The Lower Bagaduce

Lately I’ve been watching the weather forecasts compulsively, but if someone asks me if it’s supposed to snow I’m likely to draw a blank. Pretty much what I get from it is the wind and temperature, which results in either yes or no: paddling or no paddling. The past week and a half has been a lot of “no” days, with some “maybes” thrown-in just to tantalize me and make me feel bad when I don’t go. Yesterday was one of those maybe days, but I thought I might find some semi-sheltered paddling in the upper Bagaduce River. The tide was even right to launch into the shallow waters off the Penobscot Town Landing.


Unfortunately, Winslow Cove was iced-in, so I drove down to the launch by Bagaduce Falls. The current squeezed beneath the bridge, frothing-up a formidable wave train, but at the next bend in the river, ice covered the entire surface. I sat in the car for awhile watching the standing waves. Occasionally a huge ice flow emerged, tossed about the crests of waves only to be abruptly pulled beneath. So maybe the upper Bagaduce is out of the picture for the next few months.


Fortunately, the road into Dodge Point was plowed (at middle right on the above chart) so I unloaded there at another of Brooksville’s town landings. I called Rebecca with a revised float plan and I was off.


I follwed the steep shoreline toward the head of Smith Cove, where pines clung to the tops of dark cliffs, dripping with icicles. The sun felt good on my face. It was a crisp, clear day- a bit cold, which meant I had to keep moving. I did- paddling around Smith Cove and out between Whites Head and Hospital Island. The current was picking-up, barely floating me over over the sandbar between islands. Across the river lay the Castine waterfront, dominated by Maine Maritime Academy’s training ship, the State of Maine.


As I approached the mouth of the river, a stiff breeze felt icy on my face, and a minor swell came rolling in from the northwest. I headed for Ram Island. The island is owned and managed by the Conservation Trust of Brooksville, Castine and Penobscot, and has a small campsite. I took a walk around the eastern island, but in the face of the northwest breeze, a chill quickly set-in. Good thing I’d worn an extra layer of long johns, but the feet and toes start to take on a chill that doesn’t go away. The best thing is to keep moving, keep the blood pumping.


I was going to head straight back to the launch, but after a few minutes of paddling I felt fine again, and I couldn’t resist crossing over to Castine to paddle alongside The State of Maine. By now, if I paused the current pulled me backwards. I paused for some photos of the ship, but there’s something intimidating about being next to- actually below- such a large vessel.


I crossed the river back to Smith Cove and paused at the remains of another large ship. The Gardiner G. Deering was a 251-foot, five-masted schooner. Abandoned in the 1930s and later burned, the ship is now reduced to a few skeletal, rockweed-draped timbers- just enough to give you some sense of her original proportions as you paddle through.

Back at the launch, I cranked the heat in the car and loaded-up as the sun set. I felt lucky to have squeezed a paddle into a rare window of good conditions. Well, "good" conditions when I lowered my standards because I could see it wasn't going to get much warmer... and when I sought-out a place with less wind. Good thing I got out; today looks much different.

Icicles

With the ups and downs our weather brings us this time of year, I end up checking the forecast compulsively, watching for windows of opportunity. There wasn’t much wind on Friday, but it sure felt cold. I didn’t get out, but as usual, wished that I had. It helped that on Saturday the air temperature was forecast to rise into the 30s, with not much wind, and possibly even some sunshine. Once again, I headed over to the ramp in Bucks Harbor, this time, heading southeast, down Eggemoggin Reach.


The shorelines of Brooksville and Little Deer Isle are separated by Eggemoggin Reach, only a mile or so across, but each shore is distinctly different from the other. On the Brooksville side, the settlement is concentrated mostly into one area, from Norumbega, an old enclave of summer cottages overlooking Deadmans Cove, to Herricks. The rest is fairly wild. Low cliffs rise directly from the water, topped by scrubby, twisted pines.


Of course, there are layers of history here, visible if you know where to look. A sheltered cove known as “The Punchbowl” was apparently an Indian village, and its mud covers the remains of a trading ship that was destroyed and burned, killing all aboard. There’s still tension between locals and People From Away, but maybe a little less extreme.


The sun came out as I crossed the Reach. This stretch of Little Deer Isle shoreline is thinly-settled, with plenty of forest between most of the houses, and an overall gentler, less cliffy shore than the one across the Reach. I pointed toward the one section of low, overhanging cliffs, and as I neared it, I remembered that there sometimes is a reward for getting out in the colder weather. In this case: icicles.


