Joseph Berkovitz

I can’t say it any better than David just did. Thank you for sharing this trip. It was the next best thing to going!

In a word, yes. I want to connect the dots on my next trip there. We could have done that southwest trip instead of the out and back on day 1, it’s about the same mileage. However Janet and I didn’t want to start the trip with setting up a shuttle, and we did want the ease of launching directly from the campground the first day.

You’re doing better than many. Mine last a little over a year before disintegrating completely. I apply 303 and wash them carefully and don’t get sunblock on them. I think gasket lifetime has a lot to do with variable skin chemistry.

People: Joe Berkovitz & Janet Lorang (co-organizers), Ricardo Caivano, Dan Carr, Bill Doucet, Stephanie Golmon, Cath Kimball, Yong Eik Shin. Introduction This trip consisted of 3 day paddles which the group undertook while camping at a single site, The Anchorage Provincial Park. We did it this way rather than crossing Grand Manan Channel from the mainland, because a series of day paddles is far more flexible with respect to weather than a long, committed channel crossing plus circumnavigation. There is also a limited set of campsites on Grand Manan that makes circumnav logistics tricky for a group. Generally each day featured high water early in the day followed by an ebb until afternoon. It was neaps so the currents were a fraction of their usual strength (GM Channel was running at max ebb of 0.5-1 kt instead of 4+ kt). This made for even more flexible route planning options, although cutting down on some of the potential exciting conditions. The forecast kept changing right up to (and during) our stay, invariably predicting a mix of fog and rain. The fact was that the forecast was wrong nearly all the time. Sometimes it was foggy, sometimes not (particularly on the north side of the island). It hardly rained at all during our stay until the morning we left. On the last day there was bright sun although fog and drizzle were predicted. Day 0: Thursday 9/7, arrival We traveled through all of Maine, then through about 1 hour of New Brunswick after crossing the border at Calais. Eventually we arrived at the ferry terminal in Blacks Harbour, NB. The ferry was very pleasant. The Canadians make it really easy to get to Grand Manan, and it isn’t very expensive either. The total drive time to the ferry terminal is shorter than to Lubec because the roads are better and more direct. Time on the ferry is about 90 minutes. 2 passengers in a car can travel round trip for about $50 US. The Anchorage Provincial Park is operated by New Brunswick, and it is first-rate and is clean and well kept up. The sites feel private and secluded—we reserved 4 sites for 8 people, one of which was a group site where we had lots of room to gather and hang out. The regular sites easily fit 2 tents. The park includes its own very ample beach, which requires a 2-minute drive or walk. Many bunnies gambol among the clearings—they are a domestic species, not wild rabbits. It sounds corny, but they really give the place a cozy feeling, which is a good thing as the park is often foggy and gray in the morning as is much of the south end of the island. The cost per person for 4 nights was $55 (it would be more if each person had their own site). After checking in, a few of us drove off at sunset to check out the big views from Southern Head. It was still not fogged in, and we were unsure that these conditions would last. Day 1: Friday 9/8, Long Pond to Southern Head and back (16.5 nm) This day’s goal was to leave straight from the campground (no shuttle needed), reach the cliffs of Southern Head and see the big sights there, hopefully finding a landable beach, and then return. We launched straight from Long Pond Beach which was convenient. We could not see much of anything though, due to the thick fog. Staying together was a big priority and we took special care to maintain mutual visibility. There was almost no wind and only some small wind waves. Our route took us through the substantial fishing village of Seal Cove where we explored the harbor (many unfamiliar kinds of large fishing vessels) and observed a bald eagle hanging out on some industrial debris. We overheard fishermen on some boats yelling to each other about “the kayakers in the harbor” but as far as we could tell, they were just exchanging information and no one’s mother was insulted or even mentioned. On we went. The landscape slowly rose higher and higher, passing cliffs and the occasional beach. The fog began to lift and for the first time we could see more than the tiny patch of coastline next to us. Finally, we rounded Southwest Head a little after noon and the big scenery kicked in. The southwest of Grand Manan is 200-300 foot high basalt cliffs which fracture in dramatic vertical