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We had one last big weekend of classes through Pinniped: a
calm day in Frenchman Bay, searching for features among rocks and ledges, a day
at Sullivan Falls with a fifteen-foot tide range, and an incident management
class out around Bass Harbor and Great Gott Island. On that last day, we
carried over the sandbar between the Gotts where a chilly north wind stung the
face and I found myself imagining that warm cup of gas station coffee I’d drink
for the ride home. I felt a little relieved that it was the end of my teaching
season.
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Almost on cue, those last days of October brought strong
winds- warm, tropical air with fifty, sixty – knot gusts. Good days to stack
firewood and go to the library to catch-up on the Internet. But with winter
coming, one can develop a mildly desperate sense of purpose; make the most of
every warm day. Chris wondered about a Sunday trip in Muscle Ridge, maybe look
for a rock or two. Sounded good.
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Chris and Nate are both preparing for a Level 5 Instructor
assessment. I did the Instructor Development Workshop for this in the spring
with them, but hadn’t planned on assessing this year. As I see them preparing,
I feel both a sense of regret that I’m not doing it (nothing like knowing
you’ll be on the spot to get your skills sharpened) and relief that I can just
go out and have fun.
-->Sunday morning we met Chris, Justin and Erin at Ash Point,
just south of Owls Head, and headed out. We’d seen forecasts that suggested
strong winds and lumpy seas. But at the sandbar stretching from Ash Point out
to Ash Island, the sea was fairly calm. We paddled into a ten-knot headwind as
we crossed the channel out to Otter Island, past Dix, and took a break on
Birch, before donning our helmets and heading out to Andrews Island.
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Andrews
is privately-owned, with most of the cottages concentrated around the cove on
the more sheltered northwest side. But the southeast shore of the island- from
the northern tip, stretching over a mile to Nash Point at the southern end- is
all undeveloped, probably because most of that shoreline is steep and rocky. In
the middle of that stretch, the rocks turn particularly steep, with vertical
pinkish granite cliffs that drop straight down into the sea, and it’s all
exposed to open ocean.
It’s a dramatic place to paddle, even on a calm day.
But on Sunday we had some moderate swells rolling-in- a bit
big to be working-out tricky maneuvers among the rocks, but perfect if you
wanted to find spots to let those waves roll beneath you and explode on the
vertical rocks. As people like to say, there was a lot of energy hitting the
shore.
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Erin is fairly new to sea kayaking, but thanks to Chris
she’s been getting a lot of good instruction and gradual exposure to lively
conditions. She was the one beside me on the “Killer K” section of the
Shubecanadie who expressed my assessment of the steep haystacks (“holy shit”).
After a little encouragement, she nosed her bow in close to a steep slab of
granite, and held-on as a bigger wave slammed into the cliff. The sound alone
was daunting- an explosion of surf on hard, hard granite. Her bow lifted high
and then dropped down as the wave rebounded. Erin looked back at us with a huge
smile.
Landing for lunch was a challenge in itself, but afforded us
a gorgeous place for a picnic atop a flat slab of pink granite, with views
along Andrews’ shore toward the familiar trio of wind turbines on Vinalhaven.
Out to sea, Matinicus was a low smudge on the horizon.
It was the first day of Daylight Saving, and the end of the day seemed to come quickly. We paddled back to the launch with the wind at our back.
