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Joseph Berkovitz

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  1. Kate, thank you for the kind words! Your own reports set a high standard, and David and I read and reread them a number of times. I hope we will all (you included) make it back there. 70? Pshaw! PS ice seems to be readily available next to the Northern Peninsula every spring.
  2. This year the colony on Children’s has gone virtually missing. I visit every year and this is the first time I have not observed ibis, herons and egrets. Only gulls.
  3. Here is a google photos album with the complete set of pix and videos from the trip in case folks want to enjoy. https://photos.app.goo.gl/MTjH2abgGcTzArdR7 and a recent video of the huge tabular iceberg that we visited breaking up: https://m.facebook.com/groups/81949647728/permalink/10163277920387729/
  4. "General tips about tides and winds" to paddle to any location at all, involves a lot of knowledge that is hard to put into a quick reply on a message board. Also there is more to think about than tides and winds: sea state, currents, boat traffic, which route to take, launching and landing locations... all of which goes under the broad heading of coastal navigation. Note that the different areas of Thacher's shoreline offer vastly different paddling experiences depending on the conditions. It's tempting to try and summarize all the things you need to think about, but it's much harder to summarize how to pull a plan out of all that information. So instead, I'll offer to help you plan a specific trip. I am sure many others at NSPN could help in the same way. I think that would be a good way for you to learn more about the process and about Thacher too. That said, one conservative answer to your question is this: launch from Rockport Granite Pier on a super calm day with little or no swell, stay on the inside of Straitsmouth Island, and land on the Thacher tourist boat ramp on a day when the boat is not running (since it also uses the ramp which is tiny). Plan your landing on the island for high tide, because the lower part of the wooden ramp is extremely slippery. Bring $5 for the landing fee. If you do want to study a deeper background on trip planning, Bob Levine and I wrote a document for the club that covers much of it. You can find it here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uY8i2L7OdBwiPnkAHmg8nguez-INWV6twn5kXLqKZ3k/edit
  5. They were not on the calendar for a while so some people thought they had stopped, but I will correct the text!
  6. WLPs are continuing! This one is for Wednesday July 19, and the plan is to explore one of our North Shore tidewaters: the Danvers River and its tributaries, a strange in-between space that includes salt water, parks, marinas, houses, light industry, the odd shopping mall and, of course, our local signature highway Route 128. We're going to launch from Winter Island Park in Salem which requires a $10 parking fee. More specific details will be supplied to participants. This trip will start later than usual to take advantage of 1:30 pm high water and avoid launching in mud/rocks. Let's meet up at 10:30 am with an aim to launch (butts in boats) around 11:00 am. The NOAA weather forecast as of right now is: W wind 5 to 7 kt becoming SSW in the afternoon. Mostly sunny. Seas 1 to 2 ft. Air temp 75-80 F. Trip is now full. Get on the wait list with this form: https://forms.gle/XwVQHVhkn5piH88J7 As always, WLP trips are flexible and tailored to meet the interests and abilities of the group on any given day. However this one is not likely to be very demanding given the protected location: watching out for other boats will probably be the biggest challenge. 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
  7. Details will be posted on the trips forum the preceding Sunday or Monday. At that time specific information about the trip will be also added to the Trips Forum. The trip posting thread can also be used for questions and conversation about the particular trip. Even though we don't know exactly when and where each paddle will occur, here is a description of a typical Wednesday Lunch Paddle: Open to all skill levels: the trip is adjusted to fit the attendees Meet at launch location at 9:30. On the water and paddling at 10:00am. 1.5-2 hours of paddling to some location 1 hour of food, conversation, and relaxation 1.5-2 hours of paddling to return to launch Return around 3:00. These paddles are appropriate for independent paddlers with some ocean experience, so this is not an ideal choice if it's your first time paddling on salt water. The Wednesday paddles are cooperative adventures, not guided trips—however, we strive to share useful knowledge and tips as we go, and we try to adjust each trip to the desires and abilities of the group. 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.
  8. As much as I love rolling, there are a lot of interesting aspects of the trip; perhaps let's have another thread on the rotational aspects of Newfoundland if we want to pursue further. I'll try to respond though for others who may undertake a trip like this. I practiced plenty before the trip including both loaded boats and winter water. I know others in the group practiced too. There were OTW discussions during the trip about the wisdom of having assisters deal with fully loaded boats (80+ lb.) in the event of a failed roll. We had one paddler with a patched drysuit sleeve. Overall, the downside seemed greater to the group than the upside. The bad cold is to me a more interesting question. Scratching the trip in the middle of it was certainly possible at one of the 3 road-accessible bailouts (Conche, Croque and Grandois). It would have been both expensive and heartbreaking. We chose to paddle on, and were glad we did!
  9. @billvosssee the end of part 2 for some upside-down celebrating kayakers. At no point did anyone capsize, nor did any of us practice rolling in the cold water. Most of us had a bad cold throughout the trip.
