Joseph Berkovitz

Hi NSPNsters, This post announces the inaugural Wednesday Lunch Paddle, on May 1 (three days from now). Bob and I are super excited to get this weekly event off the ground! This first paddle is all about having some fun on the water and learning how this event will work. To ensure some lee from the expected NE/SE wind, we will be meeting at Lanes Cove in Gloucester at 10 am sharp, directly off of Route 127. Let's meet up and park on the Duley Street side, NOT the Andrews Street side. Here is a Google Maps link and a picture: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Duley+St,+Gloucester,+MA+01930/@42.6785096,-70.6608169,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x89e32667cb414963:0xdda732aefcfee3e5!8m2!3d42.6785057!4d-70.6586282 Let's meet at 10 am sharp, and ready to launch around 10.20 am. Then we'll have a beach briefing, make a plan together based on what people feel like doing, and get on the water, hopefully around 10.30 am. Please respect the group's time. We're not meanies, but if you show up late, the trip may launch without you. We have good lunch spot choices and fun paddles in either direction: Folly Cove to the north, or Annisquam Light to the south. Depending on the group's desires, we can go further too. Predictions are for light NE wind shifting to stronger SE wind 10+ kt, cloudy w/ poss. showers, air temp mid 40s F, water temp ~45 F, waves 1-2 ft. Lobster Cove tides: HW: 9.52a; LW: 3.53p. If we go south towards the Annisquam River there will be some ebb to play with, possibly even surf at the outlet if conditions are right. NOTE: The Wednesday Lunch Paddles are cooperative adventures, not guided trips. 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. It's always 100% OK to show up, decide you don't like the conditions or the trip, and opt out. If you have any questions, or if you haven’t paddled with Bob Levine or myself before, please get in touch with @rylevine or @Joseph Berkovitz by private message before the event. There is not going to be a special PM thread or RSVP calendar entry for this trip. Other conversation (including stating your interest in going) can happen on this thread right here. A waiver/float plan will be created at the launch. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Heads up: we will be posting the first Wednesday Lunch Paddle to the Trips forum on late Sunday / early Monday, once we have a good picture of conditions and can select a reasonablelaunch location. Right now things look promising for brighter and less windy conditions middle of next week, but who really knows?! ...Joe

First, I’d like to say that the communication of plans for Rob’s trip was no different from many, many other club trips, and I recall no one on the trip expressing any difficulty figuring out the plan. That doesn’t mean we could not do things better, of course. Next, I think that this is not really about CAM-or-not, but just about how to best communicate changes in plan. Even CAM trips with no leader, usually have someone who took some responsibility for organizing and posted the darn thing. Third, NSPN is not really super different from everyone else. I belong to a paddling club on the West Coast that uses a CAM like model for many trips. They have exactly the same issue. People just have to carefully follow along with plan updates, on either a private or public message thread. Some of their members complain too. I’m not in favor of mandating anything (and I don’t think Dan proposed that either) but I do have an alternative to editing initial posts, which is to edit the calendar entry so it maintains accurate info about the trip. I don’t think people as a rule expect posts to be edited. I also share the concern that people interested in a trip will not read the whole thread, and may therefore miss out on important group conversation. It’s usually worth the effort to scan through the back and forth. My 2 farthings...

@Ken There was indeed a thing at Walden every Wednesday last summer. The person organizing Walden in past years (Bill Voss, @billvoss ) has said he plans to do it again when he's ready, but not on Wednesdays, maybe on Tuesday. He would be the person to ask about it. These Wednesday paddles will be on the ocean, though, hence the daytime orientation. It would be fun to do some evening things on the ocean though once days get longer.

I'm currently seeing 3.9' @ 6s -- which, to be sure, is also not very great given that HT at Nahant is at 1.45 pm, so we probably won't get those nice long rides. Anyway I am still planning to go out around here around mid-afternoon. Conditions may change. I might investigate the Devereux surf break by way of circumnav of Marblehead Neck, that way there is at least some enjoyable rock play even if surfing doesn't pan out.

Alex, I’ll be able to go. Will look for something from you tomorrow.

please put me down for PPPO. thanks!

