Monhegan to Deer Isle

After Monhegan, after  a night on Little Griffin Island, we woke to strong south winds and increasing seas that helped push us in to Port Clyde, where we did some quick shopping, topped-off a water bag from the hose at Port Clyde Kayak (thanks!) and steeled ourselves for a pretty rough stretch of paddling from Marshall Point light and around Mosquito Head, where the waves were now behind us and pushed us along toward Tenants Harbor and onward up to Lobster Buoy Campsites. 

We would have liked to linger a little more in Muscle Ridge, but we settled for a lunch stop on the sandbar at Birch Island, and made our way out to Crescent Island. As we pointed our bows to White Island, five miles across West Penobscot Bay, that seventies instrumental piece, part cheesy TV show soundtrack, part disco, part light jazz, cued itself on the turntable of my mind, and we set-off amid a chorus of soaring,  synthesized violins. Rebecca still can’t hear them, but for me, they begin in the morning, accurately reproduced by the intro the tent zipper plays. I may need to hear some other music soon.

We stayed on Ram Island that night, made our way around the south end of Vinalhaven the next day and bought some groceries at the village before continuing around to Seal Bay, where we camped on South Little Hen Island for two nights. As we approached the island, we saw several paddlers off to the right… and kind of pretended they weren’t there until we reached the island, whereupon we realized we knew a couple of them… This brought the total number of camping kayakers we’d met in nearly a month to six, and here they were, arriving at the same coveted campsite at the same time (well, about twenty seconds later than us). Not only that, but they were at least partially directed there by the Xeroxed pages of AMC’s Best Sea Kayaking in New England, in which I must have written something nice about this place. Why am I sharing this stuff? We offered to share the site, but it would have been a bit crowded, and they graciously went-on to Hay Island.  

We spent a windy day on South Little Hen, which was excellent refuge. Cruising sail and power boaters thought so too, as Seal Bay is a very popular anchorage. In the evenings we watched a parade of boats entering the bay, and in the morning a parade of boats exiting. Again and again, we observed boat occupants rowing dinghies ashore, either to the bigger Hen Island or the Little Hens, with anxious dogs standing in the bow as if watching for obstacles. We were back in the country of smooth, glacial granite, and Rebecca found plenty to paint. 

The next morning we paddled out to Brimstone Island, south of Vinalhaven, and found another pair of familiar sea kayakers parked on the beach of dark, polished stones. We’d met Jeff and Steph a few times at Old Quarry, where they were usually embarked upon excursions for a week or two, and I always felt jealous of them. I may have been paddling every day for work, but there’s something quite different about heading-off on your own trip, at your own pace. We sat and talked for a long time, then took a quick jaunt up to the hilltop for a view of our next five-mile stretch over past Saddleback light to the south end of Isle au Haut. Which we then paddled. 

We ate a late lunch on Isle au Haut’s south end an paddled down the east side. We might have stopped on Wheat, but kayakers were already camped there, so we went on to Harbor Island, and watched the familiar lights of Stonington come on as we ate dinner. 

We decided to head over to Marshall Island where Nate was guiding/teaching a Pinniped journey class, but first we needed to pick-up a few supplies in Stonington (with a dip in the Green Island quarry en route to reduce our stink. Despite the remaining stink, People in Stonington still wanted to chat with us. It seems very difficult for us to not get sucked-in to the Stonington vortex, and it took quite awhile… too long to get to Marshall that night, so we camped on Buckle Island before heading off to Marshall, crossing Jericho Bay in a dense fog, landing in Sand Cove where we met up with Nate and the crew. 

On Marshall, Rebecca borrowed an empty Scorpio and I mostly emptied the Cetus and we got a chance to don our helmets and play a bit. It’s hard to convey how good that felt. On the trip I generally paddle very conservatively, since a little mishap can have big consequences (hole in the boat, injury, etc) and our boats tend to be a bit heavy and harder to maneuver. We enjoy the ‘getting there,’ but admittedly a little less than when we get to play a bit. 

The swell was generally small- a perfect size really- for finding little challenges among the rocks on Marshall Island’s south end. A little play now and then seems almost necessary to maintain the sort of confidence we need to really make it fun.


On Thursday we crossed Jericho Bay again, this time with the group as we made our way to Deer Isle, and we parted ways as we turned into Greenlaw Cove, where we are now after two nights, enjoying the hospitality of Michael and Devra, the friends who leant us their house to sit last winter. Yesterday was our Ellsworth resupply day. Resupply is just a cooler word for shopping, and I it really kills the mood we’ve been developing over the last month. Five weeks, actually. I did get to listen to some music in the car though, and that was a bonus.