  10. Day 5: Interlude I awoke suddenly very grateful for a day of relative inactivity. The valley in which we camped was bordered by coastal hills on the south side and a low ridge on the north side. The latter ridge blocked our view of the nearby outport of Grandois. (Another interesting place name, originally in French as “Grandes Oises” or big geese. Today it is spelled as “Grandois”, while pronounced by locals as “Grand-Zwah”. Quirkily, the Newfoundlanders conserved one of the original letter S’s in speech, and a different one in writing. In any case, we did not see geese there.) I visited a pair of tiny overgrown family cemeteries nearby. One was from the 1800s, another from the mid-1900s; both sets of gravestones were in surprisingly good repair. The family names seemed very Irish, matching the cadence of the local dialect. A caribou was sighted on a nearby hill. After breakfast, some of us hiked to the end of the harbor, past a little waterfall. We found a set of ponds above the harbor and draining into it via a sequence of brackish ponds, visible from a high patch of mossy ground that could also be a nice campsite. On the way back, we bushwhacked through a narrow gap in the coastal hills to reach gorgeous, deserted Howardin Cove on the outside, with its own gem of a pocket beach. However, that beach sported a large berm and a lot of seaweed scattered well above the strand line. We guessed it might be a rough place to land sometimes. Phil found a huge rusty French nail. There are a lot of old artifacts lying around but they are not obvious. (A note on bushwhacking in the brush: we did not see any ticks our entire time in Newfoundland. Cursory internet research suggests that there are very few in the province, although there may be some that passively migrate there via birds. We did check ourselves!) As the day progressed, we had constant periods of heat and sun alternating with fog and cold rain. Finding comfortable clothing for the weather was a challenge. Right before dinner, Lorrie spotted something strange in the water: a pair of antlered heads with no apparent bodies, moving steadily in our direction. Two caribou were swimming right across the river towards us, very near the hut. We watched in amazed silence as they shook their heads (getting rid of flies?), emerged from the water, and walked calmly up the hill. Day 6: St. Julien to Fischot Island Decision Time This day opened a bit warmer and with some partial sun. It seemed that the heavy rain was over for now. The forecast, thanks to a cell signal that mysteriously persisted almost everywhere we went, was once again for southwest winds, 10-15 knots. This coastal zone forecast, as we knew by now, was often an overestimate. The Windy.com forecasts of 8-10 knots seemed more in the ballpark of reality for the strip of coast we were paddling in. However we did note that a weather change was pending for Day 8 of our trip, which had been planned to end on Day 9. This change would bring a low pressure system, strong northerly winds, an air temperature drop into the 40s, and more heavy rain. The wind direction would bring cold, blustery weather and rough water to the Atlantic coast. Inside Hare Bay where our next (and very exposed) campsite lay, we could expect wind waves with a substantial fetch to the north. With this information in hand, we considered whether to cut our trip short by one day. Even with the day off we had kept to a fast schedule and had some distance in the bank. We could end the trip a day early, without sacrificing any major goals or missing any coastline. So we all agreed that we should a) finish the trip one day earlier than planned to avoid camping in much colder and wetter conditions, and b) try to camp somewhere more protected than the exposed, open north-facing location that had been originally selected (MacGray Island). The latter decision, if we followed it, would make for a long Day 7. Our next move, regardless, was to paddle out to our next campsite on Fischot Island, a deserted outport and the only island on our trip that required a real crossing. In my mind as I reviewed the few pictures I’d seen, Fischot was a flat, grassy, windswept place. I wondered how it would be as a camping spot. Encounter On The Water The next stretch from St Julien to Jehenne Point was uneventful, with a quick bathroom stop at Trompeuse Bay which features a sheltered beach. There were some very interesting looking coves along the way, but we felt the need to keep going. We crossed the mouth of Great Islets Harbour and navigated to what we thought should be a “tickle” leading to a protected bay that would make a good lunch spot. In Newfoundland English a tickle is defined as, “A narrow salt-water strait, as in an entrance to a harbour or between islands or other land masses, often difficult or treacherous to navigate because of narrowness, tides, etc; a ‘settlement’ adjoining such a passage.” This one qualified as difficult to navigate because it was about 6 inches shy of having any water in it at all, the tide cycle being near dead low. We headed outside English Island in what were becoming rather rough conditions; this was the Fischot Channel, a spot where the Labrador Current may be squeezed and sped up, opposing a southwest wind. We ducked back into a protected cove from the north, where we stopped for a much-needed lunch. Here, we munched as we watched caribou grazing on the other side of the deeply embayed island. They presumably swim to reach wherever there is food. Our postprandial crossing to Fischot Island was not as rough as what we’d seen so far. The largest herd of caribou we’d seen so far was grazing on the island, whose hills seemed much higher and more dramatic than my mental image of the place. We pondered the sights, aware that our next move would be to find our way into the protected interior waters of the island through one of the three narrow channels that afford access. Before we could ponder much, though, we had our first encounter with another boat on the water! Until this moment, we had not seen a single one; the boats always turned out on closer inspection to be icebergs. This boat was captained by Justin Boyd, at once the local owner of Crazy Ray’s Boat Tours, the son of the proprietor of the hunting lodge where we’d be staying next, and the organizer of our vehicle shuttle. His 5 passengers included Kathleen Blanchard, president of a non-profit called Intervale, a local friend of Kathleen’s, and 3 young women engaged in wildlife research as part of a program connected with Intervale. They were all very excited to see other humans out there in the middle of nowhere. (Except for Justin, who knew we would be in the area; David and I had already had a Zoom call with him to pick up local knowledge. Justin did seem pleased that we were still alive.) At one point, one of the women said, “You’re real mariners!” True or false, this was quite thrilling to me. As this could be the only time I will ever hear that compliment, I fully intend to savor it. Fischot: The Inside-Out Island Our encounter with fellow humanity had to come to an end, and we proceeded to miss the main entrance to Fischot Harbour and enter via an incredibly shallow channel just to its east. Eventually we reached the interior of the island, an otherworldly landscape for which Janet coined the phrase, “the inside-out island”. Fischot Island is indeed turned inside-out. Together with its sisters Northeast and Frommy Island, its calm and wide harbor is circled by heather hills on all sides, with three narrow channels leading to the ocean outside. The harbor is half a mile wide from north to south, and a quarter-mile wide from west to east. In some spots, abandoned buildings lean and loom in a Gothic fashion. The weather was not gloomy, fortunately: it was warm and sunny. Gravel beaches lined most of the harbor, which has various sinuous arms going here and there. We found our way to the middle of one of these arms, next to a narrow strip of land that seemed ideal for a row of tents while letting us walk to the rest of the island. Nearby was the skeleton