No, I didn't get far. But my failure may be instructive.
I reconnoitered a couple of days before the attempt, checking out most of the roads I would need to cross and portages that were called for in the first half of the Passage. One portage had become nearly impossible: the one from Little Sandy Bottom Pond to Stetson Pond was supposed to cross a cranberry bog, but the bog was overgrown with no clear way in or across. I drove an alternate portage of well over a mile with the first stretch on a busy road with no shoulder. Much of the rest was very hilly--challenging even to drive. My recon left me pessimistic, so I planned to get as far as I could, rather than believing I could do the whole thing.
The passage is supposed to begin where route 3A crosses the North River. The marina just upstream of the bridge wanted fifteen dollars for me to put my kayak in the water--it would have been twice that if I needed to use the ramp or park! The boatyard on the downstream side of the bridge wouldn't allow me to put in at all. A little park beside rt 3A had adjacent a drainage ditch, but when I arrived with boat and gear, the ditch proved to be mud even at half-tide. So off we went to the Driftway, a little local park that gives free access to the north branch of the river, adding about two miles to the paddling.
The North River is tidal supposedly all the way to Pembroke, as Herring Brook. Tide at the river mouth is the same as at Boston, which was low at about 1pm. I pushed off with my fully-laden two-person kayak Serendipity before 3:30pm. Although the first mile was against the tidal current as I headed first downriver towards the main channel, it was mild enough not to slow me much.
The kayak was full with--
1. a large dry-bag with an air mattress, light sleeping bag, "chaps" for negotiating brambles, etc., made of old jeans, a jacket, several changes of clothing, and dry shoes.
2. a small dry-bag with a number of things that I might want to get at under way, including a change of clothes, rain suit, headlamp, first aid kit, D-cell-powered charging set up for my phone and camera, and spare batteries for charger and GPS.
3. a cloth bag with stuff I wanted available from the boat that wasn't endangered by water, including sunscreen, insect repellent, head net, knife, GPS, compass, "wamping shoes," and pruning shear.
4. the cooking box containing stove, pot, travel mug, dishes and silver, lighter, coffee and tea, etc.
5. a food bag containing several days worth of meals and snacks.
6. loose in the boat were the tent, a spare paddle, bailer, chamois for cleaning up water, kayak seat (really a folding beach chair), my hat, and a machete. Of course I wore my life jacket.
7. the folded-up kayak dolly that I made partly to make it possible to portage the kayak single-handed.
The gear crowded me and I couldn't move easily. (I'd not expected a problem, since I'd done a trial loading for a winter trip that didn't materialize. This presents a mystery: though this trip added the kayak dolly and bushwacking tools, it also omitted two full-sized sleeping bags and bulky cold-weather clothes.)
The lowest mile or two of the North River is ruled by powerboats based at marinas. (The one I reconnoitered with the exorbitant ramp fee had an outdoor deck where drinks were being served to nicely-dressed customers. Not my kind of establishment.) The salt marsh on either bank is extensive and healthy-looking.
As I got higher into the river, cabin cruisers gave way to small runabouts, then skiffs, and the marsh changed to freshwater. Entering Stetson Marsh, I came upon the first "island"--a small but rather high hill whose feet bathed in the river. Teenagers on a nearby bank led me to keep paddling. I came to two more, lower, "islands." The last had a powerboat drawn up on the shore, so I paddled farther to see if there were any more camping places. Finding none, I turned back to the last, where the powerboat had just motored away, and went ashore. All of this time, and for some time after, the current continued to flow slowly upriver.
I cannot compare it to the two islands I passed up, but this was a great camp site. A clearing in the middle at a low elevation had a stone ring fireplace with a couple of plank benches. At the back and higher up was a site just big enough for my 3-man tent, with a view of the marsh below. A few steps away was an overlook, where you could contemplate events in the marsh perhaps ten feet below your feet with a morning cup of coffee or an evening glass of wine in hand.
Tired and unwilling to use mosquito repellent, I did not light up the stove but dined on tortilla chips and cheesy dip, and of course after-dinner wine. I didn't sleep well: the air mattress which used to be adequate for sleeping is no more: it's too narrow, making it difficult to roll over. (Next time I will take my self-inflating camp mattress; I've already figured out how to strap it to the rear deck to make enough room.)
