Maine Island Trail - Day 10 - June 26th

Knowing that the tide wasn't going to be low until around 9:50 meant that I got to sleep in some this morning. The tide coming in on the bold coast flows at up to 3 knots at it's peak, meaning I could basically lounge around in my boat and nearly make it up in time. I was up around 7, aiming to get on the water around 9, so that I could get a bit of a head start during the slack tide. I even had the current through the Cross Island narrows helping me along at the start. The forecast had changed from 5 knot winds to up to 10 knots, but the weather still looked like it would be pretty great.

The Bold Coast has a reputation for being one of the roughest sections of coast in the state, but also one of the prettiest. It's around 15 miles of sheer rock faces and steep rocky beaches. It has some of the largest tides in the world too, up to 20 feet between high and low tide in some sections. Between the huge tides and steep coastline, there's only one real option for taking out in an emergency, and the current is too strong to get back to it if you pass it. That means that once you start, you're committed to it. After hearing how strenuous it was supposed to be, I was very nervous about doing it, especially solo.

It turns out that my fears, while well founded, were completely unnecessary today. The entire way up the coast, the water was nearly glass calm. I stuck pretty far out from the coast, trying to stay in the strongest section of current. I spent most of the time enjoying the view and floating along. What I had anticipated being the roughest day of the trip turned out to be the calmest, most relaxing day of the trip.

The 27 miles passed by quickly, and before I knew it I was up to Quoddy head. I was surprised to see my parents on the rocks waiting to greet me, having driven up from Maryland just to do so. I still had a few more miles to the landing, and so after a brief conversation from the cliffside, I continued on around into the narrows. While there had been absolutely no wind in the wide open area before rounding the point, now there was wind whipping through the area causing whitecaps to appear. So much for a calm day. I hugged the coast as I approached the narrowest part, under the bridge. As I approached the break before the bridge, I noticed a sharp eddy line. This was going to be interesting. As I hit the eddy line, my boat did an almost immediate 180. I quickly turned back and sprinted up out of the strongest section of the current and passed under the bridge. I thought I was done, but it turned out I had another eddy line I had to pass through before getting to the boat ramp. This one nearly flipped me when I hit is, and was so strong that I nearly couldn't move forwards in the current, but I made it through.

After breaking out a Maine Island Trail Ale to celebrate (yes, that's actually a thing), we packed up my gear and headed off to a campground nearby where I could shower. From there, it was off to get some pizza and rest up. A final weight check revealed that I had lost 15 pounds from the time I started the trip. It was without a doubt one of the best experiences of my life, but I definitely was glad to be done with it. While it as exciting as I had hoped, the long stretches without talking to any living people was a bit much for me.

225 miles down, onward to the next adventure.

Maine Island Trail - Day 9 - June 25th

As I attempted to drag myself out of my nice warm tent this morning, I realized I had forgotten something rather important in my kayak: my shoes. I had wandered around in flip flops all of yesterday afternoon. It was around 50 degrees out, and I was not going to subject my feet to that, so I hopped right back in bed for another hour. Probably not the best plan when I was supposed to paddle 27 miles, but I'd make it work. The weather was supposed to be fantastic, so I wasn't worried. I figured it would take me 10 hours, getting me to camp around 6.

The morning started off slowly enough, with a short calm paddle. As I neared Jonesport, the boat traffic increased and I was constantly surrounded by lobster boats. Normally this would be concerning for me, but apparently Jonesport is home to the friendliest lobster men in the state. Not only did nearly every one I passed smile and wave, but they even slowed down on their way by so they wouldn't blast me with their wake. If my last 8 days were any indicator, either of those occurring was an extreme rarity, let alone both of them.

As I paddled through the reach, I passed two groups of kayakers headed the opposite way. While I had been lucky and had the tidal current going with me, they were stuck going against it. I exchanged a smile and wave with the first group of 3 as they sped on by. They seemed to know what they were doing, at least. I ran into the other pair of paddlers at the far end of the reach, barely inching along against what seemed to me to be relatively weak wind and current. They did not seem like they knew what they were doing. They had nice boats and gear, but were paddling 100% with their arms, and it was showing. Neither of them looked particularly happy. I felt bad for them, but I had places to be.