of a caribou, its antlers entangled in a large pile of fishing gear. The basic storyline seemed obvious, and sad. When we told some local fishermen about it later, they confirmed that the gear seemed likely to be the reason for the animal’s demise. After pitching camp, we walked to the nearby eastern exit from the harbor, our most likely egress. There was a huge iceberg visible just outside and to the north of this channel. Then we walked all the way around the harbor to the abandoned fragments of a village on the west side, following game trails and trying to avoid muddy sumps. Many caribou wandered freely, a number of them hanging out near an elevated freshwater pond. Janet, Jason and I split off from Phil and Lorrie to walk the long way back to our tents via the ridgeline of the surrounding hills. The panoramic views of the entire area and the sounds of the surf were stunning. The picture below looks southwest towards St. Julien Island from which we had come; its headland is visible on the left. At some point, we heard a series of very loud booming sounds from the east. We wondered what was happening to our iceberg neighbor. Tomorrow would tell. Day 7: Fischot Island to Louisa Island Puffin City Our final full day of paddling awaited us. We had a choice in front of us: whether to take an excursion north along the island chain, to visit a puffin colony at the mouth of Hare Bay on Great Cormorandier Island (or, in laconic local parlance, “North Island”). This would extend our final full-day paddle by 4 to 5 nm, and we were trying to reach a distant protected campsite that would not be exposed to the next morning’s expected north wind, for a total of nearly 18 nm. Another protected option was much closer, but would push more paddling into the final day and potentially rougher conditions. Eventually we opted to take the island-chain puffin tour, provided that we had visibility to do so. As there was a lot of fog inside Fischot Harbour, it was not clear we would be able to see anything. First, we exited the eastern channel where swell was standing up slightly against a modest ebb. Our iceberg was no longer where it had been. It was clear that we would be able to see enough to enjoy our tour of the island chain, and so we set off. This was a good thing, because the journey was one of the bigger spectacles of the whole trip. The islands jutting north into the entrance to Hare Bay are very wild-looking. As we entered this visual world laced with fog, we encountered large remnants of the formerly nearby iceberg. These remnants were not small. It must have broken up in a dramatic way. We made our way past Northeast Island, Little Verdon, Great Verdon, and finally tiny Pigeon Island to reach the cliffy heights of North (Great Cormorandier) Island. As we approached, puffins became visible, flitting through the air around us. On the cliffs facing out to Pigeon was a large pile of collapsed boulders. This was at least one of the puffin colonies; puffins roosted on it everywhere, and were flying in clouds over us with their stubby little bat-like wings. Having had our fill of puffin viewing, we continued to round the east side of the island. Guillemots darted out from the towering cliffs, along with terns, gulls and additional bunches of puffins. The scenery was huge, accentuated by the occasional substantial swell rolling in. Little Coromandier Island loomed up ahead. Eventually we paddled through a narrow gut on the northeast corner of North island, helped by a wave or two. Over here we were on the lee side, relatively protected until we pulled out into the channel for the longish crossing back. An hour’s paddle via two conveniently placed islets returned us to Tortoise Hill on the main island of Newfoundland. Around this time, what had been somewhat rough waters on the outside and in Fischot Channel, transitioned to calm. We could see the whole island chain from a distance, fog tendrils threading through it, one of them lit up blue by a towering berg. Occasional crashes and booms came from that direction. Hare Bay The remainder of our long paddle including a lunch stop in Starboard Cove took place in warmer waters, along the shore. My guess is that the water temperature here was in the 50s instead of the low 40s. Hare Bay is out of the way of the Labrador Current, and apparently it has a very different marine environment. Just before our lunch stop, we encountered Justin Boyd and his research passengers again on their boat and said hello, conferring with Justin on some details of where we might stop for the night. We stopped on MacGray Island to satisfy our curiosity about it as a camping spot. It was terribly nice with a perfect beach and meadow—but it was also very exposed, as we had expected. We decided to press on to a protected area Justin had told us about, inside a branch of the bay named Shoal Arm. To reach it, we entered a channel called American Tickle (so named because it was allegedly dug or dredged by US troops at some point, or so the local story goes). Whoever may have done what to this channel, it was moving with a very swift current and we shot into Shoal Arm, looking for a campsite along our right as we believed we’d been told to do. We didn’t find a good site, but we did observe a couple of caribou browsing Shoal Arm Island at close range. Eventually we decided we would work our way to the south end of Louisa Island where I had marked a tentative camping spot, and where some kind of distant structure was visible. The structure turned out to be a duck blind, and there was indeed a good campsite just near it on a gravel bar. To get to it, we had to cross some narrow shoals up-current; fortunately someone had engineered a crude channel through the shoals just wide and deep enough to make it. If we had just hung out and waited for the water to rise, it would have been easier, although less fun. Our final night of camping was damp and rain-soaked. Jason put up his tarp for the only time on the trip we really needed it. The area was very wet and wild iris were growing nearby. The mosquitoes were incredibly fierce at this site; I woke up in the middle of the night and could hear hundreds of them droning in the space just outside my inner tent. I knew the trip was almost over, and for the first time in over a week, I felt officially Ready To Sleep In A Real Bed. Day 8: Louisa Island to Main Brook The north wind and rain finally began on this morning. As we exited our sheltered site between the islands, small wind waves began to percolate in from Hare Bay and the air became noticeably cooler. It was only a 3 nm paddle to the town of Main Brook where our vehicles would be waiting, so we didn’t give these conditions much of a thought. We paddled along the stretch of waterfront leading to Main Brook, on our way to Justin Boyd’s dock. A woman opened her front door, waved at us all, and said, “Hello!” in a friendly way. Perhaps our fame had preceded us, and we were now local kayaking celebrities. But people in Newfoundland are very noticeably warm, generous and kind, and I think this was another expression of that character. It is really a very striking contrast to the New England persona. At Justin’s dock, Lorrie and Janet undertook a victory roll (the only capsizes of the trip, and intentional at that). From here, there was a lengthy unpacking and changing episode, and finally a drive down the road to our next place of residence: Tuckamore Lodge. They had been able to fit us in a day early with a game of musical rooms. We did expect the basic comforts of civilization, but Tuckamore Lodge turned out to be so much more than that. Perhaps a little of it was the contrast with our rough living of the previous week, but it seemed to all of us like a fantasy of a plush hunting lodge: a huge log building, enormous kitchen and common room with cathedral ceilings and taxidermy everywhere, a heated drying room (!), and a very friendly and attentive staff. We couldn’t possibly have asked for more. Warm and dry at last: We were all so grateful to David for this piece of perfect planning. That afternoon we