prudenceb

Vivid report of what I know from being a bit farther north was a lovely day on the water. I look forward to seeing "Robert's Happy Place" on a future trip! pru

Wish I could be there but other venues call this wknd! It is a beautiful stretch of coastline you'll be paddling for sure... pru

I completely agree. That's why I said that we work on practicing staying together in side by side formation- even when traffic is "phantom." That way, presumably we do a better job when there is actually traffic to dodge. pru ps - and please let me never be in the vicinity of darien, ct on a busy summer wknd!!

Eddy hopping works as long as you don't run into too much of a current running against you from one eddy to the next. I was on a Piscataqua training with Greg Paquin and others last year. We were eddy hopping successfully, until we reached a point that I just could not get around to get to the next eddy. I was paddling in place at my max pace. I would have been happy in that circumstance to take a tow from Leon. As it was, some of those (guys) who had made it around the little point ended up pulling me and the other woman on the trip whom I shall not identify around that corner. So my question is, what do you if you can't make it to the next eddy and Leon isn't there?? pru

We've practiced group line crossings on our various trips, including New to Kayak Camping weekends. Even when the channel and boat traffic are more or less phantom, it's an interesting thing to practice. We've been successful in keeping people more or less in a side by side line. Herding cats is a learned skill like anything else. But everyone has to buy in to practicing it - not always easy! pru

Thanks for your nice words, Kate -- we didn't see any solo paddlers off in the distance, so we didn't see you! As for your disappeared report... I have found that this site can be temperamental. I generally write trip reports as a word document, then copy and paste it onto this site. I learned my lesson after mid-way through some reports, they...disappeared... That way I don't lose it. ...I just read your report on the link. You were clearly farther south than we were. I enjoyed the part about the Cousins Island launch. Many times during our two days I repeated how happy I was that we hadn't launched from Cousins. The thought of hauling boat and gear up that hill...in the heat... Ugh! It had almost killed me three weeks before when although it was not as hot, it was still toasty, and we were wearing dry suits! Save Cousins launches for the shoulder seasons, or for when you have brought along your bevvy of porters and other servants... pru