Notes:
Sorry for the ‘we did this, we did that’ nature of this post, but it’s all I can do to just catch up. I’m also sorry that, writing on this iPad, which is wonderful, I’ve not quite figured-out the technical challenges of easily uploading photos, and there are quirks with font, etc. At some point I’ll try to remedy it, but for the next three weeks, I’ll be doing well to have Internet and to get something posted.

And of course, you can find information about some of these places we’ve been paddling in my guidebook, AMC’s Best Sea Kayaking in New England.

Day 6 on Ram Island: The Trip Begins

I’m lying in my hammock. I’ll just get that fact out of the way early, since it plays largely into my current personal mythology- which is that we’re on a somewhat leisurely kayak trip, taking time to enjoy the sublime beauty and idyllic vibe of the Maine islands in summer. This is our fifteenth summer living on the Maine coast, but we’ve worked so hard during the short summers that such an idyll has usually been merely a short blip in between work, or else we were busy guiding or teaching someone else. It’s funny, but we’ve stood in so many places we’ve paddled to in the non-summer months it got to be a joke: nice place- this would be really nice in the summer. Well, now we’ve got the rest of the summer, and it is nice.

I won’t go over every twist and turn of our journey so far, but we launched from Greenlaw Cove on Deer Isle, where we’d been house-sitting for the past eight months, on Saturday, July 1st. We’d hoped to leave sooner, but weren’t surprised that leaving turned into a difficult, drawn-out process. It’s always that way for us. Twenty-seven years ago we arrived late for our honeymoon, since it took so long to clean the house where our wedding had been, and we’ve followed a similar pattern ever since. But we both had boat repairs to make, and Rebecca even added a bulkhead and day hatch to her Pygmy Coho. And there’s something about living in a house, getting dug-in to a particular lifestyle that just seems to hold you there, to make it difficult to leave. We moved our belongings to storage and to Rebecca’s studio in Stonington until all we had left at the house were the things going into our kayaks. We made three ‘final’ trips to the dump. We projected launch times, and those times came and went. If we went into town, we ran into people who said ‘I thought you were taking a kayak trip.’ The trip began to seem like a dream that might not even happen.

We spent that first evening fogged-in on Campbell Island, and when the fog cleared and a heavy rain began, we could see the lights of the house we’d left- the owner had returned hours earlier – not much more than a mile away. It rained heavily that night, with a strong, steady wind that kept the tent’s rain fly taught with pressure. But we were on our way, and it felt good.

The next morning we paddled through fog along Stinson Neck, pausing at some favorite boulders we’d spent a lot of time looking at from our previous winter’s house-sit near Mud Cove. Since we moved-out of our above-gallery apartment in Stonington, two-and-a-half years ago, we’ve managed to live in company-provided housing or in house-sits. We’ve still paid a fair amount for heat and utilities, and we’ve provided the owners with a service by looking after the houses (and in one case, a cat) but we’ve lived in some nice spots, gotten to know the watery neighborhood in their backyards, and watched our pennies in a way that has enabled us to take this trip. We could barely see the Mud Cove house, peeking through the drifting fog.




We spent the next two nights camped on a favorite Maine Coast Heritage Trust island off Stonington where we’d never camped before. Our friends Gordo and Lisa joined us for the first night. That morning after they left we went through our gear and paddled in to Stonington with some odds and ends we thought we could live without. At this point, going into town felt almost surreal. Before we even landed we ran into my first paddling buddy Todd, who was setting off on a paddle with his wife and young son and a couple of friends. And in town we saw people who either knew nothing of our trip (and we didn't want to take time to talk about it) or people asking “when are you leaving on your trip?” We refilled our water containers at The Stonington Ice Cream Company and Ron sent us on our way, fortified with ice cream. We stopped at Green Island for a quick swim and ran into more people we knew.

So on Independence Day it felt liberating to cross East Penobscot Bay, heading for the less familiar islands of the Fox Island archipelago. We camped that night on another MCHT island, overlooking an anchorage where a couple in a white wooden sailboat had also anchored for the night. Rebecca went off to paint and I made a casserole in the Outback Oven, marveling how in the golden evening light, the anchored sailboat, trailing a perfect peapod for a tender, looked like an image from the Wooden Boat Calendar we get every year. As it grew dark, we watched Stonington’s fireworks low on the horizon, imagining what it felt like in town.

