Here I sit with my laptop in Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island in Maine on my way to Newfoundland. June 7th I turned 55. June 11th I got multiple bids on the house. June 12th & 13th I sold everything else I own except for the truck and camping & kayaking gear. June 15th was my last day at work. Chores on June 16 took longer than expected so I couldn't leave.
June 17th I started north into Maine, stopping at a local West Marine for some bulkhead sealant, the Kittery Trading Post for a Werner 230 Paddle ($155) and L.L. Bean for a looksee at their expanded store. It seems they've expanded their fishing and hunting section and allocated more space for clothes (what else?). Guess they were feeling the competition from the Trading Post. Kittery still has better prices. I picked up two smoke signals and a signal mirror to add to the arsenal of things I don't use. The smoke flares don't make sense. There are two of them in a package ($17) each of which are also tightly shrink wrapped. I took the wrap off of one and it was really difficult. You'll probably need a small knife blade to get it off. Wonder if you'll have time in an emergency, assuming you have a small knife blade handy.
After all that (shopping is exhausting) I stopped off at the Sherwood Forest Campground below Damariscotta for the night. They had showers and electric available at all sites. Fort William Henry, an historic site, is nearby. Not much there but a museum and a bunch of foundations from the 1600's.
Thursday found the truck turning down Route 3 to Acadia. I had wanted to get past here the first day so I would be in new territory (for me) as quickly as possible. Instead, here I am for the weekend. Acadia is where, a couple of years ago, I left a PFD with my keys in it on an island, at the mid-tide line. It was 2 hours later, in total fog with night approaching when I realized it.
Seawall National Campgrounds are on the tip of Mount Desert Island, across the road from the ocean. They have toilets and cold water sinks to wash up but no electric or showers. Showers are available a half mile up the road; 6 minutes of hot water for a buck. Sites were $18 for normal drive up sites and $12 for sites you had to walk 20 yards to. Guess which I chose. Got an extra night for the same money.
Seawall gets its name from the ledges and steep crumbled rocky shoreline creating a natural sea wall to prevent erosion. This shoreline goes on for about half a mile.
Ship Harbor
I had camp set up by 3pm so immediately launched the kayak to visit Ship Harbor. I had hiked (walked) a nature here before and found a mini-fjord leading into a small cove surrounded by conifers. I knew if I had a chance to kayak there I would so I could see it from the sea. I could just picture a pirate ship sailing through the narrow inlet and anchoring in the protected cove. Of course it would have had to be a pretty small pirate ship with very shallow draft. I tried to get a picture on the way out but the angles of the walls weren't right to get them both in a shot.
Somes Sound
Saturday I launched from Southwest Harbor and headed for Somes Sound. This is the same harbor where I locked my truck at the bottom of the ramp at dead low tide after losing my keys. Did I have flashbacks? You bet!
I had paddled Somes Sound before too, but it was in almost total fog. Even so, an eagle flew overhead and when I got to the end and turned around, the sun came out and I was treated to a truly spectacular sight. Somes Sound is the only natural fjord on the US east coast, with mountains rising on either side. I hadn't had a camera for 15 years after a Minolta SLR was ripped off from my van in the early 80's. Looking at the gorgeous view was what finally inspired me to buy a Pentax Zoom 90 WR. So I spent 4-5 hours paddling to get a picture. Hey, I'm allowed to. I've got nothing else to do and I've got the rest of my life to do it.
On the way out of the harbor I got out my new water thermometer to test the water but it was broken. I lost my first thermometer in the water before I got a chance to use it. This one was broken before I got to use it. I wonder if someone's trying to tell me something?
I took my time going into the Sound and spent a lot of time poking into nooks and crannies. There was about a mile or so of mussel beds containing really large mussels. The were running 4-5 inches, 2-3 inches wide and 1.5-2 inches thick. Some of them looked like clams and some like oysters but were definately mussels.
There were also a fair number of sea urchins and red starfish. I saw a brown one close to a foot across which was the largest I've ever seen, but then I haven't seen that many. The red ones were sucking up sea urchins and, it appeared, mussels. Did you ever watch a starfish move? Almost as much fun as watching grass grow and about as exciting as watching paint dry. They are sloooooooow!