I feel very fortunate indeed to be able to do so! pru

Trying to Beat the Heat On Casco Bay, July 6-7, 2013 Long story short: we mostly succeeded in doing so. It had been such a wretched week in the weather department - as any NSPN member who doesn't live in Alaska or on Mars knows - that I felt positively ebullient getting into my car and pointing it north early on Saturday morning. Warren had proposed a rather last-minute trip, and he, Dave and I met up at South Winslow Park - where we happily discovered that our "maturity" meant that we could park for free - for a 9:30 launch out into the mid Casco Bay region. Our initial plan had been to camp on Whaleboat, a Maine Coastal Heritage Trust island that has become one of my favorites. Its great beauty is its large and treeless central meadow. But the heat had us reconsidering. Would a couple of tarps provide enough shade so that we wouldn't fry? We considered other options and decided we'd just get out there and then figure out where to pitch our tents for the night, hoping that there would be room somewhere given that it was the midst of the long Fourth of July weekend. We worked up a sweat just loading up the boats, but discovered that the instant we were on the water, we felt very comfortable. After the long spring season of paddling in a drysuit or wetsuit, it felt nice to be in short sleeves and shorts. The weather forecast was for basically…no weather…other than heat and humidity. The air would be still, the sea flat. But our forward motion created a breeze, and sitting on a vast 60 degree surface made all the difference. It was easy and quiet paddling. The water looked almost viscous in the way that a quiet ocean interrupted only occasionally by swells of a passing boat wake can. On the surface we could see the sky and clouds reflected in shifting lava lamp blobs, and looking over at the paddler next to us, an upside down image similarly distorted. Here it was the Fourth of July weekend and there actually wasn't much boat traffic. Still, we stayed close together in a line as we crossed island to island. Launch to Moshier. Moshier to French. French to Little Whaleboat. Although the whole bay spread out, all the islands visible, we practiced navigation, consistent with our plan to make this a weekend of working on skills. John Carmody's lessons had finally stuck for all of us, and there was nary a Navi-Aid in sight. Compasses and charts only. Using our collective brain, we also worked on back bearings and at least talked through triangulation as a way to ascertain where we were. I was a little apprehensive approaching Little Whaleboat because when we were last there three weeks ago on the New to Kayak Camping trip, Warren and I had concluded that we had entered the Twilight Zone because the area that we remembered was…completely gone! Since there was no wind, I was able to keep the chart on my spray skirt, and as we got closer to Little Whaleboat, and could see the tops of brightly colored umbrellas over a small rise, and a wisp of smoking going straight up into the sky, I looked down at the chart again, and saw…three islands that comprise Little Whaleboat and not two - as we had believed when we were last there. A feeling of relief washed over me - and I think Warren, too - as the realization dawned that we had not been in the Twilight Zone after all. While we recalled that that there had been a passage between two small islands with an even smaller islet in the middle of that passage, and an artful installation of ocean detritus in a grove of small trees on the left hand side, when we returned last month there was no grove of scrubby trees, no art installation, no islet - indeed the pretty area to which we had vowed to return after we first saw it was completely gone! But of course it wasn't. We had not been in the Twilight Zone at all. We had been in the Zone of Not Looking Carefully at Our Charts! We had been between two other islets, and hadn't noticed the smaller one to the west. It was between the middle and westernmost area that we had found the most wonderful spot before, and approaching from the west this time, instead of the north, we happened upon it first. It was just as we remembered it - the same pretty picture! Warren celebrated our emergence from the Twilight Zone by successfully rolling his fully loaded boat three times in a row - and I have the video to prove it! We then headed toward the umbrellas, under which were members of a family sitting in a row on a north-facing beach on the middle of the Little Whaleboat islands - five adults and two children and a liver-colored lab that barked fiercely at our approach. I did not feel any more reassured about landing when the dog leapt into the water and began swimming toward me, looking not the least bit welcoming. But one of the men waded in and persuaded him out of the water. Warren, noting the barbeque that was the source of the smoke we had seen, asked if they did takeout. And so we landed to stretch our legs for a few minutes. It was a real Fourth of July tableau - even though it was by now the Sixth. A family, a dog, coolers, umbrellas, a big motor-boat moored just offshore, and a barbeque of - among other things - sausages home-made by one of the men. (Five pounds of finely ground pork, he said, plus some number of tablespoons - or was it teaspoons? - of sea salt, some number of tea/tablespoons of hot pepper flakes, some number of tea/tablespoons of fennel - grind it up into a sausage casing and you have the makings of a fine picnic!) From Little Whaleboat we crossed over to Whaleboat, heading up its eastern shore then turning the corner to head south toward the meadowy area. We hugged the coast, almost up against the rocks. We saw the heads of a small flock of Canada geese poking over the top of some bright green grass. Other than the geese, many cormorants - including a colony sitting cheek by jowl on their grass and stick nests on a rocky island, and an impressive number of osprey, we saw little wildlife over that day and next. Indeed, we saw no wingless wildlife at all. As we approached the landing area, we saw that three kayaks were already there, and that they had set up camp for the night in the field. Two grown sons and their father, the latter celebrating his