columns. There are a series of small bays containing cobble beaches coming right up to the cliffs. The bays are separated by sharp, high rocky outcrops. Below the cliffs, the beach disappears at higher tides. They were landable at our low water tide level of about 5 feet (although the cobbles get larger as the water gets lower). They are not steep. The combination of light, landscape and fog was special. We explored up and down our little bay. With steep headlands to either side and the cliffs towering above it, it formed its own self-contained microworld, looking out into Grand Manan Channel. Somewhere out there was the Bold Coast of Maine but it wasn’t visible. On our way back we took a different route and headed out to low, gravelly Western Green Island for a break. We also scouted the outside of Outer Wood Island, which is said to be a great island to explore but it was too foggy and we were too tired at this point to explore something else: it was around 4 pm and we still had some distance to cover. We did identify a single really good looking landing spot on the outside. The island is very rocky and has some elevation on the outside though not all that high - perhaps 30-40 feet in a few places. Allegedly there is a sea cave but we didn’t see it in the fog. Turning north, the fog made for a slightly confusing experience trying to thread our way back up the east side of Wood Island with various ledges poking out. As it happened, there was just enough water to make it over the Pond Point Ledges that were trying to block our progress (though we couldn’t see them). Janet then led us right up to the channel marker for a final short, direct crossing back to the coastline, while boat engines noisily churned, unseen, to our left in Seal Cove. Overall, the currents on this trip seemed minimal, except in a few obvious constricted waterways like the Seal Cove harbor entrance. Day 2: Saturday 9/9, Dark Harbour to Stanley Beach (10 nm) The next day we decided on a shuttle trip to explore the north side of the island, both east and west. We would depart at high water (around 8:30 am) from Dark Harbour on the west side of the island, rounding the northern cape of Long Eddy Point, coming around North Head and eventually landing at Stanley Beach which is on the east side of the island. Dark Harbour Pond, a lagoon enclosed by a naturally-formed steep cobble berm, is the launch location for the west-side dulse harvesting fleet. There is a single narrow gut connecting the pond to Grand Manan Channel which is passable only for a short time either side of high water—at other times it is either too swift or too low to paddle in. So we had the perfect tide timing for departing from Dark Harbour, assuming we could launch in time (which we did). The dulse boats apparently launch 2 hours before low tide, so they have to be winched up and over the berm. They are dories surfaced with sheet metal on the bottom to make this less destructive. You can see them lined up near the kayaks; each with its own little outboard motor. The dulse is pitchforked or raked into the open boat. While we were waiting I chatted with a herring fisherman who was going out to tend his weir (there are many, many herring weirs scattered everywhere around Grand Manan). He said it would be rough on the outside at first, but that as soon as we got around the northern point everything would calm down until we finally went around the Swallowtail (see map above - it’s a thin peninsula hanging off of North Head on the east side). There is usually a large tide rip in that location since it sticks way out into the Bay of Fundy. Since we were planning to hit the Swallowtail around slack, this didn’t seem like a big concern. Leaving via the gut, we were rapidly pushed out to Grand Manan Channel at a pretty good clip, but not an adrenaline-inducing one. Our departure had a few moments of clear visibility but then we entered another socked-in zone as we paddled along the west side cliffs heading north. We had a 10 knot tailwind blowing from the south against the ebb, but the area near the cliffs is basically a series of eddies running counter to the flow and blending into each other, plus the main flow wasn’t that big in the first place. So the water was a bit rough with wind waves, but in a low-key way that made it fun to slalom among the rocks along the cliffs. We stopped for a quick break at Money Cove, another lagoon/berm combination with a couple of decaying cabins on top. Eventually we reached Long Eddy Point where the fog lifted and the sun came out. The landscape here was basalt but more varied than the columns we had seen in the southwest. Big features included The Bishop (a sort of chair-like form) and Ashburton Head (named after a famous shipwreck). Here's The Bishop: At Long Eddy Point we did observe a big tide rip maybe a quarter mile north of the