FaceTimed with David to catch up with him and to tell him how much we missed him on this trip. We all hope we’ll get to go to Newfoundland again with him. Tourist Day 1: L’Anse Aux Meadows The next day, we had what amounted to an extra day off the water so we drove north as far as possible to L’anse aux Meadows. This site lies at the northernmost tip of Newfoundland on the Strait of Belle Isle, facing Labrador. It is the only attested Pre-columbian Norse settlement in North America (not counting Greenland). A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it includes ruins and several reconstructed earthen buildings from the settlement. The site lays claim to being the unique place where the European branch of Homo sapiens encountered the Asian/North American branch, each having crossed a different ocean to reach this point. This place is very much worth visiting, even if (as was the case for us) it is windy, foggy and you can’t see more than a quarter mile. The museum and site are very informative and you really do get a sense of what it might have been like to be a Viking in this place 1,000 years ago. The boardwalk trails through arctic bogs are also great. My special treat this day was to work the bellows for an expert blacksmith who forged a nail from refined bog iron on the spot. (The iron ore was local to the site, although he explained that the hardwood charcoal he used was not.) He gave me the nail as a gift, but only after abusing me because I did such a bad job with the bellows. I'll just say... it's trickier than it looks. Tourist Day 2: The French Shore Interpretation Center On our penultimate day in Newfoundland, we drove back to the town of Conche to visit the French Shore Interpretation Center, a unique local museum curated by Joan Simmons of Conche. For us, this was one of the highlights of the entire trip, including the paddling. The Center has two main parts. One part is a conventional but very effective small museum, hosting a gallery of artifacts and explanatory posters presenting the history of the French Shore. The materials show the life of both the local people and the French through objects, text, maps and photographs. For us this helped us see the areas we had just visited through a different lens, understanding that today’s deserted French sites had hosted thriving seasonal fish factories only 150 years ago. The other part of the Center is a very unusual one-of-a-kind object: the French Shore Tapestry (http://www.frenchshoretapestry.com/en/intro.asp). This 216-foot-long tapestry winds through an entire room of the center; it was created by French and Newfoundland artisans working together, and visually narrates both the history and surroundings of the area, beginning (why not?) with the creation of the world and continuing up to almost the present day. Joan was one of the half-dozen or so local women who helped create it. The artwork itself is powerful enough, but Joan’s compelling narration of every panel and every story turned it into a different kind of art, a hybrid of visual and verbal storytelling. We learned so very much from this experience about the place and the people we had been visiting. I will never be able to forget this. Afterwards we visited the site of a post-WW II plane crash in Conche, an event that lives on in people's memories (as does the remains of the plane). Joan told us how she remembered the still-prominent furrows in the dirt in front of her school that had been made by the plane, and how the local fishermen were "always chopping at the plane" whenever they needed strips of metal to repair their boats. That's all for this trip report. Newfoundland is magical. I think I'm correct when I say that we all hope to go back someday.
  11. The Easternmost Coast If you drive southwest from New England on Interstate 95 and keep going down the East Coast, the weather gets warmer along the way, as does the ocean. The trees get bigger. After about 1,200 statute miles of driving, you reach the state of Florida, land of spring breakers and sunny subtropical recreation. Having arrived in Florida, you might order a cool refreshment from the beach bar. This is a story about what can happen when 5 people and their kayaks travel about 1,200 miles in the opposite direction, namely, northeast. If you do this, instead of arriving in Florida, you will find yourself on the wild Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, just south of Labrador. There, on one of the easternmost and least inhabited coastlines in North America, cool refreshments are already provided by nature in the form of icebergs. In this part of the world, a good time for spring break would be around the date of our trip: late June and early July. Lorrie Allen, Phil Allen, Jason Kates, Janet Lorang and myself set off from Westport, Maine on Sunday, June 25, 2023. Our goal was to arrive in North Sydney, Nova Scotia in time for the overnight ferry to Channel Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland. As we began ticking off the seemingly endless miles, and even more endless kilometers, I reflected on the odd path that brought us here. Birth Of The Trip The idea for the trip was born in late 2021. David Mercer has an actual family connection to Newfoundland. I have an imaginary connection, but have wanted to visit since I was little. David and I both very much wanted to see icebergs and wildlife and kayak camp in a truly remote area ruled by nature. We decided to begin figuring it out. We bought some books and guides—in fact, it turned out that few were available. The only kayaking guide to NL was long out of print and a bit thin on information for our preferred areas. Our thinking became more independent, with advice from people who lived there or who had paddled there. We would have to look at maps, pore over satellite images and take our best crack at a plan. John Carmody pointed us at a valuable book on Atlantic Canada weather, “Where The Wind Blows”. There are many distinct places in NL to paddle which are very different from each other. However, the icebergs suggested that we visit the northeastern region of NL, as the ice travels south from Greenland on the cold Labrador Current before turning left and beginning to melt and shrink. This choice still left many options open. Eventually we settled on a shuttle trip of some 70 nm, in a hilly and rocky area of the Northeast Coast between Englee and Main Brook, NL. This bulge of land has an interior road network allowing vehicles to travel only some 40 miles to support the much longer shuttle route. Further north at the tip of NL would have been an option, but the topography seemed flatter and less varied. We wound up with an 8 day shuttle: There were 3 tiny outports along the route reachable from the interior, but there was no coastal road: it would be remote enough. Most camping spots were either deserted ports or coastal wilderness. (Many small towns in Newfoundland have been shut down by the government in recent decades, with residents moving to larger population centers.) Being so far north, this area would have more plentiful icebergs. There were also two large offshore islands, the Grey Islands, which would buffer incoming swell and shorten the offshore wind fetch. In the summer, a large high pressure system hovers to the east of Newfoundland and the wind direction is generally southwest. So our paddling direction would be from south to north, with the land mostly to our west. The high landforms cause wind over the land to back to the left, so a southwest wind would give rise to “coastal divergence”: a band of calmer winds next to the coast. Conversely—we were warned about this by locals—northerly winds would converge and amplify next to the coast and yield “run and hide” conditions. A 19th Century Guide To Kayak Camping David and I were still a bit unsure about the best places to land and camp. Clearly there were miles of unprotected rocky shore with no safe landing zones, plus all-too-rare coves and harbors. At this point, David made the key discovery of a set of photographs of the coast, made by archaeologists