birthday. We spoke briefly with them as they pushed off to go to Dolphin Marina across the way for lunch, then we walked up - in the heat! oh my! - to where we had camped before. Island as oven. Unbearably hot. We abandoned plans to lunch in the field, and returned to the beach where it was marginally cooler, and ate. I had never seen Dolphin Marina, so we decided to paddle over to Harpswell Neck to check it out. By now, the Day of No Weather had decided to give us some overcast, which was a relief. We landed below the restaurant at Dolphin Marina. Dave said that someone had told him about a nice little takeout place next door. We threaded through some yachts up on cradles in a boat yard and saw a tiny white shack with umbrella covered picnic tables in front. Warren started salivating at the prospect of ice cream, and when he saw that there was homemade wild Maine blueberry ice cream, the deal was sealed! Dave had to return to his boat to get money for all of us. Lesson #1 of the trip: always bring your wallet! The homemade wild Maine blueberry ice cream was, in a word - or two - simply fabulous. Intensely flavored and chock full of tiny Maine blueberries. We also noted the enticing odors of fried seafood coming our way, and were impressed at the reasonable prices. Had we known, we would have foregone lunch and eaten there! If you're in the neighborhood, Erica's Seafood is a really sweet spot! And off we went again in search of a campsite. As we crossed back over to Whaleboat, the Day of No Weather was clearly morphing to the south. Ominous looking low black clouds filled the sky down toward Portland, and we could see that dark rain was falling from some of them. Warren and Dave had checked their handy weather apps to ascertain that there was no lightning in the area, but Warren predicted that we would get wet before we hit camp. We rounded the southern end of Whaleboat, and within no time at all, the ominous black clouds were gone; they'd stayed over on the other side we guessed, maybe to rain on Erica's… We kept an eye out for other campsite we were aware of - on the eastern side - and when we got to it, appreciatively noted the nice landing beach. From an earlier visit, I remembered the site as being rather damp underfoot with a lot of blowdown trees. It was much nicer than that, and for a moment, we all considered whether we should camp there. The several minutes we spent looking for good tent sites was sufficient time for this still-damp island's mosquito population to find us. The combination of the little critters, plus the wet ground drove us off - but not before we noted that Ed Lawson had been there earlier in the season. Ed, is it always wet there?? And so after paddling a bit more we ended up on a sweet little island with a nice beach that seemed perfect. We landed and set up camp. It was hot and still. The beach and water beckoned. We all went for a swim, enjoying floating on the four inch layer of warmish water atop the colder water below. But here is nothing like cold salt water to serve as an astringent medication to ease the itch of a mosquito bite! Or two. Or three… And then cocktails and dinner on the beach. Warren was in full prep mode for his upcoming San Juan Islands trip, and had several Trader Joe's items to test out for possible meals. To that end, he had brought his stove and a pan to boil the packets of Indian food. He pronounced them delicious. Dave also prepared hot food. I was happy to settle for cold food in that heat. We were in bed by 8. The next morning, Warren reported that with his earplugs and instant ability to fall asleep, he had heard none of the booming fireworks that kept Dave and me awake til all hours. I lay in my hot tent on top of my sleeping bag and wondered how I would ever manage to sleep. A small wind picked up, the trees rustled and I could hear waves slapping against the shore. This lasted only for a while, then it was still - the quiet punctuated only by the ongoing revelry for the Fourth. On Sunday, Warren arose at his usual 4:30, and later reported that he had seen the most spectacular sunrise of his life - the sky was as red as the (bright red) shirt Dave was wearing, deepening as time went on. We were all up early. A lone fisherman standing up in his boat offshore the only non-avian life out on the water. We were back on the water before 7:30, enjoying the flat calm and the (relative) coolness of the morning, although clearly another hot day was in store. There was some overcast, and that helped as well. Eastward to the south end of French Island and up the western shore, with a pause for more loaded-boat rolls for Warren and Dave, then passing by Little French and over to Bustins, where we wanted to look once again at the pretty octagonal house that is so distinctive in every way that it is actually noted on the chart: "house." And what a house! Cream colored with red trim and railings on its 360" porch, and every window open to catch the all-sides breezes. We went counterclockwise around Bustins, glanced over at the passage into Freeport Harbor and noted that there was essentially no boat traffic on a beautiful calm Sunday morning at 9 am. Everyone at brunch or in church? A quick hop over to Crab Island, and then the final small crossing back to South Winslow. Where when we landed it was just about instantly obvious that what had (mostly) kept us cool was being surrounded by water. Hearing about the Fourth of July traffic backed up from Biddeford through New Hampshire and into Massachusetts later in the day, I was glad to have gotten off the water and on the road early. Lessons learned: 1) Don't forget to bring your wallet; you never know when ice cream may beckon. 2) If you think you're in the Twilight Zone, take a good look at yer damn chart before you conclude that are; chances are that you aren't. 3) If you are going to paddle in July in the middle of a heat wave, even in Maine, be prepared to end up being a sticky 11 layer cake of sun block, sweat, more sun block, salt water, yet more sun block and lots more sweat, salt water, sun block, bug spray, a last dose of sun block, and a final rinse with salt water. There is nothing like the happy combination of all these ingredients to help make yet another completely wonderful trip. pru