point and we went out to look at it; some of us surfed the steep waves at its edge. It looked like it would probably carry us substantially backward if we outright played in it and lunchtime was looming. Ashburton Head also had a very substantial counter-current that generated a just about surfable standing wave over some ledges. This current must be some kind of eddy since it basically runs north (although the overall ebb runs south), but it’s a really strong one. Apparently on a spring tide this countercurrent can be too strong to paddle through. (The whole current situation at the north end was another reminder of just how complex the tidal situation is on Grand Manan – what is happening in the channels does not in any way clue one into what’s going on near the coast of the island which is very complicated. One would need to put in some sustained time here learning all the squirrely local deviations.) Our lunch stop was Seven Days Work Cliff. The cliff was impressively high and sported some very cool looking formations. Many of the rocks at its base are sprinkled with thousands of tiny multicolored geodes and sparkly inclusions like confetti. From here it was on to the famous Hole In The Wall on Fish Head, although first we had to cross a lane where the southwest wind was blowing hard through a gap in the landscape. Just past the Hole, a beautiful beach beckoned and basically forced us to land on it because it looked so nice that we just had to. There was a cool sea cave in the back of it with a skylight. Finally it was time to go around North Head and the Swallowtail. As soon as we rounded Fish Head the water began to perk up and roughen, and once we went around the Swallowtail we were in a tide-race kind of seascape, though the waves were only around 1.5 feet. It certainly made us think about the conditions here with a similar 10 kt SW wind, but on a spring ebb tide instead of slack/neaps. Not something to take lightly. The rough water lasted a good 15 minutes of paddling, it was not just a limited patch of ocean. We landed at Stanley Beach just after passing the ferry landing. Fortunately we were in between ferries so we didn’t have that to worry about! It was nice to finish early with this day’s shorter paddle and have a relaxed hangout/dinner. Day 3: Sunday 9/10, Stanley Beach to Long Pond Beach (16.5 nm) Our final day was another clockwise shuttle that began where the previous one left off, taking us back to our campsite at the very end of the day and making the shuttle relatively easy to set up. There was no big tidal gate and we could have a relaxed start, although it naturally fell out that we launched at high water anyway. The day dawned at The Anchorage with clear skies and no fog, to everyone’s surprise. The moon and Venus shone brightly before sunrise. There was essentially zero wind. It was a perfect morning, except that we sensed we might get a bit hot paddling in drysuits. We drove up north and launched onto glassy water, heading for our first of a chain of uninhabited islands that run north/south lying off Grand Manan’s populated, low-lying eastern shore. Some of these are pretty substantial. Long Island is used to graze some sheep, apparently. From here we visited High Duck, Low Duck, Great Duck and then after a more substantial crossing, White Head Island. The scenery and water were gorgeous, never mind that another odd current was sometimes opposing us, running counter to the ebb. By this time we had paddled almost 10 nm and were getting hungry. White Head has inhabitants and we were looking at some not so great landing choices when we spotted a narrow but perfect beach on a wild ledge called Gull Rock lying just offshore. That was to be our lunch spot: an “up and over” pebble beach that is really just a gravel bar connecting two parts of the ledge, and disappears at high water. Following lunch we continued working our way through calm seas through the ledgier parts on the south of White Head Island until we reached Long Point, another place that sticks way out and can potentially generate big tide rips. Here there were some actual conditions at the very tip due to some current and swell interaction. When I was here over a year ago, this place was really wild, but today it was just a little bit of entertainment layered on top of a very calm day. Our final leg took us up the edge of White Head, where we rested briefly next to the namesake bright white rocks that line this narrow neck of the island. Thence, back to Anchorage via a long WNW slog. It was now flooding and of course, we encountered yet another bunch of weird currents at the edges of some of the islets in the area. Some of these made sense in terms of water flooding nearby harbors, while others left us scratching our heads. We finally landed at Anchorage ready to call it a day as the evening fog began to roll in.