As I exited the reach and began my first real crossing of the day, I spotted a small boat blasting down the bay. As it neared me, I stopped to let it pass by before continuing. Around a hundred yards away it came to a stop and started turning towards me. Without the huge wake around the bow I could now see it was the bright orange of a small coast guard patrol boat. As they came over, I was sure I had done something wrong. Had I accidentally triggered the SOS on the inReach? Nope, turns out they just wanted to make sure I had the proper safety gear: radio, light, whistle, etc. I was floating around in the middle of a decent sized bay, after all. After a few questions about my gear, they were curious where I was headed. I responded that I was headed Lubec, which raised a few eyebrows. The next logical question was where I was coming from. I wish I had had a camera for the look of shock when I said I had started in Portland. One of the guy's voice jumped about two octaves asking "portland?" as if he had misheard me. After a bit more chatting, they headed off to do whatever it is they do, and I headed off to Halifax Island, where I could stop for a rest. Their looks of confusion kept me entertained for those 5 miles. If I had gained one thing from this trip, it was the ability to entertain myself with the simplest things.

After a short break at Halifax, I hopped in my boat for the last 10 miles. My constant companion, the noaa weather broadcaster, had informed me that it was only supposed to be light winds this afternoon, and I hoped he was right. Sure enough, those 10 miles passed with no real wind, other than a small area where it funneled between two islands. Hopefully he was right about the winds for tomorrow as well.

I got in to camp earlier than expected, and spent awhile lounging in my hammock before getting my charts and clothing in order for tomorrow. The trip was almost over, just 5-6 more hours of paddling. All my planning for the next day complete, I settled in for bed. Thankfully, because of how the tidal currents in the area flow, I wouldn't have to be on the water until 9 tomorrow, so I could sleep in a bit. Little victories.

198 miles down, 27 (ish) to go.

Maine Island Trail - Day 8 - June 24th

Last night I learned that just a day earlier, two paddlers (one of whom was a guide) had died in the area I was paddling in. Had I not gotten off the water earlier this week to wait out some weather, I would have been in roughly the same place as them at roughly the same time as them. Would I have been able to help them? Would I have ended up dead too? If a guide likely much more experienced than me had made a mistake that costly, just what the hell was I doing out here? I had made it this far in one piece, but now had an unpleasant reminder of just how dangerous this could be. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well.

I got up early for once, but took my time getting on the water. I would have slept in, but the next few mornings needed to be early, so I might as well get used to it. Today was going to be a much shorter day, only a bit over 15 miles by my estimation. Over the course of the trip I had adjusted my kayak's fit to make it more bearable for 8 hours on the water at a time. Rounding petit manan point was going to be interesting though, so I abandoned comfort in the name of performance. I set off and pretty quickly wished I had left it more comfortable. My feet were sore from the footpegs less than an hour in.

As I rounded the point, I became very glad I had adjusted them. The waves were breaking in seemingly random spots, with very little warning. I was able to identify some places where they were breaking consistently, but other than dodging those areas there wasn't much I could do. I pretty much sprinted around the point. Just as I was about to get out of the larger waves, one broke over my stern, scaring the crap out of me. Unfortunately, with no eyes in the back of my head, there was no warning. A quick brace kept me upright, and I cautiously continued up into the channel ahead. I didn't calm down until I was almost a mile from the point, when I stopped on a nice sand beach to make my boat comfortable again.

Other than the point, my day was pretty uneventful. I made it to my camp by 2ish, in just over 5 hours. It had turned out to be 17 miles. The early arrival left me with plenty of time to lounge around and relax in my hammock. Just what I needed before two back to back 27 mile days to finish up the trip.

171 miles down, 54 (ish) to go.

Maine Island Trail - Day 7 - June 23rd

Despite waking up early, it took me forever to get on the water. The first day back had taken more out of me than I expected. By the time I was finally moving, it was around 8:30. The water around MDI is big, and I had been hoping to avoid some of that by getting an early start. No such luck.

I covered the first few miles to the shore of MDI pretty slowly, enjoying the views. Acadia from the sea is even better than from land. I worked my way up the coast, dodging lobster boats and (for the most part) sections of chaotic water. The sheer cliff faces were reflecting waves back and causing problems, so I moved a bit further off the shore hoping to avoid them. Only a few minutes later a huge whale watching ship came blasting around the corner, close enough that I probably could have held a conversation with the people on board. The huge wake thoroughly soaked me. Hooray, just how I wanted to start my morning.

