January Thaw

This past week we had several warm-ish days with not much wind, and I used them to criss-cross the archipelago, revisiting favorite spots.

I even visited a few places for the first time. I tend to think I've been just about everywhere in the Stonington- Isle au Haut archipelago, but every now and then I'll paddle past a ledge and realize I've never landed there. That's Scraggy Island Ledge (above). Good spot for a cup of coffee and a granola bar.

Nate joined us for a foggy excursion and we worked on synchronized strokes. 

We visited favorite haunts: Wreck, Gooseberry, McGlathery, No Mans, and while the conditions were pretty mild, we managed to mark plenty of rocks with our gel coat. The tides were new moon-high- over twelve feet, and we watched currents moving through the narrow spots, carrying-off high tide debris.

 We were just happy to be out.

We played in some tiny waves off Gooseberry.

 And arced around Spruce and Devil, threading our way back into the Thorofare.

 I could have easily forgotten it was January. The warm days continued. I paddled hat-less and wore sunglasses.

I took a bunch of pictures and drank tea on ledges. Like Spruce Island Ledge (above).

It might have been enough to make one wonder: "shouldn't I be doing something... else? Isn't all this paddling a bit self-indulgent?"

Well that's just crazy talk. Sure, there's bills to be paid, etc, but I kept watching the weather, knowing these days wouldn't last, and they didn't (and they won't). After tea on The Fort, and then on Second Island (had to give the west side equal time) I saw the new weather moving-in, and as I put my gear away that evening, figured it might be awhile before I got out again.

But that was my mistake. If I'd been on my game today, I could have squeezed-in a decent paddle before the temperature dropped and the winds picked-up. Honestly, I felt ready for a break, which is pretty amazing this time of the year.

Steves, Gooseberry

Over forty degrees, not much wind, some sun... A good day, finally to get out for a paddle. It had been awhile. In Newfoundland for the holidays, we had watched the weather, the high winds and blowing snow that stung the face, and usually agreed that it was just as well we hadn’t brought the boats. Even the 650-foot ferries sat-out some of the gales, delaying our return.

Near Bonne Bay, Newfoundland

Back home, it took some effort to get back into our routine, but oddly, it seemed to fall more into place when we took the better part of a day off and went paddling. “Where to?” we asked at the ramp in Stonington, and it seemed obvious enough. Point toward Steves, take it from there.

Fishermen took advantage of the weather window as well, the harbor humming with lobster boats as we headed across the Thorofare. “Feels like a long time since I’ve paddled,” Rebecca said, and I agreed. Not counting Sunday’s pool session (which I mostly spent standing in the water beside boats) it had been nearly a month since my last excursion. It felt good to follow the shoreline of Green Island, getting the feel for it again, edging and turning around the rocks as small waves pushed us back and forth. We pointed toward the familiar sloping profile of Steves and soon realized we were being set to the west by the ebbing tide. We let it take us: along the shore of Potato, past the sandbar poking-out from George Head until Steves Island lay just before us. At nearly low tide, the easiest sandy beach was on the east side. We pulled-up for a break.

Most of the snow had melted or blown away. We walked around the island, took a few pictures, picked-up some garbage. The sky turned darker as a band of clouds moved-in from the southwest. We kept moving, paddling out past Wreck and then Round Islands.

The wind began to pick-up, just a bit, and we rounded McGlathery, its southeast shoreline stretched ahead of us, granite ledges sloping down into the waves. Giant boulders poised on the incline, apparently ready to roll into the ocean, as they have been since the glacier left them there.

We stopped on Gooseberry Island and ate lunch. Like Steves, Gooseberry is small enough that you can walk around it in a few minutes. You don’t forget that you’re on an island. We sat on a driftwood log, staring out at the open ocean beyond Fog Island, watching lobster boats belching black exhaust as they sped the last miles toward home.

There’s a lot to like about Gooseberry Island, but the boulders really stand-out. The eastern end is strewn with glacial erratics, a random sprinkling of granite boulders, some a good bit larger than us. We wandered among them and marveled. If it had been warmer, we might have spent the afternoon marveling.