It’s hurricane season. If you’ve been in exposed waters these last few days, you’ve been feeling it too - long, powerful swells. I always wonder about the actual conditions that generate these swells. Here is a unique video that NOAA made in 2021 which provides some rare footage of the sea state inside a major hurricane. For more information from NOAA on hurricanes, take a look at their Mariners Tropical Storm guide: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/Mariners_Guide_Article.pdf

That seems like a really good idea Gary for folks who have to travel to get here. If someone needs a place to stay and can’t find a spot I can also put someone up as I live about 10 minutes away.

Great idea! It’s in my calendar.

Wow! Nice trip and great report.

Hi folks, I have a very busy fall this year and so I will not be able to organize continuous WLP trips going forward this year. Others are welcome to organize them though! If I am able to, I will attend. In particular, I will not be organizing a trip this week on August 30. Note that Tropical Storm Franklin is likely to impact the region with heavy rains beginning some time on Wednesday, so maybe that's just as well for a prospective lunch paddle.

Here are Doug's pictures in a more viewable format.

People: Prudence Baxter, Doug Stetson, Karen Gladstone, Kevin McComiskey, Barbara Ryan, Joe Berkovitz, Ricardo Caivano (Special shout-out to new NSPN paddler Kevin! It was his first time on a club paddle.) Route (10 nautical miles): This tidally-assisted paddle featured a launch from a boat ramp that no one I know has ever used: the Nahant Ave Ramp, a Mass DCR property. It's located on the other side of the Nahant causeway from the beach, and has ample free parking. (You are not supposed to access the beach if you park there, and you can be ticketed unless you are bringing a boat!) The weather on Wednesday was utterly perfect "pre-fall" weather: extremely crisp and dry air, with temps in the 70s and very modest wind that provided a tailwind along the causeway in both directions, as it reversed midday. The water was very calm but the outer side of Nahant was receiving 1-foot long period swell—making for *very* relaxed paddling among the rocks, for those who chose to do so. Low was at 10:30 and we launched around 9:30, riding the remains of the ebb out. No boat traffic although we did spot the new Lynn MBTA ferry coming and going across the harbor (Lynn is on the other side of the water in this direction). There were some shallow spots at low water near the causeway that need to be scooted around. Once we were out at Bass Point the environment changed a lot with the open ocean all around us and a big view of the outer harbor. We made our way around East Point to land around 11:45 at Canoe Beach on the other side of Nahant's "boot toe", an easy landing protected from what little waves there were. Canoe Beach is a Northeastern University property but other people were there sunbathing, snorkeling and diving; N.U. does not seem interested in driving people away from the beach which is a good thing. After lunch most of us walked up to Lodge Park at the 75-foot summit of East Point with its commanding view of Massachusetts Bay. From the top looking roughly south we could see both The Graves Light and, much much further away, Minot Point Light in Cohasset. All the harbor islands were arrayed before us, too. Swallows frolicked in the air above us. Always an incredible spot to visit. We made our way back the way we came. There was still not quite enough water to play in the "Quad" or "Subterranean" slots off of East Point. But it was still an utter delight. We arrived back at the ramp around 2:30, having had a perfect end-of-summer WLP. Thanks to everyone who could make this one!

Hi Amy - the water temperature is 66 F at Boston buoy right now. Tomorrow we will go over ways you can get this information yourself. You should wear synthetic-fiber clothing that dries quickly and protects you from the sun, it should be something that you would be comfortable swimming in. Also bring a wind/water proof jacket in case of a breeze, like a rain shell. We will likely get a bit wet at the very beginning of the session to make sure everyone’s comfortable - 65 isn’t very cold water! I will be wearing athletic shorts and a couple of polypropylene layers. But tastes vary. Feel free to private message me if you have further questions. do you have a spray skirt?

Hi Doug, You did register for tomorrows nahant paddle if that is what you were asking, and we have a group of 6 at this point. We do not need a full group of 8, that’s just the limit. I normally send a confirmation and float plan the night before. I am not sure I understood your question. Did I answer it?