studying the French Shore of Newfoundland. Despite Newfoundland’s status as a British Crown possession, the French had been fishing cod in this area since the early 1500s. In 1713 England enshrined French fishing rights in the Treaty of Utrecht, a sort of Great Powers grand bargain that ended a troublesome European war. The French kept on fishing there until the early 1900s (both supporting and angering the locals), when a different spate of bargaining led the French to trade away the fish for their African colonies. The French used a system of “fishing rooms” for processing and drying their catch, built on safe landing zones next to reliable sources of water. What David had found was, in effect, a kayak camping guide to the area, courtesy of 19th century French fishermen! I found a set of GPS coordinates in the appendix of an academic paper for the fishing rooms and water sources, and turned these into a layer of colored dots on our charts. (We used topographic rather than marine charts. Most of the water was deep, there were no navigation marks, and our wayfinding would be based largely on land contours.) We cross checked these sites with the coastal photos from the archaeologists, satellite imagery, and information from local people. It was clear that even if not every dot was reliable, nearly all of them corresponded to usable beaches, streams, and so on. Those French fishermen gave us a lot more confidence in our options. Crossing to “The Rock” With great sadness, we all missed David’s presence as we boarded the ferry. In the end, after all the planning and anticipation, he had been unable to join us. A couple of weeks before our departure, David came down with an entirely unexpected medical condition. Although he recovered the better part of his health very quickly, he and his medical team and his family realized that a long, arduous kayak camping trip in a remote area was not in the cards this time. The Marine Atlantic ferry to Newfoundland is a very well-run and comfortable affair indeed if you book an overnight cabin, and if the sailing is not canceled by bad weather. The beds are small but comfortable and the showers quite heavenly. Drive on the boat in the evening, sleep, get coffee, drive off the boat in the morning. And then, in our case, drive another full day to get from southwest NL to northeast NL. (Newfoundland has about the same land area as Tennessee and is similarly elongated.) We had some minor concern about one of us having just caught a cold, but there was little to be done about that. As our next bout of driving began, though, I got an unsettling text from my wife: she had just tested positive for Covid-19, and was feeling very sick. We had a new question to resolve: would I become too ill to continue the trip, and would I communicate Covid to the others? Janet had a couple of tests but we probably needed a few more, which we picked up along with fresh groceries in Corner Brook. (Spoiler: I never did test positive. I merely caught the same annoying cold that almost everyone else on the trip came down with. Perhaps one coronavirus canceled out the other one?) In the meantime, we continued driving to our Monday night destination, the Mayflower Inn, in Roddickton NL, a half-hour’s drive from our put-in in Englee. We passed through many different areas: high forested mountains, bays and fjords, windswept coastal plains, mountains again. The weather brightened and warmed; in one of the few notable insect incidents, blackflies attacked Janet at a random gas station in the middle of nowhere. The highway became a two-lane road, then became a two-lane road with potholes. Far from any house, locals’ fenced-off vegetable gardens appeared on the cleared roadside margins. Arriving in Roddickton in the late afternoon, we walked around the town before getting a meal at an excellent local diner called the Lumberjack. Roddickton is the self-declared “Moose Capital of the World”—and in fairness, we did see a big moose on the drive into town. Our home for the evening was the Mayflower Inn, a very clean and comfortable motel-style operation with some detached cabins. It was calm, warm and sunny; our hostess told us this was the first nice day they had seen since the beginning of June. A fox trotted in front of us as we walked. Day 1: Englee to Upper Chimney Cove Your Iceberg Is Waiting Our plan the next morning was to meet our shuttle drivers at 9:30 at the Barr’d Island Trailhead in Englee. The trailhead is (as the name suggests) a gravel bar connecting an island with the main land, so we could launch off either side based on conditions. Conditions seemed benign though. The forecast was for southwest winds, 10-20 knots. This forecast became something of a running joke on the trip because it was the predicted—and actual—wind on every single day of the trip, except the last. We all wondered how long it would be before we spotted our first ice chunk. But as we descended the steep hill into Englee, we caught a glimpse of the ocean with a large iceberg floating close to shore. And right at the put-in beach we could see two more icebergs floating in the entrance to Canada Bay just south of town. So, there would be no suspense: plenty of icebergs to go around for everyone! Our very friendly shuttle drivers turned up and we chatted with them as we packed 8+ days of supplies into our boats. This was perhaps one of the longest conversations so far with local people, and throughout the journey the warmth and generosity of Newfoundlanders was incredible. They all spent plenty of time on the water and gave us a number of observations and tips for the route ahead that were to prove very useful. We launched around 10 am into Englee Harbor and promptly rounded the point into our first northeasterly run down the coast. There was a light breeze, some small wind waves and blue skies. Uninterrupted rocks and cliffs were to our left, deep water under us, distant bergs to our right. No boats or houses were visible. The air temperature was about 60 F. The ocean, on the other hand, was somewhere in the neighborhood of 42-45 F. An SUV-sized “bergy bit” floated next to us. We were in the domain of the Labrador Current, which brings a stream of frigid water southwards from Greenland. Now that we were paddling in it, we could see that not only is this water very cold (it hurt to trail my hand in it), but it is very, very transparent and has an intense greenish blue jewel-like hue very different from our home waters. It is also less salty, and smells different. These nutrient-rich waters originally nourished the cod that is now gone from these shores. Offshore from us, we saw a lobster boat against the backdrop of the Grey Islands. At least, we were sure it was a lobster boat… until proximity revealed it to be an ice sculpture, faithfully imitating a lobster boat. The “ice boat” was to follow us for several days, visible from different perspectives as we paddled and it drifted. The End Of All This Around 1 pm, some 5 nm into our day, we arrived at our first reasonable stopping point: Boutitou. This name is a phonetic rendering of the French phrase “bout de tout”, roughly meaning “the end of all this”. (It is marked on the map as “Hilliers Harbour” but, in a naming dysfunction we saw repeated over and over again, local people use an entirely different set of place names. Search and rescue operations involving non-local personnel are plagued with miscommunications.) The obvious place to land was in front of two homes beside a running stream in a protected corner of the cove. One house featured a man working on the roof, alone. He didn’t return our greeting which at first we thought was a bad sign, but then he came down and conversed with us in a friendly way. He was trying to get the roof repair done for his brother on the first day of good weather for a very long time. This had been a potential Day 1 camping spot for us, but the human presence made us feel that we would be in the way, and the houses lent the place a slightly gloomy air. We ate our lunch on the rocks in front of the stream outlet, and moved on. On the