A CAM trip is one done under the Common Adventure Model that governs all NSPN trips. You can read about it on the website. I would give you a brief precis of what it means, but I'm sure I would misstate something and then there would be a cascade of posts correcting me! But if you are interested in our trips in the future, keep your eye out for our posts next spring, when we hope to do another couple of New to Seak Kayak Camping trips. pru

I still would like to see Warren Island and Isleboro, so maybe as the summer progresses, I'll see about coming up with a weekend in September - assuming that there is a free one (seems there's a lot on the nspn calendar this year!) - and then see if there might be any takers. pru

Wow! Great trip and really nice report. As one of those who bowed out due to weather concerns, I thought of you all wknd and monitored the weather, thinking that after all of course I should have gone! But as it turned out, a productive wknd at home - selling my Avocet among other things, which has been a priority as I downsize my fleet. As I said before, maybe we should think of Ladies Camping Trip II sometime in the fall! pru

I bought an REI bag made for women with synthetic filler that packs down really small and is NOT a mummy bag. It's a good spring/summer/fall bag - It's definitely not warm enough for late fall/early spring, although I don't know what the temp rating is on it. I use a sleeping bag liner, and if it's too hot, I'm just on top of the bag in the liner. It's nice having the bag to lie on - on top of my Big Agnes pad. pru

And don't forget the Maine Coast Heritage Trust - an organization that Gary York made me aware of. Whaleboat Island in Casco Bay is one of their islands. While you don't need to be a member to camp there, it seems only right that if you do use their resources, that you join the organization. It's another good one that is committed to preserving the same areas that we like to paddle! pru

Not everyone is a member - you have to join. You get a break on membership fee, but you still have to sign up and pay. pru

Really wonderful trip. Thanks to everyone - especially Bob and Blaine for the L3's - and Peter and Rob for the 2's. Everyone seemed to be positively beaming all day long. And supper was great - and boy did the ocean at Devereaux look inviting! And both sets of photos really captured the day! pru

We have a new member, so trip is now full - pru

we will need a designated time keeper for each session!

We've had a cancellation on our July New to Sea Kayak Camping trip - which will be to Muscongus Bay - July 13-14. If anyone is interested in filling this slot, please PM either Warren or me regarding participating. Hope there's someone out there who'd like to join the fun and learning! pru and warren

Grrrrr - another wednesday I can't make it (another reason to be retiring!) -- have a great time, and I'll hope for next week! pru