I don’t mind people posting alternative trips in other states so long as I can do the same to them ? more = merrier

I’m traveling without laptop, hence this will be an abbreviated post with more information to be supplied late Monday night. A lunch paddle is indeed planned for Wednesday launching from Nahant Boat Ramp (unlike the beach, it is free parking) and going around the tip of Nahant to land at East Point for lunch and maybe a hike to the top of the peninsula for a view. Directions to the ramp: https://maps.app.goo.gl/e1gLFiEJAGRb9sm78?g_st=ic This paddle is about 8 nm round trip. The waters at the tip of nahant are exposed Atlantic ocean but we will not be landing there. For what it’s worth the forecast is for benign conditions and you can avoid all the rocks if you wish. If you don’t wish, please bring a helmet. The meeting time will be 9:00 with the aim of launching by 9:30 (please don’t complain about the launch time unless you happen to control the tides). trip is limited to 8 paddlers. please register at: https://forms.gle/s4zQAiLLeEWHng646 I will follow up with more information once I am home. As per the usual there are requirements for basic gear, dress for immersion and seaworthy boats with static lines and bulkheads. please see another Wed. Lunch Paddle post for details.

Thanks Gary for making prompt use of this new site and telling us about it! Very useful information about a spot that’s going to be super valuable to others visiting this area. There really is no other campsite that affords such easy access to the cool features to the south and east - the Gt Wass headlands, Crumple, Roque, The Brothers, Halifax... I can’t wait to camp there myself!

My wife has relatives in Tobermory at the edge of Georgian Bay. I haven’t paddled there yet but we have visited them a couple of times, and I want to take a kayak up there. It’s an incredible landscape and waterscape. The water in Georgian Bay is also a crazy bright blue color for some reason. It’s Caribbean in hue, but certainly not in temperature.

Due to a trip West and a preceding time crunch, I will be taking the next 2 weeks off from organizing the WLP - i.e., 8/9/23 and 8/16/23. I plan to organize one on 8/23/23. In the meantime, others are welcome to step in as per the usual!

People: David Silberman, Devon Winkler, Prudence Baxter, Ricardo Caivano, Bill Voss, Karen Gladstone, Phil Morrow, Joe Berkovitz Route: Rockport Granite Pier, Straitsmouth Gap, Loblolly Cove, Thacher Island (return) Launch: 10:00; Land: 15:00 This was a lovely and sunny summer paddle. It began with some slightly bouncy conditions just after the launch, probably left over from the overnight northerly wind that was dropping even as we paddled. Passing through Straitsmouth Gap the water evened out quite a bit and we enjoyed touring and in some cases playing around the ledges. There was a persistent long swell providing a bit of energy for those who wanted it. As the day continued, the wind picked up a bit and the waves seemed to diminish. We all circumnavigated Thacher—the tourist boat tied up the ramp for a while—and the outside was, as usual, a lot more dynamic. High water was around 12.45 so many ledges and rocks were covered up by this point. so only Ricardo, Phil and Devon landed. (Note: we had called the island keeper in advance, which they now request for groups larger than 6.) This was David's first open-ocean trip with NSPN and he acclimated quickly to the sea state, which at the outset provided some bumps and bounces. I hope I'm not going out on too much of a limb to say that the trip was a success from his point of view! Here are some pictures Devon and Ricardo took of their Thacher visit on foot:

