A little Annisquam romp on 4/17/05

[Kevin B (RPS Coach)]

Rick, Janis, Christopher and I met behind Gloucester High around noontime and put in soon thereafter. From there we followed the Annisquam River out towards the bay, with Christopher offering greetings to everyone we passed along the way. He even had a request by a couple of gentlemen to perform a roll for them, which at the time reminded me of the childhood tradition of making a fist while pumping it in the air as a signal to semi tractor trailer drivers to blow their horns. Overall, the trip out to the entrance of the bay was calm. We took note of the three rocks painted to look like a family of frogs and the odd, apparently uninhabited shack placed on the mud flats at low tide.

We continued towards the mouth of the river with a slight detour to Goose Cove to see the fast water under the bridge, where Rick and Christopher played in the rough for a few minutes. Janis was a little braver than yours truly as we both paddled into the rapids, but she went much further than I dared. A further paddle brought us to the small beach to the right of the Annisquam Lighthouse for a relaxing lunch on the rocks.

After the brief respite for lunch, we headed straight to the surf zone off of Coffin’s Beach for a little fun. I had my first taste of consistent wave action of the 1 to 3 ft size with an occasional 4ft wave thrown in. Adding to the excitement was the fact that the waves were coming at us from two directions. Soon after we arrived, a wave sideswiped Janis throwing her underwater. After a quick check everything seemed to be ok and we continued in the surf. All in all the surfing went well with Rick and Christopher putting on quite a little demonstration. Since this had been my first exposure to surfing, capsizing was inevitable and one wave did finally decide that I looked better out of my boat. After Christopher retrieved my kayak (I managed to hold on to my paddle!) and performed a t-rescue, I came to the conclusion that I liked the traditional position of kayaker sitting inside the kayak. After some more time surfing, we decided to head back.

We rode the tide back to the put-in, only experiencing minor traffic along the way. Once back, we did get to see a couple of armed coasties performing safety inspections on boats, with a few inconvenienced boat owners/passengers offering their opinions on the matter. Given that we started the day with a coastie jet passing overhead, it appears we began and ended the trip in the presence of the Coast Guard—very circular and very Irish. Overall, a good relaxing trip of 7-8NM.