In the morning, we paddled past the sailboat and said hello. We chatted awhile with the couple before we learned that this was Benjamin Mendlowitz, the photographer responsible for the Wooden Boat Calendar, and countless stunning photographs we’ve seen elsewhere. We tied-up at the public dock in North Haven and spent a couple hours in town – bean burgers at Cooper’s Landing, some fresh Turner Farm kale from the market at Calderwood Hall… a browse through a couple shops before filling our water bags from a hose at Waterman’s Community Center. North Haven usually strikes me as a slightly sleepy, friendly town, but this was the busiest I’d seen it, in full summer plumage- plumes with a deliberately casual, but well-endowed tone. As we climbed down into our kayaks from the dock, a group of kids were launching sailboats from the yacht club.

We made it here, to Ram Island late afternoon yesterday. We’d been watching the weather, which called for a bit more wind today, and we would either get an early start this morning to head over to Muscle Ridge, or spend two nights here. So far, the packing and unpacking process, as well as hauling gear and boats, has been very time consuming- frustratingly cumbersome. It seems to be getting better, but the chance to spend a day just enjoying the place – like we’d planned- sounded good. When I got this hammock set-up, I felt pretty sure we’d be sleeping-in a bit this morning. So here we are. Through the trees I have a view of this stretch of Hurricane Sound, which has ridges of boulders granite that make up this island. I’ve been hearing a distant, churchy ring of a bell-buoy, and the coming and going grumble of lobster boats. The Vinalhaven ferry just motored past a gap between islands. The wind swishes through the spruce, and some crows and gulls taunt each other like rival gangs. We’ll probably get out for a short paddle in the neighborhood, or just hang-out here. Either way, I’m often struck with our good fortune, just to be here.

Notes:
At this point we’re pretty sure that we won’t go farther south than Casco Bay. If we spend too many “zero days” like this, even that may be a stretch if we want some time Downeast as well. But we keep telling ourselves we are doing this for fun.And so Rebecca can paint and I can write. Which doesn’t lend itself well to the long stretches with no camping access along the southern coast.

For more information about these paddling locales, check-out routes #14 and… ( I think) #17 in my guidebook, AMC’s Best Sea Kayaking in New England.

I am full of amazement that I can sit here on an island and write this and put it on ther Internet, but Google (Blogger) and my iPad aren't on friendly terms yet, which is why there's only one photo here so far. I've wasted some significant island time trying to make it work, But I'm posting the occasional photo on Instaqgram and Facebook. You can look for Sea Kayak Stonington or search for the #upwestanddowneast hashtag.

Andrews Island

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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.

--> 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.

South Islesboro Islands

As often happens, plans for the excursion happened quickly. Peter and I were talking one day, speculating about getting away the next. I sorted through my mental file of trips I wanted to do and chose one in the MDI area, but by the time we left Stonington with kayaks strapped atop the car, we were headed south to Lincolnville. I knew Nate had been going back and forth on the ferry a lot lately, since his kids had been visiting grandparents on Islesboro, but I didn’t expect to run into him.

 As Peter and I passed in front of the about-to-embark ferry, I pointed the video camera and turned it on, just as I noticed someone waving from the bow. It took a moment to register: Nate, his wife Casey and Kili the dog. We pulled ahead and the ferry started moving. It was one of those strange moments that make the thousands of contorted miles of Maine coastline feel a little more intimate.

photo by Nate Hanson

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Peter and I pointed to Philbrook Cove on Seven Hundred Acre Island and tried to keep a range. The tide was rising and the current should have been moving us north, but the 5-10 knot north breeze won-out, pushing us south. Despite the breeze, the day felt calm and warm—my first day of the summer without a dry suit.

photo by Nate Hanson

 We followed the shore around Seven Hundred Acre Island, passing a couple of small cottages. Ahead I saw the tell-tale water surface slither that otters make. I turned the video camera on and drifted toward them. One of the otters stuck its head above the surface only feet away, right in front of the camera- a great, almost comical shot. As it turned out though, when I thought I’d turned the camera on, I’d actually turned it off after leaving it running for about 7 minutes. So we still rely on memory for some of the fun parts. And I do lots of editing.

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There’s a learning curve to the video, for sure. I’m aware that eventually, all these amateur paddle movies will probably look about the same to anyone but me (perhaps even to me) but for now I’m not concerned- just having some fun with it.

  Our paddle took us down through the Ensign Islands, around the southern end of Job Island and back north past Minot and back to Seven Hundred Acre Island. Seven Hundred Acre Island is privately-owned, apparently by descendants of illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, whose house still stands on the eastern point near this structure, which I think is the miniature castle he built for his kids.

Around Islesboro, the recreational boats far outnumber the work boats. It feels like just about everyone is on vacation. And for the day at least, so was I.