I have been noting the surf forecast and I'm interested in this. But I will not be available until at least 2 pm due to family activities, and there's a chance I maybe can't go at all

Ken: this event is ideal for trying cold weather stuff out with absolutely no pressure to get going and paddle. There’s going to be a lot of fussing around and talking. There is probably no better trip for this purpose (although there will surely be better weather on other trips!) And if you did get out on the water and have to turn around and go back and adjust, someone - myself included - would be more than happy to go with you. JaneC: I’ve had a lot of chances this winter to play around with layers in different weather. For what it’s worth, if the forecast holds I plan on wearing 1 thin fleece and 1 polypro base layer. Given the rain and overcast and the short duration I doubt that overheating will be a big problem. Immersion if (when!) it occurs, would be a bigger one.

Independently, I had been watching the weather and thinking Misery might be a good option. The cove of the little beach that faces Beverly is somewhat sheltered by the trees and landscape to the south. West Beach could have a swell or two that breaks, but even in nasty S winds the short leg out to Misery has always seemed relatively calm. A&B Burgers in Beverly has been a good PPPO option in the past.

RSVPs are now open for this trip.

Dan will no doubt provide a recommended option for obtaining/printing the maps for the course. But... since NOAA doesn't make it so easy to find online PDFs, so I thought I'd share links to the free online maps I use most often for these areas. This makes it easy to get started looking at the material, for zero $. I find the best all around NOAA chart of the Marblehead/Salem Sound area is the Salem and Lynn Harbors map: https://charts.noaa.gov/PDFs/13275.pdf For Casco Bay, it's hard to beat the ever-so-appropriately named Casco Bay chart: https://charts.noaa.gov/PDFs/13290.pdf You might like paper. So once you have downloaded these into Adobe Reader, you have a few options for printing them. My favorite quick and dirty technique is this: resize your window to the approximate shape of the paper you will be using zoom and scroll until the window contains the portion of the map you want to print use the Print command to bring up the print dialog under "Pages to Print", open up the "More Options" thingie and select "Current View" (this prints only the contents of the window, not the whole PDF) Or, if you are into cutting and taping regular paper, you can use the "Booklet Chart" versions of the above charts: https://charts.noaa.gov//BookletChart/13275_BookletChart.pdf and https://charts.noaa.gov//BookletChart/13290_BookletChart.pdf. I tend to just stick regular printouts into my chart case after spraying them with Krylon varnish, because I am lazy and hate going to Staples. If they get damaged I just print new ones.

Cool idea, Dan. I should be able to make this. I will also be going to Jewell this year. And as you know, I'm constantly on the water in Marblehead. NOTE: Many of the forthcoming NSPN Wednesday Lunch Paddles will occur in the Marblehead/Salem Sound area, so there's a payoff for these trips as well. Bob and I will welcome planning input from whoever attends.

Last year was so good that we're going back to Umbagog Lake in 2019! RSVPs will be accepted for the trip starting on Monday, April 15 at 9 am. Yup, this is a new system being tried out: announcing the date and time in advance when RSVPs will be accepted. Hopefully it gives everyone a fairer chance at finding out about the trip. Details, cost, etc. are at the calendar entry linked here:

Sue, the original post has links to Wikipedia articles that explain the halos and their mechanisms much more clearly than I could, with some helpful diagrams. The piece on the tangent arc also includes a description of lower tangent arcs — yes, they exist. As for not hurting my eyes, well... I just try not to stare directly into the sun. Except when dropping acid.

We paddle all the time in rocky environments, and the rocks all have a story to tell. Some of the stories are millions or billions of years old. But how often are we able to read and appreciate these narratives? This trip will allow paddlers to see, touch and understand the stories written in the geology of Boston's Outer Harbor. Launching from Hull's Pemberton Point, our goal will be to visit Lovell, Little Brewster, Calf and perhaps Green Islands. Along the way we'll stop, examine and discuss specific land and water features, and find out what they have to tell us. Boston Harbor is an especially fertile place for such an exploration. It has been shaped by extreme events: ice ages, molten rock, tectonic rifts and continental collisions. We will view ancient bedrock features that reflect the formation and breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea, hundreds of millions of years ago. One of its pieces eventually became part of Boston, including some of the harbor islands. Boston Harbor is also the only drowned drumlin field in the United States, with streamlined landforms of sediment that reflect the most recent ice age and the ensuing sea level rise. We will see how these landforms took shape, and are still being actively shaped today, by constant erosion and deposition. About the organizers: George Planansky was a geologist in a past life and tripped along the coast from Newport to Nain. These days he rocks in his kayak with NSPN. Joe Berkovitz is an NSPN member with a background in educational technology and natural curiosity. The Outer Harbor is where he first realized he was in love with sea kayaking. The trip is about 10 nautical miles, with a few exposed ocean portions and rocky beach landings: something between L2 and L3. Slack before flood is mid-afternoon, so we will ride the ebb current out of Hull Gut and the Harbor, and ride the flood back in. This paddle does not cancel for rain or for moderate conditions. Big conditions or storms will cancel and we will work out an alternate date. Note that the length, exposure and boat traffic make this paddle not appropriate for beginning paddlers. Sign up at the following calendar entry:

