3 Weeks & 6 Kids...

2011-07-23

...can make for a whole lot of the Maine coast explored.

This summer I'm leading Wilderness Trips for the Chewonki Foundation, and for the first session I led the Maine Coast Kayak Trip. On the 28th of June 6 participants arrived on Chewonki Neck. My co-leader and I got them ready, and we shoved off of the banks of the waterfront on the 30th. On the 18th of July we were picked up in Seal Cove on Mount Desert Island.

For those of you who may be visual learners here's what it looks like on a chart:

And, for those who are most impressed by raw numbers the route is about 140 nautical miles long (via roughly drawing it between points as I can remember later on the computer) or 161 some odd miles long to you landlubbers. We also camped on 13 different islands.

More important is what we saw and experienced in that time. Some of the highlights would be:

<li>Seeing a sleeping seal pup floating as we rounded Pemaquid Point, and then seeing the pup wake up just a couple of feet away.</li>

<li>Paddling in the morning fog through the Muscle Ridge Channel.</li>

<li>Freshwater swimming in quarries on three different islands.</li>

<li>Some random stranger from the Midwest with two hilarious dogs giving us ice cream on Swans Island (Thank You!)</li>

<li>Sunsets and sunrises that you just can't see anywhere else.</li>

<li>Making it all the way up on our own (three weeks out, three hours back)!</li>

Here are just a couple of pictures that I took on the way. There are way fewer keepers shooting with the GoPro than if I was shooting with D90 which just finally got out of the shop.

[largeimage description="Sunrise at Spectacle Island"][/largeimage]