way out, we actually found a much nicer and more private beach landing on the opposite side of the cove, to the right of a substantial waterfall pouring into the cove. South Upper Chimney Cove Going onwards, we began to see whales playing offshore from us. It was hard to see details but the occasional dorsal fin or tail was plainly visible. Our next planned camping spot would be opposite the tiny town of Conche, some 9 nm distant. We headed up there, hoping we might find something workable that was closer and more secluded. The uninterrupted cliffs and rock slopes continued to our left. After an hour, in search of a pee break, Phil led us on a 3/4 left turn into a small cove that looked as though it might just barely offer a sketchy landing. In truth, it was not sketchy at all: we saw a tiny protected pocket beach ahead, located past a rocky slot just wide enough for 2 kayaks. Above it, a little grassy meadow. Next to it, a somewhat flat area of boulders and small ponds interspersed with more grass. We had found our camping spot in Upper Chimney Cove, a place that did not look at all promising during the planning process, but which turned out to be perfect, and was there when we needed it. The sky shifted back and forth between blue and gray. It was breezy and cool. Bugs were not as bad as some of us had feared at this site. We ate our dinner together by the boats, hiked on the rocks and game trails, hung up our gear on boulders, and I stayed up to watch the offshore whale-and-iceberg show in the golden light. It was a lonely and atmospheric spot. True darkness was around 11:30 NDT (1.5 hours later than EDT). Way before it got dark, we hit our tents to sleep through our first night in the wild. Day 2: Upper Chimney Cove to Point Dos De Cheval The Tide Always Runs South In the morning, it was gray and cool and rainy. Our miracle slot looked less miraculous in the falling tide, with low due at 8:30 am. The slot was blocked by a wide chunk of ledge. But there was just enough leeway to work boats around it one at a time, staying careful of the drain and flood from swells, and get in from a shallow spot on the other side. The tidal range in this area is tiny by comparison with home: somewhere between 3 and 5 feet. But big enough to make a difference in landing or launching mechanics. Tidal currents were usually not much of an issue here, but the oceanic Labrador Current does have a pronounced effect as it runs continuously in a southward direction, somewhere between 0.5 and 1 knots. Although the sun and the moon have nothing to do with it, the local fishermen refer to this ocean current as "tide", saying, “The tide always runs south here”. More Whales, Bigger Ice Cubes We moved on to Chimney Cove, the next cove north, where the largest iceberg we had seen so far nestled in the southwest corner. We circled it, some warily, others seeming unconcerned. (Later our concern was to increase, after a berg decided to grace us with an interactive safety lecture.) The colors, shape and texture were stunning, the blue shades much more brilliant than we expected. The weather steadily improved as we went. This was a common theme on the trip: mornings were often socked in, with clearer weather coming in the afternoon, if it came at all. We were approaching Conche Harbor. Originally our plan had been to visit the town by kayak and change into regular clothing to visit its local museum, but the group amended it in favor of visiting by car later on in the trip. Instead, we would visit the enormous tabular berg on the other side of the harbor, a rectangular monster the size of multiple city blocks with vertical faces of 50 feet or more. (Scale was hard to grasp without approaching closely, something we declined to do.) Whales were also playing near this berg, with some humpbacks displaying their tails against the backdrop of the ice face. As the group watched the show, I scoped out a lunch beach with its own private sea stack. We landed on the beach for a scenic lunch, looking out at spouting whales and the huge berg. The town of Conche lay concealed by a headland, just to our north. Off to one side of the berg was a field of smaller ice chunks, no doubt ones which had fallen off from the main berg. Jason pointed out that they were audibly fizzing as they released tiny air bubbles, frozen into the glacial ice tens of thousands of years ago under immense pressure. Carboniferous Conche Proceeding from the berg, we rounded Cape Fox to enter a completely different world altogether: the world of the Conche Peninsula. Together with the Cape Rouge Peninsula just to its north, it consists of younger, reddish sedimentary rocks from the Carboniferous era, their layers canted at a strange angle and eroded into many fantastic high headlands, caves and dramatic pocket beaches. This landscape is totally unlike the much older gray Precambrian rocks on the main shore of Newfoundland, which seem to be much more resistant to erosion. These sedimentary rocks are apparently related to those of Appalachia; indeed, there are coal seams and oil seeps in them, and the nearby Long Range Mountains are essentially an extension of the Appalachian Range. This area was a visual and paddling feast. Some of us went into one of the most spectacular sea caves to check it out. It was calm and protected inside, with aquamarine jewel-water around us and a clear view of the bottom. Psychedelic buttresses and towers loomed nearby. This one had a skylight-type feature at the rear of the cave which on the headland appears as an opening in the ground, locally referred to as a “glass hole” because one can see the ocean through it from above. To us, it was a window into the sky above. We passed an enormous roosting cliff of what Phil said were kittiwakes. I hoped the cape would go on forever, but after an hour of paddling and gawking and a pee stop, we rounded the north side of it. The rock fantasia was replaced by hills sloping down to a pebbly beach: an old French fishing room, Point Dos de Cheval. The air suddenly became warm and moist as a strong southwest land breeze hit us. After fighting our way upwind briefly, we attained our next campsite. The archaeological record showed water nearby, and we found it after a short hike along the shore. We had been advised that we would not lack for water, and indeed we found usable streams near almost every site we camped at (with water treatment still highly advisable). Many of the streams were brown with tannins. We lounged and rested on the beach. Most of us camped just above the strand line; the upland meadows were overgrown with stinging nettles in places. There was a continuing interplay at this site between freaky hot and cold winds that kept changing moment by moment. Odd refraction effects played over the waters of Crouse Harbor, named as a corruption of “Cap Rouge”. Houses in nearby Northwest Crouse, a deserted outport, were visible across the harbor. That area is inhabited now by local people using the homes as vacation camps, but we opted to maintain our solitude and remain on the point. Late in the day the wind died to nothing on the point, but we could see wind waves further out. Day 3: Point Dos De Cheval to Kearney Cove The Drinking Elephant Thursday morning was like many of our mornings in NL: patchy fog, patchy clouds, even more patchy sunlight. These always made for a fascinating interplay while drinking morning coffee. This morning, the swift motion of the fog made it clear that our southwest breeze would be somewhat stronger today. The exit from our harbor was alternating between clear visibility and total obscurity. Once packed up, we headed out around the southern tip of the next peninsula, Cape Rouge. The fog blanketed many of the cliffs and features and we could see only a short distance ahead much of the time. As we rounded this point, the water roughened considerably into something like a tide race; I thought this might be wind wave energy encountering the opposing Labrador Current. Once around the point, the wind dropped. We had a brief glimpse of a couple of large icebergs near the dramatic