Exploring the Sheepscot River - A Trip Planner Perspective.

[...]

This past weekend I had the privilege of joining Pru on a camping trip to explore the Sheepscot River. As the designated trip planner, work began two weeks earlier.

Here is where my conversation is aimed toward those of us who derive great joy in the planning and execution of kayak camping trips. Being new to this passion, I am always questioning whether or not the plan could be better. It is the concept of not knowing what I do not know. In spite of my lack of formal training, I proceeded on planning my ninth camping trip of the 2012 season.

For me a well planned and executed camping trip must have three components.

• All members of the paddling team must have a safe and enjoyable journey.
• The trip should involve some new places to explore.
• There needs to be some complexity to the plan involving considerations for wind speed and direction, knowledge of tides and currents, wave and swell height and period, time and distance for the journey, etc.

I use four guide books for planning each trip, but find “Kayaking the Maine Coast” by Dorcas Miller and the MITA Guide book to be my favorites. Once underway, I use three apps for my iPhone, but find Marine Weather Plus by Bluefin Engineering to be my favorite.

Now back to the story. Friday morning Pru and I met at 7:45AM at the Robinhood Marine Center in Georgetown, Maine. This was a new launch site for both of us and we met the Director of the Center to determine the best place for launching. He was a large pleasant man with a knowing smile who directed us to the site and cautioned us regarding the mud. It was almost low tide and we could see a large expanse of mud. After gracefully loading our kayaks we accomplish a successful launch but I made a mental note that this was a tide dependant launch site and it would help to have a love for mud.

Our successful launch had placed us in Goose Rock Passage at slack tide as planned, so we paddle with no effort and crossed the Sheepscot. Here we began exploring three, new to us, MITA islands in an effort to find our camp site. We found a gem of an island which had all our required characteristics. Those characteristics include an easy landing and launching beach in all tides with no mud and an easy place to store away the kayaks over night. Multiple tent sites with protection from the wind and separated enough to allow a quiet night sleep. Also no mosquitoes! With our camp site identified, we set out on our day paddle to circumnavigate Barter’s Island. The weather and paddling conditions were next to perfect and I could sense Mother Nature looking down fondly upon us. What I did not realize at the time was that she was looking down fondly at Pru. It was not until late afternoon that she realized who Pru was paddling with. She remembered me as the guy on the Sebascodegan Island trip and how I was on her S**t List.

At approximately 4:30PM, fog entered the Sheepscot and continued to thicken as the evening hours passed. Although we had a most enjoyable dinner, I had a feeling that Mother Nature had a treat in store for us tomorrow. At several points during the night and early morning hours, I began collecting weather information. The NOAA weather forecast for Friday night, Saturday and Saturday night which had been posted that morning had changed dramatically. As of Friday night at 9:00PM, we had a forecast for thick fog until 9:00AM Saturday morning. As of 6:00AM Saturday morning the fog was gone and the forecast was changed to a small craft advisory with a S to SW wind to increase dramatically during the morning hours with wind gusts to 30 kts. This was a technique used by Mother Nature that was all too familiar to me. From 6:00AM until 7:30AM I watched the Sheepscot and the increasing wind. The effect was quite dramatic. I could sense Mother Nature saying “Game On” but I was in no mood for a Tough Mudder course that day.

Now before the trip had begun, we had a “drop dead” time to be on the road heading home of 9:30AM Sunday morning. Anytime I am planning a sea kayaking trip I try to avoid firm timetables since they send up cautionary warning signals in my mind and remind me that the term “drop dead” was crafted for a reason.

For a trip planner I believe you need a passion for analyzing weather data and the effect on the sea state as well as an ability to alter the plan and adapt it to a rapidly changing weather pattern. So as soon as we finished breakfast we launch from our camp site and set course for Knubble Bay. The decision to launch right after breakfast at 9:00AM was crafted to take advantage of slack tide through Goose Rock Passage. Now Mother Nature knew we could not completely escape her 15 knot winds from the south as we paddled to Knubble Bay, but we did locate some protection. Once arriving in Knubble Bay we explored two areas that were new to Pru and had a grand time in spite of the weather. We did decide to end our trip on Saturday afternoon rather than spend another night and leave early Sunday morning.

On the drive home, I could see myself adding a note to my trip journal stating “Warren- 2, Mother Nature-0”! But I also heard Mother Nature chuckle and whisper “ Warren, find yourself a trip planning mentor and continue your learning for I will be back when you least expect me, you have been warned.”

Warren

[kate]

The muddy start does sound unfortunate. Seems to me, though, that you work very well with Mother Nature. She changes her mind, you change your itinerary. And you find something to enjoy while making that change. Win-win, as far as I can tell. I say "well-played", Warren. (I do wish there were more photos of your trips, for those of us who are at least as much visual as literary.)

Kate

[prudenceb]

Warren and I had a bare-knuckle fight to decide who would be able to write the trip report...and he won!