I'm with Paul on the glove question - I use pogies far more frequently than gloves as they provide bare-handed comfort and control over the paddle. Even in cold temperatures a pogie acts like a big mitten and your hand gets quite warm inside even without gloves. That said, I do carry gloves with me because sometimes, especially when launching after a break, my hands do get very cold. And in April or May, the water is still so cold that gloves become a safety measure against one's hands becoming numb and useless during a swim. I use 2 mm neoprene NRS Maverick gloves. Lighter than that, there's little protection from immersion in icy water. Heavier than that, dexterity is lost.

This trip will visit one of the most dramatic coastlines in the world, Maine's Bold Coast. It will take place over a long weekend from Friday August 2 to Monday August 5. Bob Levine and I are the trip organizers. Ranging from Machias Bay to Lubec and beyond to Canada's Campobello Island, the Bold Coast is a largely undeveloped and wild region with lots of dramatic cliffs and rocks, 25+ foot tidal ranges, strong currents and amazing wildlife (we paddled next to whales last year). Take a look at 2018's Bold Coast trip report for a sense of what it can be like. Paddlers joining this trip should be comfortable with: - Daily trips of 12-15 miles, with limited bailout options. Much of the Bold Coast is roadless wilderness with high oceanfront cliffs. - Recognizing and responding to strong currents (> 4 kt) and turbulent eddy lines - Cold water, often in the low 50s even in summer, with air temps often in 60s. A drysuit is essential some days - Rough water conditions from wave reflection off rocks, weather, and current/wind interaction If you're not sure if the trip is for you, PM me and/or rylevine (Bob Levine) and we can talk about it. As it was last year, the plan for this trip is to section-paddle various portions of the Bold Coast, Campobello Island and Cobscook Bay, adjusting the plan for conditions, interest and level of challenge. Each day we will choose from various out-and-back or shuttle adventures and have a lot of freedom with the length and nature of the paddles. During this weekend, high tide will mostly occur around midday. (Note: we will not be attempting to run the whole Bold Coast in a single tide cycle, as some trips have done.) Despite the challenging waters, we want to be safe! Each day we'll evaluate our options carefully. There are a wide range of locations to choose from, and directions in which to go. And if conditions are just too bad to paddle, there is really great hiking in the area. NOTE: We will be paddling in Canada, so make sure you bring a valid passport! Home base for this adventure is the Sunset Point RV Park in Lubec, which is a very clean and well-run campsite. It's not all RV's -- actually, the area reserved for tents is a lovely grassy headland that juts out into Johnson Bay, with its own little pavilion. Showers are free with unlimited hot water and if you care, there is free Internet at the office. And the campground has its own boat ramp for launching directly into an arm of Cobscook Bay. In terms of logistics, plan for 6-7 hours of road travel to reach the Bold Coast from the Boston area. The campsite is reserved starting Thursday 8/1, so that everyone can come up on Thursday and we can hang out together and do some planning before getting a good night's rest. Checkout is Tuesday 8/6. It's OK to come late or leave early, just work it out with us up front. We're limiting the trip to 8 people. Each person's share of the campsite rental will run to $56.25. There's no deposit needed so you can just bring cash on the trip. Up for this? Please RSVP to the calendar invite and we'll take it from there!

Ken, I think you would find this event a great way to get acquainted with your new cold-water gear. It is not destination-oriented, it is usually a short-haul practice paddle in sheltered waters. It has an educational component -- there's usually some discussion of winter gear and what works best for whom under what conditions. Some people practice rescues and rolls, others don't. It's very relaxed. You should have (or arrange to borrow) the items in Rob's "required" list though. Personal note: My very first trip with NSPN was this event. Only, it was an accident that I happened to be on the beach at the same time that the paddle was starting. Anyway, I joined the club that same day because I was so impressed with the people -- both their knowledge and their good vibes. ...Joe

I have to be on the road from Jewell back to Boston Saturday AM. So I'm thinking of paddling out to Jewell early, like Wednesday or Thursday, so I can spend Friday night hanging out but not have it be just an overnight trip which always feels like a waste of driving. Is anyone else is interested in going out to Jewell a day or two early. If so, please PM me. Thanks!

