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.
Yes, you lucky stiff, the weather does look good for the rest of your trip. Happy paddling out there with the rest of the mammal marine life. By the way, the Coast Guard declined our request to air drop pizza to you at regular intervals, something about priority of life and fueling up their chopper. Oh well.
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