocks and ledges, safety and leadership. For me, it was an opportunity to learn from other coaches.

I assisted in several classes, each with different coaches in diverse locales. The steep rocks at Cape Forchu was a good spot for Incident Management & Tricky Landings, led by Jeff Laxier.

The dynamics of assisting also varies greatly - some classes have more coaches than others. Being less experienced than most, I tended to wait for a cue from the lead coach before stepping-in, but the high coach to student ratio makes it easy to paddle aside for a moment with a student to offer individual feedback, which is often the most valuable form of help.

 Multiple coaches also makes it easier to get-in a little of our own playtime.

 We assembled at Ye Olde Argyler Lodge each morning for announcements and class rosters. My classes were always going off to more challenging venues, so we assembled caravans of vehicles car-topping kayaks that snaked down the highways, sometimes about an hour away. At the end of the day we returned for dinner and evening presentations. Gordon Brown led us us in a Greenlandic game that tested our coordination, then, around the campfire, he told us the story of how he'd discovered sea kayaking.

Another evening, James Manke gave a presentation on his trip to the Greenland Kayak Championship. Chris Lockyer & Peter Bojanic told stories about a Newfoundland trip. I was really too tired to do much socializing in the evenings, but in a way, much of the reason we're there is to meet other paddlers.

 
With coaches visiting from the UK and Germany, as well as all across North America, the symposium has a way of making the global paddling community feel a bit cozier. Despite different languages and accents, we recognize that the ocean - and our chosen mode of discovering it- beckons us like nothing else. The nearly full moon rose over the campfire, reflecting in the calm waters of Lobster Bay. A guitar went from hand to hand and we sang a few songs. (Thanks to Barbara Bellows for these shots- she's Rebecca's Mom, making the trek from Newfoundland to attend the symposium for the second year).

On the charts around Yarmouth there are a number of locations labeled "The Sluice." At one of them, I assisted Santiago Berrueta in an Intro to Currents class, which felt particularly successful, since most of the students had little or no experience in tidal currents, and by the end of the class they'd all learned the basics of boat handling in current. We also had plenty of rescue practice, but the venue is perhaps a bit less intimidating than Sullivan Falls, so it was really perfect for beginners.

Ryan Rushton led a class in Tide Race Play & Safety that took us out into the Tusket Islands in search of a tide race that previous classes had found lacking in lumpiness. But the perigean full moon and strong southwest winds against the ebb did their magic, and we found a proper tide race that challenged everyone.

I'm lacking in photos of people in conditions since I felt preoccupied with my roles of coach and safety boater- and Rebecca had the camera. At the end of each day we all shared our stories about where we'd gone and what we'd learned. With 30+ coaches and 70+ students there's enough variables that the symposium is really a conglomeration of hundreds of stories: trips taken, lessons learned, people met. We return with skills to improve, new friends on Facebook and some new approaches to coaching. But maybe the most significant thing is to connect with all of these people, many of whom, like us, probably go back to their communities where they're seen as a bit oddball because of their obsession.

Of course, we still had the trip home, including a post-symposium run on the Shubenacadie River, a story that will wait until next time. The next Bay of Fundy Sea Kayak Symposium will take place in September, 2017; I hope to see you there.

Thanks to the organizers of the event: Christopher Lockyer, Jarrod Gunn McQuillian, Trevor Killam, Trudy Killam, Kirk Dauphinee & Peter Bojanic.