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.