But even at forty degrees, it’s prudent to keep moving, keep the blood pumping. Once on the water again, we felt plenty warm, and headed back to Stonington. 

December

We've continued to explore the northern end of Penobscot Bay. One day we launched in Orland and paddled-up the Narramissic River. We carried our boats around a small dam and kept going, on into Alamoosook Lake, where ice covered the outlet of the Dead River. Great Pond Mountain rose in the background- hinting at the surrounding 4300 acres of the Great Pond Mountain Wildlands.

On another day I launched in Bucksport, following the Eastern Channel down to the Orland River, then up to Orland, connecting the dots from previous trips.

This connecting the dots is weirdly obsessive, but it is satisfying to return again and again and understand the place a bit more each time. At home in Stonington, we mostly just walked- on days when it was too cold or windy to paddle.

That's Dow Ledges (above)- just a stroll beyond our usual walking route on Indian Point. In the summer, I often pause there when I'm guiding, just before we cross over to Russ Island. On 99% of those trips, someone probably asks what it's like in the winter. Well, there it is.

I took another trip around Verona Island. Maybe I'm hoping to get it just right, with the current pushing me the whole way. Not this time; I paddled up the Eastern Channel against the current as the water turned shallow, dipping my paddle tips in the mud as I searched for deep water. Deconstruction on the old bridge continues.

It can be a lot of driving around, but I enjoy getting back in the car, warming my hands on a cup of Circle K coffee from the Irving station in Bucksport, and listening to tunes as I follow winding roads home, catching glimpses of the places I paddled, or perhaps noticing spots I haven't been yet.

But all that driving took its toll on our car. Actually, it's probably just from living right beside the ocean, parking where we get a lot of salt. It became a crisis last week, and we had to replace the old car. High on priorities was the kayak-hauling potential- and I like to sit in the open hatch to get my gear on and off. So last week, on a gorgeous thirty-ish day with fresh snow on the spruces- we went car shopping.  That shot below is a self-portrait, driving off the island when I still figured the car had a few more (thousand) miles to go.

Aside from squeezing-in a few paddles between a couple weeks of visiting family, I did manage to join the Island Heritage Trust's trail-building crew for a morning on the new Backbone Trail. We've almost made it to George's Pond. It skirts the inner reaches of Holt Pond- so this is actually providing public access you can get to in a kayak. And for me it also just adds to that obsession of connecting all these dots, adding to the big atlas in my head.

Wadsworth Cove to Fort Point

It isn’t always easy, on a cold morning, to have faith that once you get on the water, you’ll be glad you’re there. That’s why, despite my intentions of getting an early start, Rebecca and I took our time meandering to the put-in.

We cranked the heat in the car while we drove to Castine, and parked above the beach in Wadsworth Cove. We untied the boats a bit reluctantly. Still, the sun shone, and the lack of wind made for glassy water. By the time we launched on the falling tide, we were observed by people taking their lunch breaks in pick-up trucks facing the cove.

After a spin around the cove, we headed-up the coast, and the sky began to pale as wintery clouds moved-in. Despite the occasional numb finger or toe, we felt mostly warm. Or at least not mostly cold- as long as we kept moving.

We admired the architecture: a large old shingle-style home between Perkins and Turner Points, as well as some of the humbler cabins as we proceeded north. 

Far ahead, a puff of exhaust hung in the air above Bucksport, and eventually the bridge and the paper mill’s smokestack came into view. In Morse Cove, we lingered for photos with the Squall, the rusted hulk of an old trawler, beached there as a breakwater for the marina at Morse Cove Marine. 

The Squall, built in 1937 at Bath Iron Works, did time as a patrol boat during WWII, and later returned to fishing. Now, she’s a good photo op, as well as a point of reference, easily visible from the west bank of the Penobscot... which is where we headed next.

We aimed for the lighthouse at Fort Point on Cape Jellison, and ate a quick lunch at the point. It had taken us well over two hours to get there, and we had about an hour before sunset, but the current was with us now. It’s tough to pinpoint where the Penobscot River becomes Penobscot Bay, but it starts feeling more bay-like as the gap between Cape Jellison and the Castine peninsula widens. We headed straight for the middle, to catch what current we could. 