NSPN Casco Bay New to Kayak Camping Trip June 15-16, 2013 It was not an auspicious start to Warren's and my second New to Kayak Camping trip - this time to Casco Bay. First of all, this month's at times biblical rains forced postponement of the trip. That set in motion a small cascade of events: tides that no longer favored our preferred launch spot at South Winslow park; then a last minute notification of an event at Dolphin Marina, our backup choice, that would prevent overnight parking. We settled on Sandy Point at Cousins Island - which is now so firmly entrenched in my mind as the gateway to Jewell Island that it was hard to think of ending up anywhere but there. Then there was the lobster boat doing whatever the lobster boat equivalent of wheelies is not far from the launching beach. As Beth, Shari, David, Warren's and my boats sat at water's edge, ready for loading, we overheard one of the men on board say, obviously loudly enough that we could hear, "Hey, there's five speed bumps for us!" Other than Warren's and my twice discovering that we had apparently entered an episode of the Twilight Zone - more on that later - the weekend from then on was perfectly grand. Once again, the Weather Gods smiled. Once again, the NOAA forecast - which over the preceding days had veered back and forth between predictions of more or less calm winds and seas to predictions the evening before of near small craft advisory conditions with SCA gusts near shore - was wrong. Thankfully. We faced minimal winds and seas for the whole trip. The sky was bright blue on Saturday, at first perfectly clear and then filling with fluffy fair weather clouds in the afternoon. Whenever there was a bit of wind, our course allowed us to tuck in the lee of an island. We launched as planned at 10 am, heading for a private MITA island, one of a pair that share a small channel, and close by a larger island that gives the smaller ones their names. Fortunately, the lobster boat paid us no more heed. We had an opportunity to practice some of what Warren and I had learned the weekend before at the second CAM session: clear communication and maintaining a tight line while crossing busy channels. We crossed together from Moshier Island to French, encountering little boat traffic, but proceeding as if there were. By noon, we were at our destination, where we saw a group of day kayakers already perched on some rock ledges eating their lunch. We ended up sharing the island, at least during the day, with that group, and an immaculately groomed black standard poodle - who had obviously come from one of the many spiffy sail and motor boats moored nearby - and his people, and an aging golden retriever who despite the exhortations of his people would have nothing to do with fetching whatever they were throwing into the water. He waded in barely above his ankles, obviously finding the water temperature not to his liking, and turned and lumbered back onto the beach. We set up camp on the north end of the island, a very pretty spot on a little headland, with a small field of white daisies in full bloom. I wandered a bit into the wooded area, and found a spot overlooking a cove that was then at lowish tide. Beth, the only one of our group who was not sweating profusely inside a dry suit, took off the shirt under her wetsuit, waded into the channel - whose temperature she found much more to her liking than the retriever had - and blissfully floated, cooling off. We ate lunch, after which the dry suit crew all got into the water as well, and thus cooled off. We launched again leaving the reluctant retriever and his two people on shore. As we paddled away, the man took out a harmonica and started playing softly. We headed north to Grassy Ledge, hoping to see seals from a respectful distance. There were only a few. The rising tide allowed us to paddle between Upper and Lower Goose Islands. We were thrilled to see many many great blue herons, but saddened at their skittishness, which made it unavoidable not to flush them, with much laborious wing flapping, into flight. Over the course of the weekend, as we saw seals, ducks and their chicks, and geese and their goslings, we were mindful of the wasted energy that we might be responsible for making them expend if we got too close and they felt the need to escape. I had never seen so many great blue herons as we saw on this trip, and despite our efforts to give them a wide berth, we never succeeded in gliding by at a distance that they considered sufficiently safe to keep them rooted stock still, in beautiful silhouette, on a rock or branch by the shore. From the passage between the Geese, we went east to Williams Island. No trip report that contains the name Warren is complete without including the word "eagle." And so on to the impressive eagle's nest, apparently an ongoing work in progress over many years, at the north end of Williams. High up in a tree by the water was the large aerie, and perched on a nearby branch was a bald eagle, lord of all he surveyed. We craned our necks, admiring both him and his house. And then it was time to head back to camp. The tide was much higher, and Beth suggested a better landing spot than the rocky ledge that Warren and I had first targeted - in the cove below the bluff where I had pitched my tent. The cove provided a not terribly muddy landing spot. At higher tide, the water in the little cove was now an enticing green. Approaching a circle in shape it reminded me of the cove in "Moonrise Kingdom." (Brief movie recommendation: if anyone hasn't seen it, "Moonrise Kingdom" is a wonderful, sweet, dreamlike movie that was filmed on the Rhode Island coast.) Beth, clearly the June swimmer in our group, went in for another dip. From the center of the cove, the ripples from where she floated, blissed out once again, expanded in the shape of the cove. Cocktail hour, Warren pronounced, would have to commence in time to complete it, and supper, before the evening's mosquitoes arrived. We sat by the daisy field on the little headland. We took turns trying out David's compact, cute and