The Cranberry Islands

Despite our Tuesday through Sunday gallery hours, it's tough for Rebecca and I to close on a mid-summer Monday for a day off together. Our busy season is short, and the winter is long, with just as many bills. We usually look out at the people walking down Main Street and imagine it in a few months time, when the crowds thin and the paddling is at least as good, and we choose to work rather than play. But it is possible to sneak away early in the day for a paddle and just not think about all the money we're not making. That's how Rebecca and I found ourselves in the Cranberry Islands last Monday.

We launched in Manset and headed out to Great Cranberry Island, where we arrived at high tide-- in time to explore The Pool, a large tidal basin on Great Cranberry's east side.

We ate lunch on a MITA island and went on to Little Cranberry, where we played for a bit in the one-foot surf along the southern beach.  If the waves roll in just so, it hardly matters how big they are-- you can still catch a nice ride. The trick is staying on the wave, not getting ahead of it. We rode them in again and again. Finally, as the tide fell, the wave shape changed and they became harder to catch. Time to move on.

On to Baker Island, where we took a walk up to see the lighthouse and the remains of the community that existed there long ago.

We headed back around the south end of Great Cranberry and north through the Western Way with the current behind us. It's so much better to end a trip with the current behind you. It left us with just enough energy, as the sun began to set, to dawdle a bit in Southwest Harbor so Rebecca could photograph some of the boats. Not a bad way to end a long day off.

The next day I discovered that Nate and I are on the cover of the August issue of Maine magazine (see "Guides Class" from May 12). In the photo, we're having dinner with students and guests on our guides class camping trip. We're silhouetted by the sunset, but trust me, it's us. There's a nice article on the inside too-- even mentions this blog. Thanks to writer Sandy Lang and photographer Peter Frank Edwards.

Here's a video from the Cranberry Islands:

Sutton, Little Cranberry & Baker Islands

Osprey nest at Sutton Island

The forecast for Thursday was amazing: clear, not too windy and air temps... in the high seventies to low eighties! In March! Despite these overly-hot temperatures, Nate and I had plans to get out. With the air forty degrees warmer than the water, we figured we might be roasting in our drysuits, but we’d tough it out. Lighten the base layers and skip the gloves... dip your hand in the water every now and then as a reminder. This weather could prove more dangerous than on colder days, since it will probably lure unprepared paddlers out onto water that will kill them if they capsize. Just last weekend, unprepared paddlers died on Lake Michigan and in Ontario, probably due to the cold water. 

I don't know what to say here- yes, we like to put our bows into things.

Nate and I drove to Mount Desert Island and launched from Northeast Harbor, where we headed-out past the lighthouse on Bear Island and on out to Sutton Island. A mile-long, the privately-owned island has twenty or so homes connected by wooden boardwalks. It's really too charming for words, so that's all I'll say until I get a chance to walk around it.

We arrived at the east end as high tide neared. Despite all the houses on the island, most of it feels fairly undeveloped, especially the east end, where great rocky fins and dikes extend down into the water, creating chasms and passages to paddle through.

On the northeast end of Little Cranberry Island, we decided to check-out a feature that we’d paddled past before without noticing. Why is Marsh Head called Marsh Head? Well, it may have something to do with the marsh. We did a ten-foot portage to get in, then followed a winding, creek-like path to the east end of the island.

From the calm waters of the marsh, we heard a roaring, hissing sound just beyond the trees to the south, and it took a moment to recognize the crash of surf. The marsh ended at a deposit of rock and sand. Again, we got out and carried the boats just over the hill, launching into small waves on the east end.

We had plenty of time to cover the six or so miles out to Baker Island, but we dilly-dallied: osprey nests, winding rocky passages, a hidden marsh. These are the things that make it fun, that keep a day of paddling from turning into an accounting of passing miles.

On the other hand, by the time we arrived at Baker, we didn't have much time for dilly-dallying. We faced more wind, and the fairly minor swell amounted to some decent waves here and there as we paddled around the southern side. 

At one point, I looked over at Nate and thought he was paddling a little close to the ledge right beside him. Then one of those sneaky-big waves came in and dropped him on top of the ledge. This circumstance happens often enough that it must have some sort of cool name... but I don't know it. This time he had to get out of his boat and find a better spot to relaunch.

Then it was time to boogie back to Northeast Harbor. As we passed the islands, the land-warmed air blew across our decks- a reminder of the eighty-degree land forecast. We'd been perfectly comfortable in drysuits, even a little chilled now and then out in the wind and waves. It was hard to believe how warm it felt back at the launch. We rode along in Nate's truck in t-shirts, elbows out the windows... with NPR on the stereo. We picked up his kids at a friend's, where they were squirting each other with a garden hose, and everyone- parents and kids seemed to be congregating in the street... just like us, making the most of a warm day in March.

Baker and Cranberry Islands

Five of us met at Seawall in Acadia National Park and headed across to Great Cranberry Island in a stiff northerly breeze. It was just after nine in the morning and we had all day, which these days translates to until about four in the afternoon. My only paddling in the Cranberries had been in September, with Todd on our trip up the coast, and ever since then I’d been aching to get a closer look.


Not long after crossing Western Way, we found a nice mellow swell splashing in among the rocks. Nate and I established a trend for the day: we paddled into an area and began discovering its features, only to look up after about fifteen seconds and realize that Rebecca, Barbara and Peter were waiting for us far away. (That’s an exaggeration: time passes quickly when you’re in the rock groove). So we’d catch up, find some more rocks and do it again. We felt naughty, goofing off when we should have been moving along. But that’s why we were there. Or no, actually we were there to get further and see more places... just in less detail. Of course we wanted both.



We stopped at Crow Island to check out the campsite, surprising a trio of small deer, who sprinted away from us, finally stepping into the water and swimming across to Great Cranberry. They swam surprisingly quickly, and climbed up the rocks on the other side with admirable finesse, shaking off with white puffs of moisture erupting around them.


As we headed over to Baker Island, the wind calmed down some. We sat in a grassy meadow and ate lunch. What do we talk about when paddling? A common recurring theme on this excurson was the keeping of poultry, with an emphasis on slaughtering them. I’ll spare you the details.



Some boats come equipped with rock magnets, while others seem to prefer staying outside the surf zone. After we left Baker Island to head around Little Cranberry, Nate and I once again lagged behind. You know you need to keep moving, but somehow your bow just points to where all that white spray is exploding around the rocks. At the end of the day, sure, I remember the relatively flat stretches, but the scenes that readily flash into my mind are those ones in the rock zone, surf crashing everywhere, a little uncertainty about how the next moments will play out as the backflow sucks out beneath my hull and dark spots are revealed as rocks. The stern starts to lift and... anything could happen next. In the best of scenarios, you’re propelled gracefully over and through an obstacle course of rocks with a few well-placed strokes.



What makes it so fun and addictive? There’s lots of answers: connnection to the sea, adrenaline... It’s one of those activities that puts you right in the moment, when there’s no room in your mind for anything else. And I know that I’ve only scratched the surface of it.



As we crossed back over to MDI, the pre-sunset light was gorgeous. We’d had a 12-mile paddle on a sunny day, played like kids, seen the wildlife, and even ate well, all in good company. We returned to the put-in and, finding the surf breaking over the ledges, burned-up whatever energy and daylight we had left trying to catch a few of the waves.