For the sake of a proper accomplishment, I?d planned to resume my voyage at Christmas Cove. My wife and I had driven as far as Damariscotta when she found a tourist map that offered otherwise. It was a glossy, cloying sort of map, high on ads and low on detail, but it did show what appeared to be a public launch at Pemaquid Harbor.
It?s across Johns Bay from South Bristol, a few miles east but also a few miles north. Instead of crossing Johns Bay I would follow the shore three miles and, in either case, go around Pemaquid Point. Six of one, as they say. ()
I found it to be a worthy trade. It was a spacious and barren sandlot, unhindered by self-important fuss. I carried my kayak down the gravel launch into the glassy shallows and packed it there. Woolly clouds shrouded the sky.
With hatches tight and spray skirt secured, I was moments from pushing off when I noticed that my footbraces were out of place. With adjustments for contact points in the feet, knees and hips, one doesn?t sit in a kayak so much as wear it. A good fit puts the full power of a stroke into the paddle.
I?d kayaked in the surf at Crescent Beach a day or two before. Swells from a southern storm were pushing up the coast. I practiced some rolls and surf landings and flipped over a few times in the shore break, which was brown with a churn of fine sand. The footbraces had both been knocked out of their appointed notches and pushed down the adjustment track, and were now jammed tight with tiny grains.
They wouldn?t budge. I had to take out the thru-hull bolts and remove and submerse both units to work the sand out. I didn?t shove off till 2:30.
Outside the harbor, Johns Bay sloshed with small waves. Miles ahead, Pemaquid Point appeared to spray gaily. But up close it was hammer-and-anvil. Swells in the gulf were six feet tall and broke on the shoals with a terrible power. I paddled through a blanket of sea foam nearly a foot thick that gathered off the western side, and then straight out past the point another 100 yards, a safe distance, before turning east.
I was awed by the crashing waves, by the crushing blows of tons of water collapsing on jagged rock. It reminded me of Thunder Hole on the shore of Mount Desert Island, a tourist-preferred sheer-walled pocket of booming surf, and of why, if you fall in, you should swim away from shore. It has claimed more than a few lives.
The sun came out.
Back on the sea road now, it was time to line up a target. Nine miles away, () across the mouth of Muscongus Bay, a line of islands broke from the main and spread south toward the solitary hump of Monhegan. Allen Island, outermost of the pack, was just north of east of my position. If I could step back along the chain I would find Thompson Island and the way to Port Clyde.
It was all a hazy blur at the moment. Riding up and down the swells, I would lose sight of it often. A couple of seabird roosts, Western Egg Rock and Eastern Egg Rock, should be visible, I thought, since they?re miles closer. But they were hidden by the swells or maybe just faded into the background. For an hour or so the scene seemed little changed.
A fishing boat came chugging from the south. It was about 150 yards off but coming my way. It?s exactly the kind of situation that leads to a collision. Except for a second or two on the crest of a wave, I would be almost invisible. I grabbed a paddle blade and lifted the rest of the paddle straight up over my head, and rocked it back and forth. He (or she) changed course.
Far to the northeast I saw a burst of white on the surface of the water, which faded into blue and then burst again. It must be a sunken ledge, I thought. Landing can be hard enough in tall seas: it misbehaves to froth and snarl where there?s no land to be seen. ?Boomers?, they?re called. You might be going along minding your own business, no warning, and BOOM a high wave (more to the point, ?a low trough?) comes out of nowhere and blows up in a boil of foam.
Gradually the egg rocks dropped out of the background and stood on their own. The lighthouse tower on Franklin Island appeared in a coat of evening gleam. I faded north a few degrees and headed that way. It took another hour or more to reach it, while the misty horizon thickened and darkened and the Georges Islands broke apart.
I sprinted for the notch between Thompson and Barter and covered two miles in about 25 minutes. By the time I got a look at the Marshall Point light at Port Clyde, the sun was down. But the seas had settled and I didn?t feel a wind. I paddled the last few miles at a relaxed pace. When I pulled up to a wharf in what seemed to be the ?busiest? part of town, relatively speaking, the sky was full black.
A couple of young waitresses were serving diners on the wharf, under a tall tent structure opened to the night air.
?Excuse me,? I shouted up. ?Is there a public landing near here??
Being hailed from the darkness far below did not seem to unnerve them at all. They directed me to the other side of the wharf. I landed there, unpacked the kayak and carried, separately, the kayak and the gear up the long concrete ramp to the high tide line.
It was, as far as I can remember, my first look at Port Clyde. It?s off the beaten path, so to speak, 10 or 12 miles from Route 1 at Thomaston. It seemed sleepy at that moment, about 7:30 on a Thursday night in early September. Again I was reminded of the idea that every little village has its own flavor.
So Port Clyde kept a ?Popham Beach? tempo in the evening, it seemed. Across the street, a sign outside a big old white building (a barn, maybe) advertised ?taco night?. I walked in. The decor was rough, but the grey-haired diners brought an air of earnest seriousness to the place, the worldly bearing, perhaps, of a vigorous retirement from New York or Washington.
The woman next to me at the bar, similarly advanced in age, rambled more colorfully. The bartender nodded on cue but the woman seemed to be speaking mostly to herself, about being an unwelcome Ron Paul delegate in Tampa, and her inevitable brushes with the great painting Wyeths who long summered nearby.
The story of the taco bar came out in bits and pieces. The bartender?s retired Navy, fifty-something, upright, trim and a bit unnerving for a guy handing out beer. I gathered this was not a living. His wife cooks (quite well, it must be said) and their daughter helps.
I had a Corona and two tacos. After 8:00, the tables began to clear. By 8:30 the place was closed and I was out on the street again.
On advice of the bartender, I slept in the grass at a school playground up the hill. It turns out that while the evenings in Port Clyde are quiet, the wee hours of the morning are not. First a skunk appeared. Then a fleet of pick-up trucks came roaring down the hill: time to start fishing, Popham Beach needs lobsters.
NOTES:
Source: http://mybraincancerdiary.com/2012/12/18/heron-part-6/
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