Warren Island (right)- the beach just below site #7

 We followed the shore of Warren Island, where a few campers were arriving in kayaks at the State Park Campground. A short distance away, we paused beside the lighthouse on Grindel Point, took a bearing for Spruce Head and started across West Penobscot Bay. The outgoing current had increased- maybe about 2 knots- and we kept a steep ferry angle to avoid getting swept down-current.

We arrived back at Lincolnville as the ferry once again departed, then drove home drinking iced coffee from Dunkin' Donuts, scheming about getting to the islands we didn't quite reach this time.

Weskeag River, Owl's Head, Muscle Ridge Islands

I landed on a large island just off Owl’s Head and pitched my tent in a meadow overlooking a cobble beach and a vast, open stretch of West Penobscot Bay.  Seven or eight miles across the water, the trio of wind generators stood on Vinalhaven, blades slowly turning, red lights blinking-- much as they appear from Stonington, nine miles further west.

As the crow flies, I was only about 17 miles from home, but I’d driven three hours to launch on the Weskeag River in South Thomaston, and paddled another three hours to get to this island: maybe not the most efficient way to get here. En route though, I’d paddled the west bank of the Weskeag and followed the shoreline of the town of Owl’s Head, past a lot of unfamiliar territory: a different corner of Penobscot Bay, but still part of our overall neighborhood.

In general, this part of the bay is far more populated than the east side. For much of the Owl’s Head shore, I paddled past shoulder to shoulder cottages, most of which seemed unoccupied. Near Holiday Beach though, at a house with a trimmed green lawn and cars in the driveway, a man stepped out onto the porch. He shouted, “You’re the first one this year!”

I made it to the lighthouse and bobbed in the waves below for a bit, taking pictures. Situated high upon a rugged rocky headland, Owl’s Head light is the epitome of lighthouse quaintness: waves crashing below, wooden walkway zig-zagging up the hill. It looks much as it did in the 1800s, but is still a significant navigation aid to those entering Penobscot Bay.

After dinner, I sat in the grass drinking my evening tea, when I noticed several ticks crawling up my pant legs. I quickly went back down to the rocks and shook-out my clothes. For the rest of the night, I made speedy trips through the grass to my tent.

I woke early and spent the next day meandering out through the islands of Muscle Ridge. Compared to the Stonington archipelago, these islands are far more exposed to the open ocean and whatever it sends your way. Even on a calm day, swells often rolled-in from multiple directions, creating some chaotic spots.

The islands of the north end are spread-out and either privately-owned or occupied by dense bird colonies, so for the most part, I stayed in my boat. Then, as I approached the denser part of the island group, each island I came to, ready for a pit stop, was either occupied by seals or nesting osprey. 

I finally beached on Dix Island, which is private, but signs welcome visitors to walk the perimeter trail. I didn’t have time for a walk, but I ate my lunch on the beach, amid cast-off hunks of black and white granite from the island’s defunct quarries. The afternoon felt warm, with cirrus clouds drifting high overhead, forming into “mackerel scale” cirrocumulai, signaling the imminent passing of the high pressure system that had given us such clear weather for the last week. It seemed prudent to return to the shelter of the Weskeag for the evening. I needed to anyway, since all the MITA islands out there were closed due to osprey nesting.

I circled a few more islands before heading out around Andrews Island. Despite a relatively small swell, the steep granite shore roared with surf. I could imagine a fun day playing here with friends, but for now I kept my distance.

 The wind had picked-up from the southwest, and since the current in the Muscle Ridge Channel can be significant, I waited for slack tide to cross back to the South Thomaston shore-- about 2.5 nm, stringing my route along some small islands until I returned to the mouth of the Weskeag and found my next campsite. The next morning I was up early-- in time to launch in the sunshine before a new front moved-in, and I paddled back up the river to the launch.

Searsport, Belfast, The Passagassawakeag

The really decent paddling days have been a bit scarce lately, but one morning we got over to Searsport and launched during a brief window of sunshine. Then, as we progressed along the coast toward Belfast, dark clouds moved in from the west, and below them, the dark curtainy wisps of snow squalls. 

It only made the day more dramatic. We paddled along the back yard of a neighborhood that we usually see from a very commercial strip of Route One: big houses with acres of lawn, old bungalows atop crumbling bluffs and colonies of motor court cabins. Rebecca sniffed the air. "Thai food," she said, and sure enough, there was Seng Thai far up the hill.

We wanted as much help from the tide as we could get, so we hurried through the harbor and passed beneath the old and new Route One bridges, and on up the Passagassawakeag River. The tide was already against us so we hugged the edges, looking for eddies and made our way upstream. Judging from the flow coming out of Wescot Stream, the flow was augmented by spring run-off.

We got about as far as we could get, to a forest where the river turned shallow and swift, and pulled up on the ice to eat our lunch.