Nice report from a different perspective than my usual. It was interesting to see Warren thinking about trip planning and to talk with him about that, and I am glad he's been able to put down some of his thoughts, and how we put them into action on this one specific trip. For various reasons, only some of which had to do with the Weather Gods and their specific animosity toward Warren, this was a trip that demanded flexibility. We were planning to be out until Sunday. We were off the water Saturday afternoon. We planned to camp on one island (a rather cold and discouraging venue bare of trees and covered with almost impenetrable brush, with a fire ring and half-burned corn cobs and other garbage nearby), but ended up camping on another - which featured the easiest take out at high tide I've ever experienced (needing to walk the boats perhaps five feet to a grassy area out of reach of the tide) and a cozy woodsy area, a soft and grassy tent site for me, and picnic tables to add that extra civilized touch that is occasionally nice in the Great Outdoors. When the fog came in on Friday afternoon, and the view around us constricted to our island, and what turned out to be a brief and inconsequential rain started, I was very happy not to be on the exposed nasty campsite that we almost settled for. And the Weather Gods did shine down one more time. Despite numerous forecasts for deep fog on Saturday morning, and rain, we got up to a day of milky sun and calm conditions - which, as Warren noted, did not last for long. As we slogged through it to get to Knubble Bay, I was acutely aware: This is not fun! Slog slog slog. But we turned the corner to the bay and were mostly protected from the wind all the way to Beal Island and on the return until we crossed over the knubble (the connecting little beach on which we had planned to stretch our legs now underwater) for the final slog back to our launch spot.

Left out of Warren's report: the truth about the mud-launch, which might have been graceful on his part but was not on mine, and I have the now-dried muddy dry bags to show for it!

Also: the gun shots we heard, and the smoke rising from a fire on shore (two trips in a row seeing fires - what's up with that?!), and the first not-juvenile-but-not-adult loon I've ever seen. So clearly moving toward adult coloration, but not yet there.

A lovely trip - as always - with a wonderful trip planner!

pru

[...]

Pru,

Thank you for your kind words and for permitting me the time and space to plan and execute these journeys. I do tend to get caught up in the trip execution and can loose sight of the beauty in our surroundings. You capture those images more clearly and they come back to me as I read your reports.

In reading your observations I would like to add one more. I was surprised by how many boats we saw on the Sheepscot. I guess I had hoped it would be quieter like Muscongus Bay was last May. Perhaps I am beginning to crave trips that are a little more removed from civilization?

Kate,

Your words of encouragement meant a lot to me. Thank you! By the way the nautical charts for the West Isles in the Bay of Fundy have arrived and my planning has begun. As I reread your trip report from Sept. 2010, I felt the need to paddle those waters. Also, the nautical charts for the Bay of Exploits, Newfoundland will arrive later this week. It will be a great winter for this trip planner!

Warren

[EEL]

As of 6:00AM Saturday morning the fog was gone and the forecast was changed to a small craft advisory with a S to SW wind to increase dramatically during the morning hours with wind gusts to 30 kts. ... From 6:00AM until 7:30AM I watched the Sheepscot and the increasing wind. The effect was quite dramatic.

Watched a similar development on Penobscot Bay Saturday. Never a good sign when its blowing early. Heard the decks of the day sailing schooners out of Camden which ventured out in the afternoon were slick if not covered with you know what. Supposedly some honest 8'ers rolled through and 5'ers routine.

Ed Lawson

Who watched from shore

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Attached is a superb photograph taken by Pru at approximately 4:30PM on Friday, October 5, 2012 in the Sheepscot River. Although the photograph appears to be a black and white image, it is not. If you look carefully in the foreground, you will see intact bubbles. At that moment in time there was a complete absence of wind. You may also notice the arrival of fog as it moves slowly up the Sheepscot.

I remember that moment as the first time I noticed the fog and thinking how the morning forecast made no mention of fog that evening. At the time I thought I must have missed something or perhaps the forecast had changed.

Warren

[gyork]

.... I noticed the fog and thinking how the morning forecast made no mention of fog....

Warren

I suspect it is very difficult to forecast fog-seems to come and go as she pleases along the ME coast. Good opportunity to practice nav skills, including dead reckoning, securite calls, etc.

[kate]

Attached is a superb photograph taken by Pru at approximately 4:30PM on Friday, October 5, 2012 in the Sheepscot River. Although the photograph appears to be a black and white image, it is not. If you look carefully in the foreground, you will see intact bubbles. At that moment in time there was a complete absence of wind. You may also notice the arrival of fog as it moves slowly up the Sheepscot.

I remember that moment as the first time I noticed the fog and thinking how the morning forecast made no mention of fog that evening. At the time I thought I must have missed something or perhaps the forecast had changed.

Warren

thank you!

(and it sounds like your 2013 summer will be an exciting one!)

[nancysan]

Very interesting report and love the picture!