Well, there were no takers, as it happened, but I did go out today anyway. At first, I was not expecting to paddle, because the air was like 20 degrees F at 10 am and there was still about 10 knots of NW wind. The forecast had been too optimistic. So I went for a walk (sans boat) on Devereux Beach just to be outside for a while, where I saw some incredible solar halos in a hazy sunny sky. By the time I got back to my car the wind had really died down and the temperature had moderated somewhat. I checked the buoy data and the high pressure had maxed out: the system was directly overhead. The water was looking pond-like, there was almost no swell, and it felt like a rare and pleasing set of conditions. At which point I drove back home, loaded the boat, and launched from Little Harbor in Marblehead. With the calm conditions it was a very meditative, quiet paddle. Thousands of ducks were gathered offshore, emitting a spooky collective warble in the distance. These super-high tides always make me feel like I just unlocked a new level in a video game. All these passages suddenly appeared and became navigable, and the unusually calm ocean made it easy to wander freely through them. With multiple fleecy layers under my drysuit, and pogies plus gloves, I was quite warm. I made my way down Marblehead Neck to Tinkers Island. Thanks to the delay in starting I missed actual high water, but a pair of converging strand lines on both sides of the island proved that there indeed had been water across the top of Tinker's an hour before. Like, maybe an inch or two of water . For future reference, I guess you need tides greater than 11.5' if you don't want to seal-portage your way across. The sky grew cloudy and wooly. A cold wind picked up again, now from the south with the high having moved offshore. I looked at the city in the distance, then launched and headed back to the harbor. I chatted there with a Marblehead lobsterman who lost his boat in one of last year's storms; part of it washed up on Brown's Island for a while. He's still working on repairing it, but he's philosophical about it despite the hardship and the long process of bringing it back to seaworthiness. I see him pretty often and it was nice to run into him today. Anyway, today was a really nice trip, if you like this kind of thing.

I will be at 3/16 and would appreciate help with getting an offside roll (or improving my onside one for that matter)

I was out today for a brief beach walk in Devereux before paddling, and looked up to see the following amazing solar halo combination: My hand is blocking the sun to avoid frying the camera. There are four separate phenomena, at least so far as I can identify: 22º Halo (the circle around the sun with a dark interior and light rim) Upper tangent arc (the bow-shaped bright rainbow touching the top of the circle) Sun dogs (the bright spots to the left and right of the sun) Parhelic circle (the faint curved line intersecting the sun dogs and also the sun) I have never seen either an upper tangent arc or parhelic circle before.

So, back to this thread again: Wednesday (Feb. 20) will bring us a high "king" tide in Marblehead of 11.5 feet at 11:29 am, the highest water we'll get until September 1. The weather also looks very promising with a big high pressure system centered over Eastern MA. The current forecast is for sun, high around 30, wind 5-7 kt decreasing to light/variable, seas <= 1 ft. With this in mind, I propose to paddle out of Riverhead Beach in Marblehead at 10 am (meet at 9.30 am, beach brief at 9.50 am). A likely route would be to paddle around Marblehead Neck and out to Tinkers Island, with the idea of crossing the narrow isthmus that divides the island at high tide (only doable at extreme high tide levels like this). Lunch on the beach on Tinkers, then return to Riverhead around 2.30 - 3 pm. Although not a rock gardening trip per se, all the familiar rock landscapes of the area have a very different character at super-high tides like this and many otherwise-shallow or nonexistent passages become navigable. We also have an option to view the recent seawall repairs in Marblehead Harbor around the Front Beach rock garden, observe where the water level comes up to, and optionally make cynical, world-weary remarks about man-versus-nature and climate change. This trip is a common adventure for paddlers with cold-weather experience, not a leader-led trip. I am only acting as the trip organizer. Of course dry suits, fully rigged boats with built-in flotation, sprayskirts, PFDs are all required. Bring gear that you know will keep you warm in air temps of 30 F or -- since it might matter -- a water temp just below 40. Gloves, pogies, balaclavas... whatever works for you. Don't assume the wind will be nonexistent, although I'm happy that's the forecast. If you are interested please respond by Tuesday midday at the latest. If I have not paddled with you before please private-message me first. Also note: unless the trip is cancelled we will start on time, for real. It should be beautiful, and fun! ...Joe