completely comfortable little camp chair. Beth provided apples and different cheeses, and we drank wine and chatted - the wonderfully slow and mindless conversations that one can have when one is relaxed with nothing to do but sit and admire the view: highlights of previous trips, favorite television shows (and as far as that is concerned, what is said on the island remains on the island!), the foibles of three sons and so on. There was also the evening's entertainment: myriad terns doing acrobatics at our eye level from where sat on our little headland, then dive bombing to the quiet water for a minnow or whatever morsel they had targeted. An eagle flew by. The mosquitoes never came. Neither did a proper supper. Instead, eschewing camp stoves and the hassle of meal preparations, we moved from wine and cheese to dessert: homemade brownies (thank you, Warren!) and oatmeal raisin cookies (thank you, Shari!) and chili chocolate. We managed to still be alert at 8:00 pm, but then it really was time to head to our tents - even though sunset was not for another half hour. Evening ablutions done, I wandered to the south end of the little island, where the sky was turning pink. The trunks of the evergreens in the foresty part of the island were lit up, and for a brief time, I was in a rather magical red forest. It was a quiet night. Mostly. And warm. Sunday morning was milky clear and windless. It was also Beth's birthday, so we serenaded her with a ragged rendering of the traditional song as we sat by the daisy field, again watching the terns snagging breakfast. Theirs was perhaps healthier than ours - although if one is going to have cookies for breakfast, oatmeal is pretty acceptable. Another eagle flew by. We had hoped to visit Whaleboat Island on Sunday morning, but decided there wasn't enough time with the somewhat longer route back to Cousins than our first two options. Instead, we settled for Little Whaleboat, a spot that had completely charmed Warren and me when he had first visited it last year. We vowed then to try and return regularly. We paddled across mostly flat water, no boats moving at that hour. But when we arrived…we looked around…and yes, it was nice enough, but where was the mega-charming area that we remembered? Last year, Little Whaleboat had had a fantastical art installation of driftwood, bottles, rope, shells and other detritus set among a stand of scrubby trees. This year, there was nothing but a pretty ordinary looking patch of sea grass. The magic…? Gone. Gone also was the untidy osprey nest from last year. We had to get out of our boats and walk them over the inch of water the tide had left us midway between the two islands that are called Little Whaleboat. We saw a much bigger, more impressive osprey nest to our left. For a change, our presence didn't elicit any panic, and we saw an osprey soaring above, silent, on the prowl perhaps for breakfast for the family. He paid us no need, and we heard none of the familiar warning cries of an alarmed osprey when he feels that you are too close. There was a profusion of red and white flowers on the island opposite. We saw many seals on the rocks south of Little Whaleboat and gazed at them for a while, some of us winding between the (seal-less) rocks from which we could see the seal-covered ones farther out. And then it was time to head back. Warren and I paddled for a time beside each other, and it was at that point that we shared our perception of some spooky truths: the Little Whaleboat that we each remembered was gone! And then Warren said that he had been a little freaked at the island where we'd camped. We had visited it last year, after what was for me a rather harrowing crossing from Whaleboat where we had camped. It had been a relief to reach the little island, and I remembered - as he did - how we had easily pulled the boats up on the north end of the island, and how easily accessible the campsite had been. This time, getting to the camp had required clambering up a rocky bank, dodging trees and bushes. Where had the island that we remembered gone?? There is clearly only one explanation: we had entered The Twilight Zone, in which islands completely morph from one year to the next without benefit of earthquake, tsunami, hurricane or other natural force. But we emerged from the zone, too, to head back to familiar landmarks on our back to Sandy Point. As we had throughout the trip, we continued to practice the CAM lessons. Good communication (turn to face the group so everyone can hear), clear instructions ("Does everyone see the house with the green-blue roof over on Moshier? Yes? Good - that's where we're heading."), and paddling with purpose in a good line across boat channels - even when there isn't much in the way of traffic, as was the case on Sunday morning. We approached Sandy Point at low tide, skirted the sandbar that juts out from the beach, and landed where we had started. All that remained was the interminable up and down, up and down the long path - uphill for all the carrying - back to the cars. In our hot sweaty dry suits. We were all glad to strip out of them at last. We gathered for a quick debriefing before heading our separate ways. From Warren's and my perspective, this was a truly excellent trip. We very much enjoyed paddling with Beth, David and Shari. We appreciated their enthusiasm and desire to bring their good paddling skills and loaded boats to beautiful islands where one can enjoy a free evening's entertainment of acrobatic birds in pursuit of supper. Our mission in these trips is to introduce people to the nuts and bolts - and joys! - of island camping. In all of this, the Casco Bay trip was - we think - a resounding success. pru

I'm interested in the concept, Rob - but don't know if I'll be able to make the first one that you're proposing - pru

there you go!

well maybe if the two had been 97 year old women, or 104 year old men...... maybe... pru

I think it is completely ridiculous that people would expect - or even ask - a good samaritan to tow them SIX MILES back to their launch site. pru

I'm there! pru