Weather: Sunny, mostly cloudless: head and side winds
Wildlife: Eagle, loons, cormorants?
Portages: 0
Got up at 4:30 and was on the water by 5:30 am. Last night the water was completely calm. And it did start out that way this morning--oh, for about 30 minutes or so. Halfway toward Mt. Kineo, started getting rolling waves. Stopped at Hardscrabble Point (which had some beautiful campsites) and waited a while to see what the wind would do. This turned out to be the theme for the day. Paddle. Wait. Paddle. Wait.
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| Paddling toward Kelly's Wharf |
As we were paddling, we spotted two kayakers out in more open water and all of us seemed to be headed in the same direction. The wind actually died down and was very calm and we took a snack break at the Kelly Wharf campsite where the two kayakers from Vermont, both named Carol, caught up to us. The water is incredibly clear and the shoreline with it's tumbled stones reminds Kay and I of Lake Superior.
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| Moosehead Lake |
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| Lake Superior-like stones |
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| Norcross Point break time |
The wind started picking up again, so we wanted to be on our way before it got too bad. The wind and waves kicked our butts. Headed into Big Duck Cove looking for the first campsite along the southern shore. The waves were pounding into the shoreline. Found a protected spot after not spotting the campsite, and pulled off the lake. And took a nap. Kay woke me up and we decided the waves were calming down, so we heading off again--this time hopscotching our way toward Norcross Point where we stopped for another break. The last 2.5 to 3 miles were tiring, but we finally got a bit of a tailwind and arrived at the Northeast Carry in late afternoon. (The portage is adjacent to the big white house adjacent to the cabin with a green roof.)
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| Northeast Carry |
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| Raymond's General Store - a short distance from the Northeast Carry take-out - |
Was planning on continuing on to the Penobscot River with the goal of camping at Thoreau Island and so wheeled the canoe to Raymond's General Store with the intention of scoring a shuttle to the river. We were both pretty beat after our day on the big water. It was probably a good thing that Ed Raymond's wife had the truck in town, and thus was unable to get us to the river that day. Instead of pushing forward, we decided to head back to the public land by the take-out and set up the tent there after I downed two ice-cream bars and bought beer to take back to the camp with us. (Ed didn't want us camping in his backyard.) There is an outhouse by the landing, so that made camping more civilized. At this point, we didn't have too many other options for camping--and the grassy area itself wasn't perfect-- it was near a swampy area. As I was making dinner, one of the owners of a nearby house stopped by to warn us about the no-see-ums and told us to keep the lights off after dark so we wouldn't attract them. (At least no one kicked us out.) We were in bed BEFORE dark. Wind was still blowing north off the lake and the bugs were only a minimally nuisance. I thought. The next day I discovered the ankle-biters had been out in force. My ankles were covered in bites that were pretty itchy over the next few days.
Dinner: Mushroom Risotta with Cream of Mushroom Soup, beer