The next day I had a lazy breakfast of oatmeal with a huge cup of coffee despite the danger of missing my tide, and didn't leave until about 8:40am--when the water was already higher than when I'd landed the evening before. I passed under route 3 less than an hour later; the tidal current sped up under the bridge, but not enough to cause real concern. I continued to ride the incoming (albeit slow) tide for the whole of the morning and a little beyond.
I somehow passed the confluence with the Indian Head River without realizing, later finding I'd mistaken a later little offshoot channel for the Indian Head River. Herring Brook narrowed and became increasingly choked by waterweed and then grass, until I could not be sure where the channel was. I worried that I would miss a left-hand turn that the instructions spoke of, and constantly probed for alternative channels. Finding the right channel should have been easy: I had made Google Earth images of the entire passage and put them in my phone, I had Google Maps in my phone with its built-in GPS, and I had an actual dedicated GPS (really intended for keeping track of distance run).
But a few simple, practical issues kept me confused. First, Google Maps would rotate the image to conform with my direction, but slow movement and the meandering stream meant it never settled in one direction, so that I was constantly trying to orient myself. The sun was too high to make a good compass. The phone screen was not bright enough in full sun, so that I had great difficulty in seeing the tiny blue thread that marked the supposed channels, and difficulty converting what I saw into compass directions. The Google Earth images, besides being difficult to see in the sun, were of little help without a precise idea of where I was. And the hand-held GPS was a cheap model with only the most rudimentary map.
The one thing that could have helped at that moment was the Google Earth app: I did not realize it at the time, but a few touches on the screen would bring up a dot on my position. (I was convinced the feature should exist, but didn't find it while afloat.) But even this has its drawbacks: I have since found that it is often only good to the nearest 10 meters. The little winding stream I was trying to follow had meanders so sharp that I sometimes had to work my 16 foot kayak around them by degrees, going forward and back several times to make the turn.
High in the brook, and shortly after working the boat over a sunken branch, I decided I had made a wrong turn and had to return the way I'd come. But the boat could not be turned around in a channel barely five feet wide, so--unable to paddle backwards without a way to see behind me, I put on my "wamping shoes," climbed out of the kayak, and half waded, half swum the boat backwards until I had room to work it around. I was surprised to find that the channel almost as deep as wide, with sides sloping steeply: until I learned to keep my weight off the slippery bottom by lying on my stomach on the kayak foredeck, I was in danger of slipping underneath the boat. Afraid of upsetting kayak and gear by trying to climb in in deep water, I finally found a submerged branch I could balance on, and flopped back into my seat.
Convinced I needed to backtrack to find the right channel, I decided to go back downriver a little. I also wanted to find some shade so that I could rest, possibly make out my phone screen, and recharge the phone. It was then that I downloaded the Google Earth app, but failed to find the trick to locating myself on it. It was now nearing midafternoon, and the current had reversed. I tried a bit more to find possible alternative channels in the sea of surrounding grass using a useful trick: a mass of shrubs and small trees very near shows no channel in that direction, since these need soil above water in which too grow. This trick isn't foolproof, though: the windings of the channel might skirt shrubbery and then change direction to find a way through that isn't evident from my vantage point. The current was too weak to indicate the channel through the choking grass.
In the end, the only direction I could go with any confidence was back down the river. I abandoned the attempt for now, and headed back down, planning to pull out at Pantooset Farms, just up from the route 53 bridge. Arriving there in late afternoon, it became clear that no farm existed there: my guess is that it had been sold to developers years before, resulting in the high-priced condo development I could see in its stead. So instead I pulled the boat through ankle-deep mud to a private ramp, assembled the dolly, and got everything to the street, possibly leaving the absent owner none the wiser. My patient wife picked me up an hour later.
After the fact, I was able to figure out my position at every point along the journey by manually plotting latitudes and longitudes from my old hand-held GPS onto Google Earth. I now know that I was in the right channel when I decided to turn around, but I also know I was unable to figure out where to go next in the sea of grass. I could not find my way in a little, meandering stream merely by knowing the general direction I was bound: the meanders often took me ninety degrees or even more from that overall trend at any given moment. The best tool is probably the Google Earth app, keeping in mind that it cannot reliably show you the channel, but it can certainly narrow down the choices to about a ten meter width most of the time. I have found that Google Earth typically locates my position about twenty feet southeast of my actual position, but once it was an inexplicable half-mile off. The hand-held GPS is still good for basic information such as distance and speed, and the track can be plotted on Google Earth afterwards.