northern tip of the peninsula, Pyramid Point a couple of miles ahead. Then fog moved in and our view ended. We moved along the cliffs in a white shroud. Finally, a substantial mid-sized iceberg emerged in front of us, preceded by a glow of bluish fog as if lit from within. It merited a circuit or two. Passing Pyramid Point, we saw another berg just outside Pilier Bay. This time, biological imperatives spoke louder than the icebergs, and we turned in towards a French fishing site marked on our charts which looked like the best bathroom break available for some miles: a protected beach with a stream to replenish our dwindling water supplies. On the way, we briefly explored another amazing sea cave, this one notable for its showers of dripping fresh water and an enormous trunk-like pillar dropping into the sea from a narrow arch of land. Later, we heard that local people refer to this feature as “The Drinking Elephant”. The bathroom break turned out to be one of the most scenic places we had stopped yet, a narrow meadow topped by a waterfall and bracketed by dramatic cliffs, overlooking Pilier Bay and completely protected from the wind. It was declared an immediate lunch-spot success and we broke out the food. If we had needed to camp, it would have been perfect for that, too. Like many of the nicest sites, it was almost invisible from a distance, partly concealed behind a zigzags in the coastline. Windy Point Proceeding north, we decided to cross Pilier Bay rather than stick by the coast, since we saw that without our protected location the southwest wind was whipping across our path, stirring up some nice rollers. We preferred to have those mostly behind us, instead of hitting our bows and beams. Our next stop was planned to be in Croque Harbor, another 6 miles up the coast. To get to that campsite, we would likely have to cut across some more wind-blown water at a place named, appropriately enough, Windy Point. So we kept going up the coast. The conditions continued to increase as we crossed the last cove before Croque, with rollers coming in from the southwest on our stern quarter. They were not immediately dangerous but they suggested the entrance to the harbor on the other side of Windy Point might be a really wild place. After a brief group conference we decided to continue to the point and see what the deal actually was. To our surprise, conditions at the harbor entrance were not at all bad. We could see the area of our destination, Kearney Cove, across water that had some whitecaps but did not look overly fierce. At any rate it made sense to us to keep going up the harbor towards our campsite and deal tactically with whatever we might encounter. What we encountered was only slightly worse than what we’d already seen, and when the campsite suddenly revealed itself around a corner, it was a beauty: a lush, green, flat meadow clear of trees or brush, bracketed by rocky hills. It became actually hot and sunny: blackflies, for the first time on our trip, came out to greet and bite. We pulled out our bug nets for the first time. Janet made some margaritas using ice harvested from a berg. Sweet! Hiking around the heathery hills later, Janet and I sighted an enormous iceberg offshore. Whales were visible out there, spouting and flipping their tails. I found a set of caribou antlers. But no caribou. Yet. Day 4: Kearney Cove to Great St. Julien Harbor Carvings From Long Ago In the morning it was cloudy as usual and cooler, although blackflies still tried to bite us in spots. Another exercise in walking the boats out through low tide rocks awaited us. And my caribou antlers were gone, nowhere to be seen: an abiding unsolved mystery of the trip. Our plan for the day was to paddle to a substantial harbor further up the coast, St. Julien, where we might consolidate our excellent progress by taking a day off and camping for two successive nights in the same spot. But first we wanted to head further into Croque Harbor, to view a set of French rock graffiti left by fishermen in the late 1800s. Along the way we spotted an iceberg of medium size. This time, the group stopped for an brief impromptu discussion of safe paddling around icebergs. Opinions differed on the danger level of unstable icebergs. Some felt it was possible to tell by looking whether the iceberg was top-heavy and liable to roll. I had my doubts about this. But before I could voice those doubts, the iceberg itself spoke directly on the subject. With a roar, a house-size volume of ice cracked off of one end of the berg and plunged into the water, immediately disintegrating into living-room and grand-piano sized chunks plus many smaller pieces. It seems that nature had wanted to get in on the discussion. The carvings were faded and obscure, but atmospheric. We could make out the names of ships: Pomone, Roland: Names of boats and dates, and little else that we could see. In the backdrop, the now-deserted town of Croque was visible. We wanted to cover miles and did not investigate the town; we would be headed to a different abandoned outport later in the trip. North to St. Julien Harbor Between Croque and St. Julien the Newfoundland coastline changes character. The Grey Islands which had hovered offshore throughout our trip were now south of us, and our departure from their swell shadow gave us much more of a rhythmic up-and-down as we progressed. Paddling along the cliffs yielded enjoyable moments of harvesting the wave energy and gaining an extra speed spurt. The cliffs themselves became beautifully colored in hues of purple, green and red, contrasting with the intense blue-green of the water. Some interesting rock slots presented themselves; they would have been more enjoyable in unloaded boats. An impact here could torch the remainder of the trip. Finally, after navigating some interesting shoals in the incoming swell, we arrived on the shore of St. Julien Island. We ate lunch in the first heavy, solid rain of the trip. It was not entirely pleasant and our surroundings felt a bit forbidding. We surveyed our situation just outside a trio of finger-like harbors. Progressing from south to north these comprised Great St. Julien, Little St. Julien and Grandois Harbors. The last of these had a mostly deserted outport, while the former two had been among the most active French fishing sites on this stretch of coast. We had a key tip from our shuttle drivers: in Great St. Julien Harbor, there was a disused hut that we could roost in if we needed shelter. We didn’t know where it was, but we figured it couldn’t be that hard to find. We set off for the “harbor”, which is actually a calm, narrow tidal estuary that looks like a river. After a couple of false starts on beaches featuring either imaginary buildings (it was, admittedly, foggy) or overturned buildings (it must have been stormy at some point), we found a real, actual building: a small red one-story hut on stilts in reasonably sound condition. Landing at a nearby beach, Lorrie took a quick look. With the minor caveat of the door not being actually attached to its hinges and falling off when removed, the interior was fairly clean and dry with benches around the perimeter of the hut. An ordinary picnic table was the sole piece of furniture. The game was on. As the rain intensified, so did our gratitude to this hut. We did not camp in it, but in the heavy weather it came at exactly the right moment. We looked forward to a day of rest and shelter, especially since four out of our group of five were suffering in common from our common cold. Click to continue to Part 2 of this trip report...
  12. Now that the waitlist opened up I’m joining Jim’s trip after all so please disregard above.
  13. It’s very exposed even if you get permission, might be unpleasant to stay there
  14. I just went to a West marine and bought the closest gauge to what I already had (bringing a sample with me). It worked fine. But I don’t have a Nordkapp. 6mm is not really much smaller than 1/4”. If that thickness doesn’t work out, Maybe measure the thickness of the existing cord as best you can and look for something online.
