Lunch On Steves Island

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We paddled straight-out from Stonington, toward the familiar, wind-stunted shape of Steves Island, and it felt strange to me, realizing how long it had been since I’d launched from Colwell Ramp and followed this route that had once been my after-work getaway out to the islands. Despite the forecast of increasing winds, the air felt clear and warm; it finally felt like spring, and the activity at the ramp  - guys launching floating docks and then a seining dory – added to the feeling of a new season upon us. We crossed the Thorofare, aiming toward Steves Island with Isle au Haut lurking in the background.

Owens had come down from Colby College, where she would graduate in only a few days and then head-off to lead a month-long trip along the north shore of Lake Superior. It was good to have a guest who wanted to make the most of her time in our backyard.

We were in the habit of remarking that it looked nice out there, but we had this or that to do instead of paddling. There’s always a ‘this or that,’ and since this might be Owens’ last paddle on salt water for awhile, we had a good excuse to get out there.

 
The previous day she and I had paddled from Greenlaw Cove, where Rebecca and I had spent the last seven months house-sitting, and taken a loop around the east end of Eggemoggin Reach. Today though, we’d been drawn back out to the Stonington archipelago.

Moments after we passed Green Island, the wind picked-up, warm and sudden. We’d been thinking we might look for some splashy spots farther out, but the wind was now in our faces, and as we approached Steves it looked so inviting that we just had to land. It seemed we might not find a better spot for lunch, sheltered from the southwest winds on  a sunny ledge in the lee of a granite outcrop.

Of course we had to circumnavigate the island on foot first – a ten-minute meandering walk.

There is something about Steves Island that makes it seem more idyllic than other islands. It is only two miles from Stonington, tucked-in among a sheltering neighborhood of larger islands, but it's just far enough to feel apart from things in town. Maybe part of the allure is its tiny size, the way it doesn’t let you forget you’re on an island. Or it could be its pocket beaches, composed of crumbled and bleached shells, nestled between smooth granite ledges that soak up the sunlight and invite you to linger and just take it in. And of course the four MITA campsites are all sublime. When we lived in downtown Stonington we could see Steves from our apartment, its sloping shape almost iconic against the familiar hilly background of Isle au Haut. On the water, the island seemed to draw me toward it like a tractor beam.

Back when we lived in town, I was the island adopter for the Maine Island Trail Association, and I usually brought a garbage bag to pick-up whatever bits and pieces I might find. But I realized that most visitors to Steves felt about it like I do, and they took care of it as if it were their own, which is in a sense true of this state-owned gem. It was reassuring to me, looking-out from our home in town, to have this magical place always out there waiting, and at times I fantasized about what it would be like to spend a summer camping on one island after another, all for the price of a MITA membership – a fantasy that provided the seeds of the trip we’ll be taking this summer.

After lunch we meandered back to town: George Head, Sand and Crotch Islands, the Thorofare. Having ‘lived away’ (in Deer Isle) for a bit, I thought the village looked particularly nice: the colorful houses descending the hillside around the harbor, the fleet of lobster boats, now mostly returned for the day, the trees leafing-out in myriad shades of green. And it is entirely possible that I enjoyed returning to the mild hustle and bustle of Stonington (it seems that way when you've been out in the quiet islands) more than when I lived there.

Notes

MITA's annual clean-up on June 17th has enough volunteers (you can get on a waiting list) but there's still room to sign up for our Wreck & Round Island clean-up through Island Heritage Trust and MITA on June 18th. As we have for a few years, Rebecca and I and perhaps others will guide this free trip (including kayaks and gear, courtesy of Old Quarry Ocean Adventures).

Want to read more about Steves Island? Check-out this article I wrote for AMC Outdoors Magazine about paddling with a family to an island on the Maine Island Trail - in this case, Steves Island. You can also click on the Steves Island tag below, and it should bring-up a few blog posts. It's tough to imagine that I haven't already written at least one "Lunch on Steves" post.

Thanks to Rebecca Daugherty for most of these photos

Hardwood Island

A few days ago, we had another warm, calm day for January, and though we had plenty of work to keep us ashore, decided to get out for a bit. We launched by noon, which gave us over four hours before darkness. Despite the lack of wind, the remnants of previous days’ winds continued in the form of swell coming in from the southwest, hardly noticeable in the harbor, but gradually increasing as we made our way south. 
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As we often do, we headed first to Steves Island. Rebecca checked things out on shore while I circled the island. It occurred to us that during the previous night it had hardly dropped below freezing, and it would have been comfortable enough weather to camp out. Off course, the nights are still long.