As I kept going up the coast, I passed otter cliffs, and got to watch some new climbers struggle. Hopefully when I got around to doing some climbing later this summer, I would look slightly less clueless. Past otter cliffs I started moving out further, avoiding thunder hole and the usually tourist filled beach.

I decided that I would cross frenchman bay further south than I had initially planned, hoping to make it around schoodic point in decent weather. The ever shifting weather forecast was now predicting rain and possible thunderstorms in the afternoon. My route put me out in the middle of nowhere with only a few buoys to really navigate off of, in huge swells, but saved me a few miles(yes, Karen, I can hear you cringing at my route already).

I made it to schoodic point without incident, and was reminded (again) why points suck for kayakers. I had done my best to keep far off the shore, but somehow found myself in crazy water anyways. A few breaking waves around me got me to pick up my pace and sprint around most of the point. Thankfully, it looked like there was an island just after the point that I could stop for a break on. As I rounded the island into a small cove, I spotted a sign: closed due to nesting eagles. Oh well, I guess I wasn't getting out of the boat today. I paused in the cove for awhile to stretch what I could in my boat before heading off to finish up the last 7 miles of the day.

I made it to the campsite, avoiding all the rain, but unfortunately not the wind. With nowhere to stake down my tent, I had to stick rocks in it to prevent it from blowing away as I set it up. At one point it tried jumping off the island, rocks and all. As I finally got it set up and anchored down with some bigger rocks, I heard a loud pop. It took some searching, but I discovered that one of the grommets for the rain fly had ripped out of the fly. Oops. Thankfully it doesn't look like I'll encounter any more rain, so it should be fine. That said, I think this is the last trip for this poor tent.

154 miles down, 69 (ish) to go.

Maine Island Trail - Day 6 - June 22nd

After being holed up in a house for two days due to weather concerns, I was pretty eager to get back out on the water. The break was necessary, for many reasons, but it still felt like cheating. I spent most of the time eating, trying to pack on some of the weight I had lost. I replaced some food with (hopefully) easier to digest food, so I wouldn't be constantly nauseous.

I got up around 5:30, and with the help of my aunt, was in Stonington and on the water by 7:15. For a lobster town, it was awfully quiet. With glass calm water, I paddled up to the island I had intended to stay on after stopping in Stonington. The change in plan meant that I was skipping it and heading another 20 miles to the next camp site, giving me a 25 mile day. On my way past, I got to see a pair of porpises swimming around, seemingly doing circles around me.

On my way across to Swans Island, I stopped near a ledge to wait for some boats to pass by. I looked around a bit, and when I looked forward again, what looked like 4 buoys had appeared within 20 feet of my boat. It took me a few more moments than I'd care to admit to realize that they were seals looking at me. I sat there for a few minutes as they bobbed around me, not wanting to move and scare them off. Eventually I had to move on though, and they all disappeared in a splash the second I moved my paddle.

On my way around Swans Island, I came across what looked to be around a dozen seal pups and their mothers, hauled out on a ledge I had been planning to stop at. For those that don't know, if you scare seals off their ledges, bad things happen to them. They need their time out of the water to dry their coat, or it will start rotting. They also can't really walk, so they tend to cut themselves pretty badly if they have to flush off their ledge. But the biggest thing is that during seal pupping season (now), if you scare the moms off, the pups don't always follow, and the moms can't always find their pups again. As you can probably imagine, the pups don't last too long without their mothers. Not wanting a seal massacre on my hands trying to get a picture, I gave them a wide, wide berth, and continued on my way.

Basically the entire day was uneventful, up until I reached the area where I was supposed to meet Jane to pick up the charts I needed for the last day of the trip. Surf landings are something I conciously have been avoiding, because they're always a little bit sketchy. Especially when the landing is really just a pile of large rocks. I was a bit nervous landing, but I made it in fine. Charts in hand, I now had to figure out how to launch with breaking waves every few seconds. I hopped in and before I could get my sprayskirt on, had been soaked by a tiny wave crashing over my bow. Oops. I paddled out over the next few before pausing to put on my sprayskirt. Apparently I had chosen the perfect time to get it on, because the rest of the waves I paddled through absolutely soaked me. I deeply regretted not wearing my dry top for that.