The 8/2/2023 edition of the Wednesday Lunch Paddle will launch from Rockport Granite Pier. Let's meet there at 9:30 am with the aim of launching at 10 am. We will likely head south and visit Straitsmouth, and Thacher Islands or Loblolly Cove. High water is around 12:45 pm which is ideal for landing at any of these locations. The exact plan won't be decided until right before we launch and will depend on the group and the conditions. A potential trip mileage is somewhere in the region of 8+ NM but there are many options to shorten and extend. As of press time, it looks to be a very calm and beautiful day offering a scenic experience rather than a challenge. But that could always change! Charts, tides, forecasts, some possible destinations can be found at this Floating Trails link. The current NOAA forecast is for continuing cool, dry weather: N wind 6 to 8 kt becoming E in the afternoon. Sunny. Seas around 1 ft. Rockport Granite Pier apparently has restored its dedicated kayak launch ramp (which has been defunct as long as I've been paddling there), so I plan on getting there a little earlier to figure out how this works. Boats and gear will still have to be dropped off before parking on the upper level of the pier, but exactly where the best drop-off point is, I will figure out when I get there -- or maybe someone can post known details about the kayak ramp on this thread. Parking costs $12 cash. Inconvenient number, isn't it? Also, if we land on Thacher it will cost $5 so please bring this amount too in case we do that. This trip is now full; you can get on the wait list here: https://forms.gle/cmLSP3KxEK8YcgBe8 As always, WLP trips are flexible and tailored to meet the interests and abilities of the group on any given day. To join the trip you must be a paid-up NSPN member, and have signed the club participant waiver for this season. Your signup information will only be shared with other members on the trip. Trip level: WLPs do not have a specific level. All properly equipped members are welcome: please bring boats with rigged deck lines, bulkheads, spray skirts, and dress for immersion. NOTE: The Wednesday Lunch Paddles are cooperative adventures, not guided trips. We encourage paddlers to make their own independent decision about their comfort level with conditions and plans at the time of the paddle. Each participant is responsible for her/his own safety. Don’t assume the trip initiators are smarter, stronger, better at rough water, more attractive, or more skilled paddlers than you are. For more information, see this description of our trip philosophy from the NSPN web site. Please PM me if you have questions or if you haven’t paddled on one of these events before. Hope to see you there! Joe Berkovitz

I can share two approaches to this problem. Neither of them involve removable foot pegs, which sounds mechanically hard to deal with and as you say there aren’t stock parts for it. Also who wants to reconfigure their boat back and forth? Better to get used to one setup and get good at paddling it. 1. I had my front bulkhead moved rearwards by some 7 inches or so. This means that the cockpit is smaller and I now only need a very thin foam pad in front of the new bulkhead for my feet to rest on. But I got a huge increase in my front hatch from the freed up space. Big storage win and my cockpit experience is unaltered. I love it. Cost was several hundred dollars. 2. some people install a sturdy plate to go across the boat at ball-of-foot height where the pegs would be (with no foam pads behind this plate) . This has some of the same comfort and foot-freedom as a foam pad rig, but you can slide stuff underneath the cross plate to occupy the space in front of it. The plate needs to be made to measure but it isn’t complicated.

The Graves as seen from Nahant (site of an upcoming paddle TBA):

Just dropping a note here to thank @mattdrayerfor a terrific surfski session with me on Friday (7/28). I've been wanting to do this since last year but the scheduling never seemed to work out. Conditions were perfect in Nahant Bay for working on basic surfski technique, which was exactly what I wanted to do. Matt gave me some very effective feedback on using the wing paddle to best effect and discussed some training techniques with me. I found the Epic V8 a great ski to get started on and quite stable once it is moving. Unfortunately there were not really any waves to ride, so I will just have to do this again soon on a day when there is a bit of swell! I recommend taking advantage of Matt's generosity if you can. Even if you do not run out and buy a ski, there are aspects of paddling that are revealed more clearly by being on one, and there is some useful learning that you can take back and apply to your sea kayak. And, of course, it's just plain fun! J