Forward progress stopped. I drifted and marveled: totally unexpected. A gift.


Soon, I stopped long enough to eat a sandwich, which was long enough for my toes and fingers to turn numb. I paddled hard for Thrumcap Island and heated-up again.


I stopped there to check things out- the nests on the rocks, a nice view up the reach toward the bridge, a desolate grandeur so close to home- and I could imagine whiling away a warmer afternoon here. But my toes were numb. So I got moving and warmed-up as I headed the two miles up Horsehoe Cove, returning with a little push from the current.

A half-hour after sunset, I paddled into Betsy's Cove. In the dim light, the water surface below the ramp had a dull sheen. I plowed into it and came to a stop. Ice. I paused for a moment, just to savor the scene: a winter evening in a New England town, yellow light from occasional lit windows, thin crescent of a moon overhead, and somewhere, the crunch of tires over ice and snow.

I'll admit that when we get a little cold weather, I complain a little like most everyone, and lately I've been remembering how nice it was last winter in the Everglades. But would I completely give up one for the other? Can't have everything, I guess. This is where I am now. I backed out of the ice and found my way around its edges, back to shore.

Cape Rosier

With the forecast calling for some wintry weather for the week ahead, the weekend looked okay: air temps in the the 30s with light winds out of the north. It’s all relative. Knowing it would soon be colder and stormier, I decided I’d better make the most of it, so on Saturday I drove to Brooksville and launched at Betsy’s Cove town launch in Buck(s) Harbor.


If you paddled directly from Bucks Harbor to Blake Point, you’d go just over three miles, but the southeast shore of Cape Rosier is indented with coves reaching far inland, multiplying the paddle-able shoreline to over twelve miles. I launched just after high tide, so my timing was off, but I was eager to check-out Horseshoe Cove. This narrow finger of the sea stretches over two miles inland, with a zigzag about half way in.


The half-hour paddle to the mouth of Horseshoe is past surprisingly unpopulated shoreline. Condon Point is undeveloped (and for sale- hey land trust people). I knew I was paddling against the flow, but it wasn’t obvious until the cove narrowed in front of Seal Cove Boatyard. I dodged the current, following eddies where I could, rounding the corner into the zigzag, where I encountered a constriction creating a tidal rapids.


I got out and watched it for a bit and ate the first of my sandwiches. Definitely a spot to check-out at other tides. And there’s more than a mile or more still to go upstream. I headed back out just in time though, scraping along the bottom just south of the boatyard.


The mouth of the cove is marked by Dog Island, a small island connected to the mainland by a sandbar at lower tides. Next is an area called “Barneys Mistake”. I’m not sure who Barney was, but I would guess his mistake had something to do with the numerous ledges here. The cove is looked over by a few residences, closed for the winter. Actually, that can be said for pretty much all the shoreline in the area- all privately-owned with discrete cabins that have been there for generations.


I paddled as far as Bakeman Beach, then headed back via Spectacle Island and the Thrumcap, arriving back as it grew dark.


On Sunday, I picked up where I left-off, launching at Bakeman Beach, which is owned by the town. I parked just off the road, at the top of the beach and headed west, out around Head of the Cape. Here, I felt the wind in my face and paddled into small wind-driven waves that collided with the steep, rocky shore. This would obviously be a committing section of shoreline, so I took a moment for a reality check, considering the risks versus my preparedness.


Reality check out of the way, I followed the shore north. A couple of obvious bailouts stood-out, predictably in Ames Cove, Orr Cove and the coves approaching Harborside. The grey sky spat out sleet and snow, sometimes veiling the shores of Islesboro, Dice Head in Castine, and in the distant north, Sears Island and Cape Jellison. I ate my sandwich on Holbrook Island, beneath the watchful gaze of a bald eagle, and headed back the way I’d come, arriving back at the beach just before dark. I saw no other boats underway all weekend. It’s been fun to car-top the kayak to other launches, paddling unfamiliar shoreline, connecting the dots with previous trips. But now, with the kayak and the car obscured by snow, I may want to put the boat away for a few days.


We just watched a video about Andrew McAuley’s 2007 fatal attempt to kayak from Tasmania to New Zealand. A very sad, but amazing story. You can watch it for free here.