Maine Day 4 - Kayaking

I got a great nights sleep last night despite yippy dogs and snoring men in pop-ups! (More on the yippy dogs in a minute…) thank you sound machine app and working RV batteries! J

I was heading into Bar Harbor to be at the kayak place by 10:00 that meant I had to catch the 1^st bus out of Blackwoods at 8:50 and I was going to have some time to kill before the trip. So of course I headed to my new favorite place in Bar Harbor, The Opera House! I just got coffee and sweet roll – an orange spiral, it was like a biscuit with orange marmalade rolled up like a cinnamon roll! I’m finding that it’s much easier to go get coffee in town rather than make it in the RV. Since I’m dry camping I’d have to start the generator or plug the coffee pot into the inverter which is by the driver’s seat. Not only that but there’s NO counter space, none whatsoever, so making coffee is a bit of a hassle, esp if I’m trying to get out the door quickly.

Also the Opera House was just 2 doors down from the Kayak place and I could use one of their plugs to finish charging my phone (using it for a sound machine means the battery runs down over night!).

At 10:00 I walked over to the kayak place. I’d been hoping there would be an odd number of people so I could have my own kayak, but no, there were 12 of us. There was a group of 3 so I got their “odd man out” with me. After getting suited up with spray skirts, dry bags, water shoes etc, we piled into the van and headed out to the Western side of Mt. Desert Island. It was about a 15 min ride and the guide told us all about the island.

I don’t remember much of what he said but one thing I remember is that the guy who came here first – Mr. Cadillac (I don’t remember his first name, I could look it up but I don’t have google right now, if you are reading this you do have google so that’s your homework assignment) “discovered” Mt. Desert Island and named the highest peak on it after himself. He then decided that living here was way to difficult so he moved to Detroit, where he got into the car business and named a car after himself. The story has a lot of holes in it, I’ll google it when I get to a connection and get back to you!

We put the kayaks in at Seal Cove and then rode the incoming tide and the winds back up to Bartlett Cove – about 6 miles of paddling. It was easy paddling though because the current and the winds were helping us a lot. To see on a map where I was click here to pull up the Acadia Map on the NPS website – we were all the way on the western side (left) Seal Cove is just above and to the left of where it says “Blue Hill Bay”. We paddled past Moose Island and then over to Hardwood Island, we took a break in the cove area right by where it says “Hardwood Island”. We then went up between Folly Island and Bartlett Island and took out where the road ends in the water.

It was a beautiful day for a kayak trip! Sunny and warm! The water was frigid! I couldn’t take many pictures, but the ones that I did take pretty much sum up the trip, it wasn’t spectacular scenery, but it was pretty and it was a great place to kayak! We saw a few birds – a bunch of cormorants and 2 osprey. Apparently there are Eagles here, but we didn’t see any.

There was another odd number group on our trip, so I got paired up with their extra person, she was a nice gal although I didn’t really talk to her much. This wasn’t an especially social group of folks, unlike the hike yesterday where we all got to know each other. She had never gone kayaking or canoeing before so she knew nothing about how do it! I went in the back of the boat, which was good because I could navigate – although I did get confused a bit. In a kayak you have foot pedals that control the rudder and it’s very simple – push the left foot pedal and you go left, push the right foot pedal and you go right. Well, I guess my brain was in a canoe land or something because kept consciously pushing the opposite one that I wanted! Luckily it’s easy to correct! Since my partner had never done this before she had little technique for paddling and I couldn’t get in synch with her at all – I think I ended up doing most of the powering for the boat as well as the steering. I’m probably going to feel it in the morning! It was lots fun and I liked basically having the boat to myself! I’m looking forward to renting a kayak at the campground in Andover and exploring the lake!

When we got back I took the bus out to Sand Beach! I had to go by there anyway to get back to the campground so I got off and went down to the beach! Sand Beach is an anomaly here – most of the coast is rocks. Big huge boulders. The wave crash in and it’s not safe for swimming! I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but it has to do with Old Soaker – an off-shore rock island (go back to the map I liked above, Sand Beach is on the right hand side of he map) you can see Old Soaker. It looks and feels like a regular beach! It’s not very big, but it’s big enough! The water however, is frigid. I think the temp today was 54. That’s right 54 degrees. Brrrr…. It was even cold for me! I jumped in Glacial lakes and swam around in Glacier, but this was way too cold. I stood in the surf for a little while (less than 5 mins) but my legs were going numb so I got out and hosed my feet off and came back to the RV. I’m going back out there on Fri I think to hike around Great Head.

When I got back to the RV it was shower time! I got cleaned up and headed back into Bar Harbor for dinner. I was heading to Rosalie’s – the kayak guide said it was one of the best pizza joints in town. The best one was “Reel Pizza” which is a pizza/movie theater and I didn’t want to do that. Rosalie’s was ok, if that’s the best I’m glad I didn’t try the others, but it wasn’t bad. After dinner I wandered a bit before getting ice cream and heading back to the bus stop.

The past 2 days I got ice cream at The Black Moose because the sign on their window says that a portion of the proceeds from their sales goes to help preserve moose habitats. There are so many ice cream joints in town it’s hard to know which is the best so I picked it for a none-ice cream reason! I’m pretty sure it’s Gifford’s Ice Cream (voted best by some big ice cream survey people) because I recognize the flavor names. Tonight I realized that there isn’t a line of people at The Black Moose, so I was wondering about other places. On my way back to the bus I saw a place that was advertising Real Maine Blueberry Soft Serve – mmmmm….that sound good…that’s on the plan for tomorrow!

When I got back to the RV it was only 8:00 and it wasn’t dark yet so I decided to walk out the little path to the ocean and check the view here. It was a pretty cool view, limited area though, the rocks get steep quick, it’s not like back along the Ocean Trail. It does have an amazing view of a huge expanse of the ocean – on a clear night it would be an awesome place to watch the stars! I’m hoping maybe tomorrow night will be just as clear as tonight and I’ll walk out after dark.

When I got back to the RV I was settling in to blog and upload my pictures when I heard a Ranger talking to the people in the pop-up next door. They were telling him about the trailer that had the yippy dogs. I stepped out, of course I’m wearing my purple penguin pajamas, and told them that I’d been here at 4:00 and they were barking and no one was there and then again at 8:00 no one was there. The folks in the pop-up said the dogs never quieted down last night, I guess I didn’t hear because of my sound machine! J The Ranger said that he might be back to ask some more questions.

A little while later there was a knock at the door and Arthur, the Ranger, asked me to fill out some paper work about what I’d seen/heard etc. Apparently someone else in the campground had left a note on the picnic table at 3:30 telling the folks about their dogs barking – so they were figuring it was going on at least 10 hours that the dogs had been in the trailer alone. I sat down to fill out the paper and realized that it was the same official “witness report” folks fill out for all kinds of crimes/incidents! Pretty cool! When I stepped back out to give it to him and noticed that his Ranger Cruiser was parked right in my campsite right up next to my RV! I didn’t even know he was there! I really wanted to take pictures but decided not to!

Meanwhile the dogs had stopped barking. I’m not sure what they did – if they broke into the trailer, shot a tranquilizer dart through the screen or what. When I brought the paper to the Ranger I heard someone say “one of the dogs is mine, one of them is my mother’s” so presumably the owners came back. I heard them out there a minute ago and all has been quiet for over an hour now.

Off to bed…the wind is kicking up, there’s a chance of rain overnight. I’m falling asleep as I type!

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