I also saw a bunch of round brown things. Some looked like fat donuts and some looked like perky falsies. I don't know if they were veggies or animules. Later on I saw a herd of jellyfish floating about 5 feet underwater.
The trip in had been against a 5-10 knot headwind so naturally, I had to go against a wind from the south on the way out. I was going to head over to Northeast Harbor for a peek but the winds started picking up to 10-15 knots with 1-2 foot waves with whitecaps so I decided to call it a day. I spent about an hour going about 2 miles and when I got near the ramp the wind died of course.
Cranberry Islands
Sunday I again launched from Southwest Harbor and headed out to Sutton Island from Greening Island. The north (protected) side of Sutton is mostly sheer cliffs ranging from 10 to 50 feet with some interesting formations. Most of the rest of the island consists of large houses and the outer shoreline is jagged rock formations.
After a break, I set course for Little Cranberry Island, about 1.5 miles away. Halfway across I thought I was a little cool for the current temperature and wind. Looking down I saw I didn't have my PFD on. I stopped paddling and touched my chest with both hands in total disbelief. I couldn't believe I had left my PFD and my car keys back on Sutton. Not again! The difference between this time and last is this time I have 4-5 extra sets of keys with me.
I turned around and started back when it occurred to me I had placed the PFD on the aft deck while preparing to launch into some tiny surf. I didn't expect it to be there but reached behind me anyway and there it was. Whew! It would be just my luck to flip over a mile from shore as I struggled to get into it.
After paddling just a few strokes, a head and shoulders popped up out of the water like a cork not 20 feet from me. In quick succession my mind latched onto Loch Ness Monster, something's going to eat me and gray seal. He must have moving towards the surface pretty fast because he came out of the water quite a ways. When I told him he had scared the crap out of me, he meekly ducked back under the water and was gone.
I decided to go along the outer coast of the island as I find there are usually fewer houses out there and the shore line is typically more interesting. As I'm paddling along, a fairly strong offshore wind came up and I discreetly moved in towards shore and started thinking about being blown out to sea. There was nothing between me and Portugal but lots of water and there was no one around to help.
The tide was coming in so I thought if I did get caught by strong offshore winds I might hop out of the kayak and let my body act as an anchor. The wind would still be blowing the kayak on the water's surface but my body would be underwater and act as a drag and the tide would also be pushing against my body.
The problem with this idea is that the water was pretty damn cold. How cold? I dunno. My flamin' thermometer broke before I could use it. In any case, I wouldn't have lasted terribly long in the water so I guess my best bet would be to abandon the kayak and try to swim/walk into shore.
One thing I had heard somewhere is it doesn't matter if you're 5 miles or 5 feet from shore. If you can't paddle against the wind, you can't paddle against the wind.
The coast was too rugged to land for lunch so I ate in a patch of seaweed sitting on the aft deck with my feet in the water. In the 10 minutes it took me to eat, my feet were really cold so I continued on the journey right away.
The wind shifted and the waves picked up considerably by the time I reached the end of Little Cranberry Island so I bypassed Baker Island and cut through a little inlet to start back up on the inside of the island. There is a large half moon shaped cove that then leads to a passage between Little and Great Cranberry Islands. It was about 3 miles from tip to tip of the moon.
I started out towards the far tip and was soon almost a mile offshore on another exposed coast. The wind died down some but the waves were consistent 2 footers just a couple of seconds apart and they were coming from abeam so if I angled into them, I'd be heading farther offshore. Recalling how cold my feet were, dumping out here would not be a good thing so I headed towards shore, surfing many of the waves as they passed under me.
Earlier, I noticed a mild 'man' pain that had no apparent cause because I hadn't been doing anything strenuous when it occurred; it was just there. When the wind would blow in my face I'd have to paddle and strain harder and this seemed to aggravate or increase that particular pain.
On the other hand, a nagging ache in my upper shoulder went away. Early in a paddle I usually have various aches and pains, probably from not stretching beforehand. I'm also the type to paddle 10-20 strokes and then stop and look around. When crunch time comes though, I can paddle for hours in unpleasant conditions as I was about to do.