With only a few miles to camp and rain approaching, I opted to take the more exposed southern route around the last island. I had expected some larger swells, but these were absolutely huge, at least 5 feet high. At first I was slightly concerned, but I pretty quickly realized that they were far enough apart that it didn't matter, it would just be a bit of a roller-coaster ride. Along this stretch, I ran into another paddler heading to where I had just left, attempting to make it before the rain hit. The brief conversation was made more brief when I looked back and realized the rain was just about on top of us already. I sped off to my camp for the night, hoping I'd make it before the rain started.

I quickly dragged my boat up the shore and unpacked the essentials for camp. I ran up to the tent platform to set up my tent. Just as I got the rain fly on, the rain started. I stuffed all my gear under the vestibule and hopped in to wait it out. What had been predicted as "showers" turned out to be a downpour. I also learned another valuable lesson: check your rain fly waterproofing on a regular basis. I didn't, and so I got to wait out the storm with water dropping on my head every few seconds. Thankfully the leak isn't bad, just mildly annoying. Oh well, at least the weather looks nice for the rest of the trip.

131 miles down, 91 (ish) to go.

Maine Island Trail - Day 5 - June 19th

Today, unlike every day prior, actually started around the time I had intended. Hoping to get my first crossing done with little wind, I was up by 5:30, and packed and on the water by 7. I had felt the wind blowing through my camp, but had hoped that it was just the wind funneling between the island to the south and the mainland. Unfortunately, it was not. I was stuck doing a 5-6 mile crossing with what seemed to be 15 knot winds.

As I started the crossing, I was immensely happy that I had had rough weather on previous days. For however bad those patches had been, they were paying dividends now. Despite relatively heavy wind and 3-4 foot waves swallowing me in the troughs, I was comfortable handling my boat. Not comfortable enough to stop paddling, but comfortable enough that I wasn't panicking. In perhaps the only truly concerning moment of the morning, one of the three ferries that runs through the area passed around 25 yards from me. I had been watching its bow to figure out which direction it was going. My thought process was since the fastest way from point A to point B is a straight line, that they would travel in relatively straight lines. Instead they seemed to be making a huge unnecessary arc. While I thought they would be passing a few hundred yards ahead of me, they were actually turning to be right on top of me. I had to turn and paddle in almost the opposite direction that I wanted to go to avoid them, which put me in a bit of a rough patch. Now I was dealing with 4 foot waves crashing against a massive wake. I made it through unscathed, but was reminded (again) that other boats either don't know you're there, or don't care. Not the best way to start what I had hoped would be a calm morning.

On the bright side, however, the rough water forced me to abandon my lazy paddling habits for most of the day. During calm weather, I tend to fall victim to sight-seeing-itis, where I'll paddle for a short while, then drift and look around at everything before resuming paddling. While it's great for getting out to see things, it does cause me to move rather slow (at least by my standards). In rough water though, I'm not comfortable enough just bobbing around being tossed like a hot potato, so I'm constantly paddling at a relatively fast pace. The combination of that and winds that were coming slightly from behind sped me along 6.5 miles in an hour and 20 minutes, just under 5 miles an hour. Just a tad faster than the 3 miles per hour that I typically held.

Once I was done with the crossing, I had hoped that entering the Fox Island Thorofare would give me some calmer waters. While I certainly had shorter waves, the shape of the islands and the direction of the wind actually amplified it, and it was as if I was paddling down a wind tunnel. In my hasty attempt to plot a bearing along the thorofare, I had either forgotten to add variation, or just taken a crappy bearing. Regardless, I ended up paddling into a cove that was not at all where I wanted to be and was forced to turn around and head back straight into what had been amplified to at least 20 knots. Woops. Note to self: no more hasty bearings.

I paddled down the thorofare pretty lazily, passing some beautiful schooners that had stopped to drop people off in North Haven. Despite seeing a few out at sea so far, these were the first I had come close to. In one of the calmer portions of the thorofare, I head a few loud splashes from behind me that suggested that some seals were following me. An interesting thing about seals is that they'll follow you as you leave out of curiosity, but their sight isn't good enough to notice which way you're actually facing. So, if you turn around and paddle backwards, they tend to follow you sticking their head out of the water, assuming that you're facing the direction that you're going, leaving you to watch them until they decide you're not interesting enough.