We seal-launched off the ice and headed downstream. By now, the current had picked-up considerably, and we reached Belfast in half the time it took to get upstream.

If you live in some place with lots of big bridges and industry, paddling beneath the Route One bridge might not sound like such a thrill. But for me, I think of how many times I've driven across these places and looked down, wondering what it would be like to be down there on the water. Somehow, seeing it from the watery side of things just seems to complete the picture somehow, and paddling past the urban-industrial waterfront-- the factory that makes "distinctive potato products" and the wastewater treatment plant--  these geographic puzzle pieces come together in my mind.

What I'm saying is that paddling in a place just makes it better.

We meandered along the waterfront, checking-out the boats. Toward the mouth of the river, low swells came in from Penobscot Bay and, squeezing into the harbor against the outgoing current, grew steeper and closer together. A few miles south, those snow squalls still progressed across the bay. We pointed our bows east and headed back, bouncing over the waves with the smell of Thai food blending with the feel in the air of impending snow.

Mack Point, Sears Island

At the Searsport town landing, we packed-up and launched, following the shore. The air had already warmed to the mid-30s, and with the sun shining, we felt plenty warm as we paddled through what felt like one backyard after another.

We headed toward Mack Point, where the shore is crowded with white steel storage tanks and a pair of piers jutting 800 feet into the bay. A tanker pointed out into the bay, leaving as we approached, and a tugboat headed back. It was good timing; I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near a ship like that as it embarked.

Mack Point is deceptively large. Giant warehouses and a massive crane line the shore, and behind them, scores of fifty-foot high tanks. It felt like we moved slowly, but, we realized, we were just very small.

As we approached the piers, my instinct was to paddle beneath  along the shore -- just like we do at home. Fortunately, Rebecca pointed out the sign stating that trespassers were considered a security breach. So we went around, past the tugboats, past all the guys in hardhats, past the ship fenders a dozen feet across lined with scarred spruce trunks. We followed the shore into Long Cove, passing Sea-Truks and cranes and the railyard with long lines of tank cars.

We paddled toward the head of the cove.  It was high tide, and chunks of ice floated here and there. And then, a creek. I turned-in, pushing through thickening ice. I made my way into the forest, and Rebecca followed. We made it a few hundred feet before the creek narrowed and came to an end- at least for us. At the end, water trickled over some rocks from a snowy ravine. It was quiet here -- a little traffic noise from Route One, probably only a hundred yards away. Amazing though, considering the industrial netherland not far off.

But not for long -- depending on how things play-out. We floated in Mack Point Forest, very close to the proposed site for the new liquid propane “super tank” that has been at the core of controversy here lately. A company called DCP Midstream has been trying to clear the way to build a 22.7 million gallon tank: 138 feet high, 202 feet across. It would be the largest such tank on the US east coast, and be visible far down Penobscot Bay... and of course from much of Searsport. If you drive through Searsport, you would see it right behind The Anglers restaurant (and Baits Motel), both of which will be dwarfed by the tank. Opposition to the tank is strong and fervent. It is in the news every day.

Of course, Mack Point has been an industrial hub for many years. Back in WWII, a pipeline ran from there all the way to Loring Air Force Base in northern Maine. Every year, about 160 ships bring liquid cargoes- mostly petroleum products- to the port, in addition to a few dozen dry cargo ships. This is nothing new. Liquid propane is. It’s tough to wade through the information put out there by the liquid propane proponents, who of course claim that they are very regulated and safe. And they like to point-out the taxes they will pay, and the twelve jobs they will create. The opposition has a “not in my backyard” slant. But why not? Would anybody really want this in their backyard? There are so many compelling reasons to not have this in your backyard, that I will include a few links to them. And as much as I might like to use my JetBoil stove, they seem to be filling those little propane canisters just fine somewhere else. 

But we just enjoyed what a nice place it was to be floating in our kayaks. We paddled on to Sears Island where we carried over the causeway and ate lunch. Sears Island is another place that could have been developed and industrialized, but thanks to the Friends of Sears Island, much of it is preserved. People were there walking their dogs. We paddled around it - some four or five miles, all wild, and paused at the old jetty, where the view is dominated by Mack Point.

And as we paddled back to the launch, the old part of the town came into view: the 1800s ship’s captains’ houses, the churches. Two very different worlds, side by side, both close enough to my backyard that I'd like to see them unchanged, and return some day to that creek and find it as peaceful as it was on this day.

For more info:
Thanks But No Tank
Bangor Daily News Editorial
Mack Point Watch
Penobscot Bay Blog
NY Times article
Waterlines - a kayaker's point of view