The wind would die down and the waves would pick up and I'd head to shore. Then it seemed the wind picked up and the waves eased off some so I'd head for the tip of the half moon again. All this zig zagging probably added another 2 miles to the crossing.
The whole time I'm thinking, if I do something stupid and go over, I'm going to die out here. I've got a perfectly good Kokatat Gortex drysuit in the truck and here I am with this skimpy little wetsuit on.
I wasn't in anything I couldn't handle but this was only my second day out and I was getting tired. Fortunately I'm in reasonably good shape but had run for over an hour already today.
I also started thinking about Doug Lloyd and those storm paddlers out around Vancouver Island on the west coast. I can see how that could be a big challenge and a lot of fun, with the proper skills, training, equipment and support. But right now, I'd really like to have some safe, calm, old folks paddling conditions. There is much to be said for puddle paddling.
It took over two hours to finally reach the tip of that half moon and I rounded it expecting to see Great Cranberry Island or some familiar mountains in the distance. All I saw was more open ocean so I kept paddling into more of the same. Eventually I came to a bay that was probably the gateway to the inner Cranberry passage, where I dearly wanted to be to get away from the wind and the waves. Unfortunately, Little and Great Cranberry Islands appear to be separate islands only during the higher tides as the little inlet I expected to pass through was now solid rock.
So on I paddled around the end of Great Cranberry Island which is also totally exposed, naturally.
More of the same old, same old with the occasional 3 foot swell thrown in for variety. These were really crashing into the rocks and throwing spray 5-10 feet into the air. I couldn't watch them much because the 2 footers were mostly on my beam and they had most of my attention.
I really needed a break when I saw a steep rocky beach half a mile ahead. When I got to it I saw waves crashing against it. Did I really want to deal with landing and launching in surf and have an incoming tide pulverize the kayak against the rocks while I took a break? The answer was no, so on I went.
I'm close to 3 hours into this ordeal when I see a wonderful sight ahead. A large beach of crushed rock surrounded by large rocks and seaweed. A perfect little lagoon with no waves at all. I headed for the seaweed and as the waves would come in, the seaweed would catch them and dissipate their force.
10 minutes into my much needed break, the little lagoon was a raging cauldron as the tide came in with 2 foot waves breaking over the rocks. By the time I launched, however, I was able to pick my way through the waves without too much of a problem.
10-15 minutes later I rounded the end of Great Cranberry Island and the wind and the waves both lessened and there were the familiar mountains. I still had a couple of miles to go down this island plus over to Sutton, then to Greening and back into Southwest Harbor, maybe 4 miles or so.
Or I could shoot across 1-1.5 miles of open water and paddle a mile or so into the harbor.
Conditions were fairly benign and who knew what those other crossing would be like in an hour or so. So I dug in and started across. And, yup, you guessed it. The waves picked up again 5 minutes into the crossing.
It took about 30 minutes to get across. I spent the entire time, surfing, letting the waves catch me at an angle or paddling directly towards shore. I was certainly happy to see that ramp.
Gear Review
I bought a cheap air matress and pump for truck camping. I think I paid a total of $25 at Walmart's for something from Ozark. I was tired of constantly slipping off of the Thermarest and wanted a little luxury when camping from the truck.
I am very pleased with it so far. You don't blow it up all the way so there is room for the air to shift when you move on it. I had it filled less than 2/3 the first night out and got chilled because my butt would touch the ground occassionally. I slipped the Thermarest under it the 2nd night and inflated the mattress a little more and it worked out great.
Less great was the cotton sleeping bag liner I bought so I wouldn't have to have bare skin against the nylon sleeping bag interior when it's hot. The cotton liner also had a zipper and because I toss and turn, I was really tangled up in the morning with the liner's zipper facing one way and the sleeping bag's zipper facing the other. I tried it a couple of times but have given up on it.
Trivia:
Lobster used to sell for 2 cents each in the 1600's.
6000 licensed lobstermen.
42 pound lobster on display in Boston (stuffed).
Over 100 million lobster taken in the last 5 years.