We headed across Merchant Row, and followed shorelines: Harbor, Merchant, Ewe, Hardwood. I had it in mind to stop on Ram Island for a break, but the seals had claimed it and were piled high on surrounding ledges. The south end of Hardwood Island, where we sometimes like to meander among the partially submerged boulders, was turning the moderate swell into some large breaking waves. We went around to the less active side and landed on the rockweed.

The south shore of Hardwood is sprinkled with good boulders upon which to perch, sip some hot cocoa and watch the waves come in. The sky began to cloud over, and though there was hardly any ice or show on shore to indicate the season, those icy clouds casting a halo around the sun have a distinct wintery look.

We followed Merchant Island's south shore, enjoying the gentle side to side wavy motion, with an occasionally bigger wave to keep it a little lively. By the time we reached the west end, with sunset imminent, we had to stop our dilly-dallying and head back.

The sunset saturated the sky over Penobscot Bay as we made our way below the bluffs on George Head, and across to Sand and Crotch Islands where the granite crane made a black profile against the pink sky. A couple of lobster boats came motoring along behind us. It had been a nice day and most of the boats had gone out, so there would be many more as it turned dark. We hurried across the Thorofare, back to the launch.

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. 

Lunch on a Ledge - SKS After Five Years

Five years ago, on Saturday, April 14, 2007, I posted the first installment of Sea Kayak Stonington, titled Launch. It featured a few photos of Todd and me getting ready to launch at Colwell Ramp. My drysuit was brand-new, bright mango, and behind us the faded red Colwell building still stood on heavy timbers over the water, yet to be torn-down. I’d had my sea kayak- a goldenrod-yellow Impex Diamante- for about a year and a half, but I’d been paddling obsessively- without long gaps from one excursion to the next, for less than a year.

That first blog post included a few snapshots and details of a trip out into the Stonington-Isle au Haut archipelago. In one shot, I’m floating in the water just beyond the ramp, wondering how I’m going to get the camera from Rebecca. Behind me, Todd is doing the sort of edging that, at the time, I could only aspire to. My paddle is huge, its blades feathered at different angles- to create less wind resistance went the theory, but most of the time we just avoided such wind.

With that in mind, I thought I’d take a commemorative excursion out among some familiar spots. The day looked to be a bit breezy, so I kept my ambitions mild and headed-out for Steves Island. I landed and did my usual litter patrol. The island probably had few if any visitors since the last time I walked its shore last month, but I found a pile of the usual plastic bottles, styrofoam cups and the remains of crumbling foam buoys. The wind had picked-up, whitecaps from the southwest rolling in with streaks of spindrift, so I launched and aimed roughly toward Hells Half Acre, figuring the wind and waves would do much of the work, and my return to Stonington would be mostly sheltered by islands.

As I approached Bare Island, I passed a ledge-y islet, and it occurred to me that, though I’ve paddled past it many times, I’d never landed. It was low tide and the landings were easy on the non-wavy side, so I stopped and had a look. It seemed bigger than I’d expected, especially at low tide. If you were desperate for a place to camp, you could at least find a bivvy ledge here. Bare Island, maybe a hundred yards off makes a meadowy backdrop, and you get a little glimpse of Stonington framed by Spud and Potato Islands: a slightly different perspective of some familiar sights. 

A short paddle brought me to another ledge, just north of Coombs Island. Again, I’d been past it many times, but usually intent on getting somewhere else. I landed for lunch -  PB & J, and a Thermos of hot tea. I sat just barely out of the wind, enough to feel warm in the sun. Sitting there on a ledge where I’d never landed before - only two miles from home, made me think. In the early days of this blog I often exclaimed how one could paddle in the same place again and again, but that it could continue to reveal new sights. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of car-topping to less familiar areas, driven by the joy of discovery. And it is a joy: getting the lay of the land and sea, letting the geography etch itself into my consciousness. (Or something like that). But in a way, discovery, newness- appreciating where you are - is a state of mind. 

A few days ago a visitor came into the gallery and asked, a bit skeptically, if we still “saw” our surroundings. In other words, "sure, it’s pretty here, but after awhile does it get to be the same old, same old?" I quickly replied that yes, we do still “see” our surroundings here. That’s more or less Rebecca’s job as an artist, and it’s tough somehow for those paddling excursions to turn into the same boring commute.

You’d think, the closer I paddle to town, the harder it would be to find new spots. I stopped at Hells Half Acre and aimed back for town. Just past Camp Island, focused on Russ Island ahead, I was going past the big ledge... and I had to stop and have a look around. Again, my first visit. Within sight of town and Old Quarry. 

