Eagle Island hop

[JohnHuth]

 

Saturday, April 9th - 

Like other people, a nearly-first season rust-buster - see how the gear holds up kind of trip.   My friend, Dan Carr, and I launched from the Dolphin Marina in Harpswell, around 11:30 AM.   There were big tides on account of the new moon.    Water temperature was 40 degrees, some SE swell from the Gulf of Maine, air temp between 40 and 45, winds variable from 0 to 15 kts.   

We were originally thinking of paddling out to Jewell, which is farther out.   Eagle Island is the site of Admiral Peary's house, one of the big heroes of Bodwin College in Brunswick, ME.   We started out with the tide flooding, which was against us, but not too strong.   Rounding Upper Flag was pretty tame, but after passing from Flag, the swell was up from the SE - not a big deal, but made landing on Eagle interesting.    We walked around on Eagle, looked at Peary's house, which was boarded up.   High tide was supposed to be around 1:30 and our beach was rapidly disappearing.   We decided to launch again and toodle around the harbors near Harpswell, just to get more shelter.   There was nothing terribly eventful, but the wind began to pick up, and even though we were mostly dry, we got cooled off (I hesitate to use the word 'chill') in our drysuits.    I suppose the most interesting part was that we had a fair NW wind (maybe 10-15 kt) approaching the Dolphin Marina, and then, within maybe 15 minutes, it shifted to SE.  

Overall, 10 miles, about three hours.   Again nothing super amazing, but just nice to get out, and the bit of work into the wind and the bumpy conditions made that beer taste good at the end of the day. 

 

    

Eagle, looking back toward Harpswell. 

 

Peary's house, boarded up. 

[Inverseyourself]

What a glorious paddling day, judging from the photos!

 

I take it, since his house was still boarded up, Admiral Peary was still in Florida to await consistently warm weather in Maine?

[JohnHuth]

 

I looked it up - the house is open June 15 through Labor Day.    An interesting day's paddle might be to Eagle and Jewell, where there are WWII gun emplacements.  

 

I hear that part of the passage from Eagle to Jewell can get standing waves from the tidal flow in and out of outer Casco Bay.  

[PeterB]

The passage from Eagle to Jewell runs by or through  Brown Cow ledges, just north of Jewell, which can be a very active place if big swell is coming in from the south or east. On some days, its  best to give Brown Cow ledges a wide birth, on other days, they are interesting to explore along the way.