Those pale wintery clouds made for a moody sunset as lights around Belfast began to twinkle-on.  To the south, the water and sky reflected the same pale tone, with hardly a horizon line, and as we proceeded, distant islands emerged beyond Cape Rosier, as well as a mysterious array of blinking red lights that we later determined were Vinalhaven’s wind generators- only Vinalhaven and North Haven were still below the horizon. 

The full moon rose and we were tempted to continue-on for awhile, but the thought of the warm car and some hot gas station coffee proved too enticing, and we loaded-up on the beach in the moonlight. It took awhile, as we drove home, for the numbness to dissipate from our toes, but it did and we were glad we’d gone.

Verona Island

One thing that keeps me exploring in my kayak is the nearly unlimited spots I’ve driven past and wondered “I wonder what it’s like to paddle there.” Among these locations, a few stand-out to the extent that they’re almost iconic, that it might seem a required Maine sea kayaking rite of passage to get your photo snapped in front of them. Perhaps it was that impulse that brought us, on a warm day this last week, to Verona Island.

On the chart, Verona Island is a four-mile chockstone where the Penobscot widens from its riverine origins north of Bucksport, transforming, as its channels converge south of Verona Island, into Penobscot Bay.

 Most of us in Downeast Maine have driven across a short stretch of the island many times as we’ve followed Route One over the Penobscot Narrows Bridge, as well as the smaller bridge connecting the island to Bucksport.

It takes about ten miles of paddling to circumnavigate Verona Island, and as far as I can tell, there's no perfect formula to get the current pushing you the whole way, especially if you put-in from the ramp on the north end of the island, as we did. After all, the Penobscot is a river, with fresh water continually flowing down from Bangor and beyond. Rebecca and I launched mid-cycle on a rising tide. I could probably put a lot of effort into theories about the best approach, but my guess is I'd be wrong half the time. To keep it simple, some of the time we had the current behind us, and sometimes we didn't. When we didn't, we adjusted our position between the edges and middle of the river, looking for eddies, or lack of them, and sometimes it helped.

 
We took a clockwise route, only because the current seemed favorable that direction at the time. This took us down the Eastern Channel at mid-day, which is surprisingly undeveloped. A big shallow bend in the river surrounding Porcupine Island (which appears to be non-private) is shallow and muddy- maybe not prime real estate. And I'm just guessing that before the Penobscot was cleaned-up, living downstream from the paper mill might not have been so pleasant. (This is merely conjecture- I'd love to hear if this wasn't the case).

Maybe it works well to go clockwise around the island because you save the real highlight- paddling beneath the bridges- for last. The east side was fine, and the southern end afforded a spectacular view down Penobscot Bay, but I think our pulses quickened the most as the bridge came into view and we progressed toward it, finally passing beneath, just before dusk.

And right now, as an added bonus, there's still two bridges to pass beneath. The Penobscot Narrows Bridge was built to replace the old Waldo-Hancock bridge. When the new bridge opened in 2007, the old one remained. Finally, it is being taken-down. As we approached, a pair of workers high above paused to let us pass. Just beyond the bridge, we pulled to the side to watch them work, torch sparks shooting in the dusk. 

I don't know how long the deconstruction will take, but there will be a little less of the old bridge each time we see it. Eventually it will be lowered onto barges. I'd like to be around to see a bit more of the process- whether I'm in my kayak or on the shore. It will only happen once.

The man-made wonders continued as we finished the paddle, passing before the paper mill. However you want to look at it, the mill is a spectacle. As I've driven past, I've often admired the billowing clouds lit by Bucksport's lights, and the reflection in the river. A few days later, as we visited a more pristine island- the sort that most sea kayakers come to Maine to visit- we had to appreciate its wildness, since it wasn't so far from these man-made spectacles. But it also made me appreciate the diverse environments we can paddle in around here. Shaking-up the scenery every once in awhile helps us keep our eyes open.

Thanks to Rebecca for some of these photos.