| Casco Bay Falmouth, Maine | |||||
| DATE | June 29-30, 2004 | TIME | 1200 to 0830 | TRIP LENGTH | 18 nmiles |
| WEATHER | 6/29/04: Sunny; light and variable winds becoming SE at 10 knots;
high temp 75F, overnight low 60F. 6/30/04: Sunny; winds SW at 10-12 knots. |
TIDES | 6/29/04: 08:37 H 14:36 L 20:55 H 6/30/04 09:38 H |
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| LAUNCH SITE | Town Ramp, Falmouth Foreside. I295 to exit 10; take US1 north about 1 mile, right on Johnson Road to ramp (about 1 mile). Six non-resident parking spots total; only two for overnight. |
LANDING SITES | -Little Chebeague Island state-owned MITA island, wonderful walking trails with interpretive signs. -Jewell Island large state-owned MITA island, hiking trails to unique geological features and abandoned military buildings. -Cow Island owned by Rippleffect, the NW side is open to public camping with reservation. |
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| ROUTE | Launch from boat ramp at Falmouth Foreside, land on Little Chebeague for lunch, pass north of Cliff Island to reach Jewell for a hike, then pass south of Cliff to enter Hussey Sound and reach Cow Island for an overnight visit. In the morning, head straight back to the launch. | ||||
| A KAYAKER'S JOURNAL |
Since I have really only been kayak-camping for a year, sleeping in a campsite surrounded by the sea still has a wonderful mystique attached to it -- and a certain amount of healthy respect and fear. Let's hope it always is this way. My first camping trip of 2004 was in Casco Bay, near Portland, Maine. After a long day of paddling, visiting several MITA islands along the way, I spent the night on Cow Island before rising early to get to work in Boston by noon. Believe me, there could be no better way to refresh oneself for the job like a night in the salt air. The Maine Island Trail Association is a non-profit group that supports stewardship and responsible recreational access to wild places along the Maine coast. For the 2004 boating season they have assembled a collection of almost 125 islands and mainland sites where members are allowed to camp or land for day-use activities. While many of these sites are available to the general public, one of the privileges of membership is access to a very large number of privately-owned sites. Membership also allows you to take part in many of the group's stewardship activities, which include island cleanup trips in both the spring and the fall and an "island adopter" program to help inform the public about Leave-No-Trace techniques and ensure that the islands are kept as trash-free as possible. Anyone who travels the Maine coast or wishes it to remain as wild as possible should consider joining MITA. More information can be found at www.mita.org. This is my second year as a member of MITA, and as you will see from many of my trip descriptions this year, membership opens a world of opportunities for kayakers who ply Maine's coastal waters. My chosen camping spot for this trip, Cow Island, is a privately-owned island on the Trail, and though it is open to general public you would be hard-pressed to find that information without the MITA Guidebook. I also adopt a private island in Casco Bay, returning as often as I can to remove trash that has washed ashore and ensure that those who land on the island are not causing harm to the fragile ecosystem it represents. Because this island is not open to the public, I cannot name it here, but I would encourage anyone reading this to join MITA and thereby obtain access to this and all the other private islands included in the Trail. I shoved off from Falmouth Foreside in perfectly calm conditions, heading toward Little Chebeague and the open sea beyond. The current was ebbing as I passed through the Little Chebeague channel, stopping on the beach for lunch before continuing past the exposed hulls of the schooners sunk off Long Island to prevent submarines from passing through during World War II. I passed the north shore of Cliff Island, a perfect example of the northeast-to-southwest glaciation that scoured the channels of Casco Bay, and avoided a large raft of young eiders floating just off the rocks on the eastern point. Crossing the channel, I reached Jewell and carried my heavy boat up the shore to avoid the incoming tide. Jewell is the outermost large island in Casco Bay, and as such was fortified by the military during WWII to protect the important shipping harbor of Portland. Jewell now hosts a plethora of rusted-out, collapsing concrete buildings, plus a nearly-intact observation tower used to spot offshore submarines. This tower was my goal today: even though I had landed on Jewell twice before, I had not had time to hike to the tower. Fighting through thick clouds of mosquitoes, I navigated the well-worn paths through the interior and located the tower, seven stories tall and built upon an already high part of the island. The 360-degree view of Casco Bay from the tower's top was unbelievable on this perfectly clear day -- it was simple to see from Cape Elizabeth to Cape Small and beyond. Moving on, I hiked through the campsites on the southwest end of the island and returned to the protected harbor where I had landed. Too soon, I was pushing onward toward Cow. Hussey Sound is a main thoroughfare for boats entering and leaving Casco Bay. Not deep enough for the larger vessels, the channel sees much traffic from fishing and lobster boats, pleasure craft, and the ferry. The currents through the sound are quite strong at maximal velocity, and woe is the kayaker who chooses to ignore the tidal current tables and fights his way through. I quickly crossed to the western side of the sound, passing Crow Island and the cute Pumpkin Nob before landing on Cow Island. Cow has about five campsites on the northwest side that are open to the public, and Rippleffect, the island's owner, requests that you do not venture onto the southeastern part of the island because it disrupts the programs they run on the island. Circling from the west end of Cow, I picked out a campsite high atop a rock cliff and threw my gear onto the grass, quickly set up my tent, and was off to clean my island. After a short trip, I landed and explored the shoreline, looking for signs of misuse and collecting four grocery bags of flotsam, mostly styrofoam and empty plastic bottles, in the process. The island appeared to be in tip-top shape, and hopefully it will stay that way for the season. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Cow. The few campsites I walked through had people's trash strewn on the ground, from a pair of shorts to a lobster trap to a flower pot. Rippleffect is being quite generous in allowing the use of their island, and its visitors are destroying that trust by treating the island like a trash heap. If I owned the island, I would no longer allow the public to use it after the mistreatment I observed there, so please work hard to take care of the places you visit, and remove the trash you find there, even if it is not your own. After returning to Cow, I settled down to a warm dinner of beef stew and mashed potatoes as the sun set over Portland. It was a perfect night, without a cloud in the sky to obscure the gorgeous stars that are so elusive in these days of light pollution. The next morning, I awoke to a southerly wind that would not much affect my 3-mile trip back to the launch. After a quick breakfast of oatmeal, I tore down the tent and paddled leisurely across the bay, passing Clapboard Island and dodging the sailboats moored in the anchorage by the launch. Despite waking on an island more than 100 miles from my job, I arrived on time and feeling quite happy with the first camping trip of the season under my belt. To many more! Daniel Smith July 13, 2004 |
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© 2004 Daniel E. Smith. Last updated 7/13/04