  15. People: Joe Berkovitz (organizer), Devon Winkler, Sue Hriciga, Fred Goodman, Britta Magnsuon, Ben Rechel, Ricardo Caivano Distance: 7.5 nautical miles View Floating Trails chart We launched just after high water from Lanes Cove a little after 10 am. The fog from earlier in the morning was starting to lift and it looked like in spite of the predicted gloomy skies we would have a brighter day. Our beach discussion evolved a plan to head around Halibut Point to the east side and see how the wind change was setting up, then proceed as far as we liked, probably doubling back to lunch at Annisquam Light. On the west side of Cape Ann in Ipswich Bay, it was very calm with almost no swell or wind. Rounding Halibut Point, though, the easterly breeze picked up and we could feel the beginning of what was likely to be a choppy afternoon. So after a brief snack on the water we headed back around into the lee, reaching Annisquam Light around 12:30. The tide level was perfect for landing on the fine sand beach there, and we chatted and lounged on the rocks next to the lighthouse, enjoying the view of Ipswich Bay. Eventually we returned to Lanes Cove where we landed and packed up. (Reminder for future groups: please use the ramp to reach the parking lot rather than cutting through the private beach behind the house 32 Andrews St. There is no marked boundary and there are no signs telling you not to, it's just a considerate thing to do and the owners appreciate it.) In the lot we were treated to an interview with Ben's parrot Parry (or Perry): The interview was a bit one-sided as the parrot did not have much to say, but his face was very expressive as you can see. Thanks everyone who came on this trip! It was a lovely lunch paddle on a perfect day.
  16. This week's WLP is on Wednesday June 14. We're going to launch from Lanes Cove in Gloucester. (Google maps link: https://goo.gl/maps/MzJfE2KFieVsYJ2w7). Park in the small lot at the end of Andrews Street. There is no fee. The trip will be limited to 6 cars or fewer to avoid parking problems. Let's meet up at 9:30 am with an aim to depart around 10:00 am. The NOAA weather forecast is: SW wind 5 to 8 kt becoming SSE 8 to 11 kt in the afternoon. A chance of showers, mainly after 2pm. Seas around 2 ft. Air temp 55-60 F. Register with this form: https://forms.gle/tD156HCVd21GnbN98 You can get tide information, charts and weather forecasts for the area from Floating Trails: The tide will be falling all day from a high around 9 am. As always, WLP trips are flexible and tailored to meet the interests and abilities of the group on any given day. Given the wind change we could ride the wind and ebb around Halibut Point to Rockport for a post-lunch tailwind back to Halibut. Or stay on the west side of Cape Ann, check out the lighthouse, and see if the ebb is doing anything at the mouth of the Annisquam. 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
  17. It's not a big deal, it just requires the organizer to get there first and be a traffic cop. Send people up to the lot to wait if the loading area is busy, otherwise let them use it. People who just unloaded can tell others to come down when they go up to park. Usually arrivals are spaced out and it's not a problem, you don't need to send everyone up (and I think the access road to the lot isn't wide enough let people wait there). Even sizable groups can work well because of the plentiful parking, as long as kayaks are staged and loaded on the areas above and to either side of the ramp (not ON the ramp), and launched in smaller groups to avoid tying up the ramp. There is some extra time of course to do all this management but when you compare to other spots, not so bad. However in some conditions (e.g. easterly wind) there is no protected water in the whole area so I think a plan B location is a good idea.
  18. load/unload right near the ramp, the lot is a difficult carry from the ramp. This needs to be carefully managed so paddlers do not linger in the ramp area, or park in the area used for trailers to position their vehicles. Just get the boats off and on quickly with no packing or unpacking while parked at the ramp.
  19. The parking fee was $12 as per my experience earlier this year.
  20. This week's WLP (the first calendared one of the 2023 season!) is on Wednesday June 7 and will launch from Fishermans Beach in Swampscott (Google maps link: https://goo.gl/maps/R4H1vQGarFPnGGBh7). Parking is free. The trip will be limited to 8 or so in order to avoid parking impact. Let's meet up at 9:00 am with an aim to depart around 9:30 am. We will be off the water by 2 pm latest. The weather forecast is for partly sunny/overcast, showers possible, highs in 60s, calm seas, winds W at 10 knots. Here's the registration link: https://forms.gle/ZkA5htEzERhas5pc9 You can get tide information, charts and weather forecasts for the area from this Floating Trails map. I have marked a couple of possible routes and lunch stops on this chart. Tides for Lynn Harbor on Wednesday are as follows: Time (EDT) Type Feet 01:57 am high 11.11 08:28 am low -0.98 09:00 am -0.75 02:46 pm high 9.29 08:40 pm low 0.51 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. For this trip a helmet is recommended also. 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
  21. Details will be posted here the preceding Sunday or Monday when forecasts become reliable. At that time specific information about the trip will be also added to the Trips Forum. That message thread can also be used for questions and conversation about the particular trip. Even though we don't know where this will occur, here is a description of a typical Wednesday Lunch paddle: Open to all skill levels: the trip is adjusted to fit the attendees Meet at launch location at 9:30. On the water and paddling at 10:00am. 1.5-2 hours of paddling to some location 1 hour of food, conversation, and relaxation 1.5-2 hours of paddling to return to launch Return around 3:00. These paddles are appropriate for independent paddlers with some ocean experience, so this is not an ideal choice if it's your first time paddling on salt water. The Wednesday paddles are cooperative adventures, not guided trips—however, we strive to share useful knowledge and tips as we go, and we try to adjust each trip to the desires and abilities of the group. 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.
  22. This trip is now posted with details and a registration link at: https://www.nspn.org/forum/topic/14748-wed-lunch-paddle-672023-fishermans-beach-swampscott/ Do not try to use the RSVP feature to respond; please use the form in the above-referenced post to register. Thanks! Here is a description of a typical Wednesday Lunch paddle: Open to all skill levels: the trip is adjusted to fit the attendees Meet at launch location at 9:30. On the water and paddling at 10:00am. 1.5-2 hours of paddling to some location 1 hour of food, conversation, and relaxation 1.5-2 hours of paddling to return to launch Return around 3:00. These paddles are appropriate for independent paddlers with some ocean experience, so this is not an ideal choice if it's your first time paddling on salt water. The Wednesday paddles are cooperative adventures, not guided trips—however, we strive to share useful knowledge and tips as we go, and we try to adjust each trip to the desires and abilities of the group. 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.
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