People: Joyce Carpenter, Ricardo Caivano, Joe Berkovitz Route: (Click this link to view route on Floating Trails) The forecast was for light winds, seas < 1 ft, sun and air temps around 80 with tolerable humidity. Low water was between 11:30 and 12 noon giving us a favorable ebb current out of the harbor and flood on the return trip. This made it a perfect day to get out to the outermost reaches of the harbor islands. We all wanted to visit Graves Light and set out accordingly, just after 9:30. Our plan was to cross the North and South branches of Broad Sound Channel separately on our way out. This is a nice route that provides excellent visibility for traffic in all directions, and avoids the fast boats going through The Narrows or Nubble Channel like the P-town and South Shore ferries. This day, not many other boats were out there. Once we got past the subdued tide race over the bar out to Deer Island Light, the water became very calm. Whenever we were near a buoy we could see that the water was helping us paddle outward at a good clip. Passing Green Island, we reached The Graves a bit after 11. We had hoped the owner might be there, coming outside with a cheery wave to offer us a beer and a tour of the plush digs inside, but our fantasy was not to be: the place was deserted. We landed on the rocks near dead low—the calm conditions making it easy although a bit fiddly—and took a quick look around. The Graves is one of the most distant places in the Outer Harbor. It's over 8 nm from downtown Boston, 3.5 nm from Nahant, and 3.5 nm from Hull. There's a feeling of great remove from everything to do with the mainland. If you are the owner of the Graves, relaxing in the oil house with your mug of coffee in the morning, you may feel temporarily untouched by the cares of the world. I want to ask some time about how it feels, if I get the chance. I would also like to be able to ask my wife, as he did, "Hey, can we buy a lighthouse?" and hear her answer, "Sure." The ocean feels really different out there. I don't mean "feels" in an impressionistic sense—I mean it feels different in a direct, physical way, as experienced through your boat and your paddle. The long swells rise up and swoop gracefully through the channels between the ledges, a solemn oscillation that seems to come from nowhere. On a calm day, there may be no waves visible on the surface of the ocean, and yet the water moves around the rocks in its muscular, purposeful way. We slowly explored the channels and slots, letting the water push us around, and then moved on. Our next stop was a small cove on Outer Brewster Island. Here there were many seabirds and a view to the north. We sheltered next to a basalt cliff in a sliver of shade from the blasting sun, eating our lunch and watching the birds and looking out at the distant islands. It was perfect in every way. Thankfully, we did not have to buy the island to experience this. From here we threaded our way back to Deer Island Winthrop via Middle Brewster and Calf and then the channel crossings again. On the way back from Calf, two large seals began to follow me as I paddled behind the others (I think they were gray seals, because they looked big and had those elephantine faces). It was a bit spooky and they were very close by, breathing heavily. The breathing would stop and I would feel some relief before suddenly they would surface again, Ricardo and Joyce excitedly pointing behind me at my pursuers. I sped up in the hope that they would pay more attention to one of the other paddlers, or just give up. Our final leg around Deer Island's tip was actually a little choppy as a south wind was building a bit, interacting with the flood. It wasn't a lot of wind, except in comparison to the calm of the rest of the day. We landed at Winthrop after nearly 14 nm of paddling, tired and satisfied. Thank you Ricardo and Joyce for a wonderful day on the water!

On Wed. July 26 we're launching a lunch paddle at Winthrop Boat Launch with the aim of getting out to the Outer Harbor Islands paradise. The tides are ideal with the ebb ending just before noon. This trip will start on the early side to better mesh with the tide levels and the favorable currents. Let's meet up at 9 am with an aim to launch (butts in boats) around 9:30 am. Charts, tides, forecasts, some possible routes can be found at this Floating Trails link. The picture as of press time is: W wind 7 to 9 kt becoming SSW in the afternoon. Sunny. Seas around 1 ft. Please register here: https://forms.gle/Q6D8j5RBwWAjsXj39 As always, WLP trips are flexible and tailored to meet the interests and abilities of the group on any given day. This trip does include a couple of notable features though: - A total distance of at least 9-10 nm. You should be comfortable with a trip of this length. - Crossing of a major navigation channel (President Roads). I typically break this up into two manageable pieces that are brief, have good visibility for boat traffic and are well-marked with buoys. To join the trip you must be a paid-up NSPN member, and have signed the club participant waiver for this season. Your signup information will only be shared with other members on the trip. Trip level: WLPs do not have a specific level. All properly equipped members are welcome: please bring boats with rigged deck lines, bulkheads, spray skirts, and dress for immersion. NOTE: The Wednesday Lunch Paddles are cooperative adventures, not guided trips. We encourage paddlers to make their own independent decision about their comfort level with conditions and plans at the time of the paddle. Each participant is responsible for her/his own safety. Don’t assume the trip initiators are smarter, stronger, better at rough water, more attractive, or more skilled paddlers than you are. For more information, see this description of our trip philosophy from the NSPN web site. Please PM me if you have questions or if you haven’t paddled on one of these events before. Hope to see you there! Joe Berkovitz