Sea Kayak Stonington began as a group project, an extension of the logbook we left in “the clubhouse”- the storage area a group of us share at the launch. Also, the blog on my art gallery’s website had started getting infected with paddling snapshots. In the early days, Todd responded to posts and to other people’s comments, usually under a pseudonym, but the blog never really worked as a group endeavor. We weren’t much of a group. The “clubhouse” turned-out to be just a place to store boats, and the logbook more of a way to figure-out who had been there. Sea Kayak Stonington became my own personal logbook.

I didn’t know why I wrote these trip descriptions and posted them online with photos, but it seemed to motivate me to paddle and write and try to understand it all better. Maybe there isn’t a lot to understand about sea kayaking, or the ocean, or a guy slowly realizing that most of his life is probably behind him and looking for some way to navigate the rest of it. But the experience feels richer when I spend some time revisiting my excursions and thinking about them- even to try to see the whole endeavor from someone else’s eyes. Of course people write to connect with other people, and I’m sure that’s part of it. I occasionally hear from readers, which is cool. But most of the writing is akin to the paddling: solo, quiet, meandering- not looking for anything deep or meaningful, but once in awhile it feels like I’m right there at the edge of something. It makes a few ripples and disappears.

Paddling, guiding, teaching and blogging: where's it all going? I wrote a few thousand words more than I'm posting here, but it was a few thousand words too long. I start-out headed for lunch on Steve's Island and I find myself somewhere I've never been before- a place I hardly knew existed. I trust my selfish instincts best; as long as it's fun, I'll keep at it

Snow on Steves

After not much snow here this winter, we got a pretty good storm. Honestly, I needed some days of nasty weather to get some work done that I'd been putting off. The next afternoon I was in the gallery when I realized that the wind had dwindled, the sun had come out, and it wasn't too cold. Work could wait; I packed my gear quickly and headed out. After all, I could hardly remember the last time I paddled among the islands with fresh snow on them.



I had only a couple of hours before sunset, so it seemed only natural to head out to Steves Island. I might even get a jump on my duties as a MITA island adopter.

 

Well, even in the summer, I don't usually have a lot to do to look after Steves Island. Most of the campers who stay there take good care of things, probably packing-off more garbage than they arrived with. I came across some of the usual fishing garbage, but otherwise, the snow made the island feel even more pristine than usual. A few treetops had been blown down and blocked the trail. The campsite on the western beach will get a little more starlight than before.

 

Mostly, I just walked around and looked at things.

And then I paddled home as a new front moved-in.

Moonlight on Steves Island

A couple nights ago, I pitched my tent out on the granite ledge on Steves Island. I’d closed the gallery, eaten a quick dinner and packed my gear. I ran into Peter at the launch- we’d paddled together the previous evening, watching for thunderstorms, returning to Stonington in a downpour. He watched me pack- it goes pretty quickly when you’re only out for one night- and helped me carry my kayak down to the water.

Since I’ve been guiding a lot lately, I often find myself concentrating on my forward stroke- in slow motion. On one hand, I hope to set an example: “check this out- this is how it’s done.” It’s easier to understand if you see it unfold slowly- and that way no one gets left behind. Some people pick it up pretty well.

Steves Island, 6/7/10

When I get out on my own, especially after a long day in the gallery, it feels like I’ve been cut loose. It starts out slow- I focus on the feel of it: paddle loosely-gripped, blade fully-submerged, rotate the torso and the paddle follows. One blade slices out of the water and the other blade slices in as the torso unwinds. It’s a good feeling. Soon, the pace picks-up: short, quick strokes, a meditative rhythm with the byproduct of forward propulsion.

Soon, I drifted beside Steves Island. I thought of going further, but the little beach on the west side of Steves looked inviting, and the granite boulders were starting to catch that pinkish end of the day light. I set up the tent out on the flat granite ledge- not the designated campsite, but I would leave less impact there, and besides, with the nearly full moon just coming up, I wanted to be out in the open.

Steves Island, 7/14/10

I brewed a cup of tea and sat atop a granite promontory with a paperback. Far to my right, the lights of Stonington began to wink as the sun lowered. Far to my left the moon began making a long, wavery reflection across Merchant Row. I read a few Updike stories, finally clicking on the headlamp as mosquitoes came humming about. The stories continued in the tent until I could read no more, and lay back to take in the aura of moonlight overhead in the mosquito netting. The first lobster boat groaned past at exactly four o’clock.

In the morning: a quick dip in the chilly water, drying off after on the sun-warmed granite... the paddle home. I opened the gallery a few minutes late: the beginning of another hectic day that lasted well into the evening. Somewhere in the back of my mind though, is an island where it is still peaceful; every now and then it helps to go there for real.



One of these days, I'll get a new camera, but for now I've included a few shots from the archives.

Another sad footnote: yet another rec boat fatality off MDI last weekend. Read the story here.