Having had enough time to recuperate after my initial crossing, I paddled on to the last island before the second slightly shorter crossing. I had called my family to come meet me in Stonington last night, and had said that I would most likely be there around 4-5. Instead, due to an early start and some high-speed paddling, I was going to be there around 1:30. Woops. I texted them to let them know, and set out on a shorter, but much rougher crossing. The waves were similarly sized, but now almost every wave was breaking, flooding over my sprayskirt constantly. Around half way across, I got a text back. Now this wouldn't be a big deal, but my phone is set to go off every 2 minutes after a text, until I read the text. Out in the middle of a crossing with no way to stop, there was no way for me to stop the ringing. For the next 20 minutes I suffered a rough analog to chinese water torture at the hands of a phone, eventually reduced to yelling expletives at it. Oh well. Of all the things that could go wrong on a crossing, I suppose that doesn't really rank up there.

I reached Stonington around 1:30, and after a short wait, was picked up. There's a small craft advisory for Monday, and thunderstorms coming through Tuesday, so rather than camp out on an island in crappy weather for two days, I've opted to camp out in a nice comfy house where showers and pizza exist. Out of curiosity, I weighed myself when I arrived here. According to this scale, I was 200 lbs when I left, and 182 lbs now. Best case was that I had only lost 8 lbs from the 190 I believed I was at the start. Worst case was that somehow I had lost 18 pounds in 5 days. Hopefully it's the former.

I'll return to Stonington on Wenesday (or Tuesday afternoon, weather permitting) to continue my journey up the coast. I've just about reached the half way point.

106 miles down, 116 (ish) to go.

Maine Island Trail - Day 4 - June 18th

After my breakfast-induced nausea of yeaterday, I opted to skip a real breakfast and just eat a clif bar instead. I had hoped it would let me paddle comfortably, but apparently it was just not meant to be. I still felt awful. By some rough math, I was at this point only consuming around 1200 calories a day. A quick Google search informed me that a 200 pound person burns around 450 calories an hour while kayaking. I'm paddling 8 hours a day, meaning I should be burning around 3600 calories. Which has me curious as to why the hell I'm not hungry. Maybe I'm just the prius of kayakers?

Regardless, today would be a good day. The route I was taking was almost entirely sheltered from the wind, meaning that I was able to sleep in and take my time getting on the water. I moved pretty slowly at first, waiting for my shoulders to work out some of the soreness as they had the day before. In one of my dumber moments however, I had completely forgotten to take ibuprofen this morning. It took me two hours to figure out why my shoulders still hurt, and another hour after that before I could land anywhere to take ibuprofen to help. Another valuable lesson learned: keep the ibuprofen handy.

Although I had seen seals every day so far, and a few porpises here and there, I didn't see any today. Instead, I got treated to a show courtesy of an immature eagle and a raft of eiders. The eagle apparently wanted his (or her? Who knows) morning snack, and the eider's ducklings seemed to be just what he was looking for. The eagle would dive down to grab a duckling, and just as he got within reach all the ducks would do a synchronized dive under the water to avoid him. This lasted for a few minutes, until the eagle decided that a duck just wasn't worth the effort. He flew off to a big pine tree, plopped down on the top branch, and promptly fell face first into the branches below as his branch broke in two. He flew off to another tree, and made it half way there before realizing he was still holding on to half a branch.

As the day wore on, I gradually got grumpier and grumpier, despite the fact that nothing was actually going wrong. Skipping breakfast was coming back to bite me in the ass in the form of some severe hanger. The wind was finally picking up, so after a brief internal debate I decided I would stop to change into my dry top and, like a responsible adult, eat a pile of cookies. Both proved to be good choices. Now my arms weren't freezing every time they dove into a wave, and since my hanger had been replaced with some mild nausea, I was no longer shouting expletives at every wave washing over me. The last 8 miles to camp ended up being the second most enjoyable part of the day, clearly not surpassing the eagle's embarrassing morning. The waves and wind at my back sped me along, and I made it to camp almost 45 minutes earlier than I had expected.

Once I was in camp however, I was presented with the most difficult choice of the trip: did I want dry paddling clothes, or a nice morning view from my tent? I had limited options on where to pitch my tent and set up a clothes line. I opted for the dry clothes, this was not a view worth putting on a damp wetsuit for.

84 miles down, 140 (ish) to go.