Physical Issues
Discomfort and fatigue were factors in abandoning the attempt. I'm not young anymore, nor in good shape. I hadn't slept well. My seat did not allow for changes in position, and it wasn't soft enough for such long sitting. The difficulty of getting in and out of the kayak exacerbated this. There was no gentle bank on which I could disembark: water in which the kayak could float was usually at least thigh deep, often with a soft mud bottom. I worried about overturning the kayak if I needed to get back aboard from deeper water.
Despite my efforts to avoid blisters on my fingers (bandaids in advance on places I've gotten them in the past), I got at least one anyway. Gloves are in order on the next long paddle. My old gel padded bicycling gloves might do the trick.
The seat was another source of annoyance: I got very sore from sitting in the same position for seven hours with only one break. This despite having padded my seat with the nearly-deflated air mattress from the night before. I have a gel kneeling pad that I may try next, or a small inflated inner tube. (The inner tube could also double as a paddle float to help stabilize myself and the boat when getting in and out in deeper water.)
Some equipment needs to go, or at least be distributed to leave room for me to move. My big sleeping mattress will be added, but it can be tied on the rear deck to leave room in the cockpit. At risk of raising the center of gravity a bit, some gear can be tied atop big dry bag. I am unsure what equipment can be left behind. The machete was probably overkill, but takes up very little room, and I still don't know how useful it might be.
Loaded for departure. (Looks a bit worse than it is: gray airbed in it for seat cushion.)
I reconnoitered a couple of days before the attempt, checking out most of the roads I would need to cross and portages that were called for in the first half of the Passage. One portage had become nearly impossible: the one from Little Sandy Bottom Pond to Stetson Pond was supposed to cross a cranberry bog, but the bog was overgrown with no clear way in or across. I drove an alternate portage of well over a mile with the first stretch on a busy road with no shoulder. Much of the rest was very hilly--challenging even to drive. My recon left me pessimistic, so I planned to get as far as I could, rather than believing I could do the whole thing.
The passage is supposed to begin where route 3A crosses the North River. The marina just upstream of the bridge wanted fifteen dollars for me to put my kayak in the water--it would have been twice that if I needed to use the ramp or park! The boatyard on the downstream side of the bridge wouldn't allow me to put in at all. A little park beside rt 3A had adjacent a drainage ditch, but when I arrived with boat and gear, the ditch proved to be mud even at half-tide. So off we went to the Driftway, a little local park that gives free access to the north branch of the river, adding about two miles to the paddling.
The North River is tidal supposedly all the way to Pembroke, as Herring Brook. Tide at the river mouth is the same as at Boston, which was low at about 1pm. I pushed off with my fully-laden two-person kayak Serendipity before 3:30pm. Although the first mile was against the tidal current as I headed first downriver towards the main channel, it was mild enough not to slow me much.
The kayak was full with--
1. a large dry-bag with an air mattress, light sleeping bag, "chaps" for negotiating brambles, etc., made of old jeans, a jacket, several changes of clothing, and dry shoes.
2. a small dry-bag with a number of things that I might want to get at under way, including a change of clothes, rain suit, headlamp, first aid kit, D-cell-powered charging set up for my phone and camera, and spare batteries for charger and GPS.
3. a cloth bag with stuff I wanted available from the boat that wasn't endangered by water, including sunscreen, insect repellent, head net, knife, GPS, compass, "wamping shoes," and pruning shear.
4. the cooking box containing stove, pot, travel mug, dishes and silver, lighter, coffee and tea, etc.
5. a food bag containing several days worth of meals and snacks.
6. loose in the boat were the tent, a spare paddle, bailer, chamois for cleaning up water, kayak seat (really a folding beach chair), my hat, and a machete. Of course I wore my life jacket.
7. the folded-up kayak dolly that I made partly to make it possible to portage the kayak single-handed.
The gear crowded me and I couldn't move easily. (I'd not expected a problem, since I'd done a trial loading for a winter trip that didn't materialize. This presents a mystery: though this trip added the kayak dolly and bushwacking tools, it also omitted two full-sized sleeping bags and bulky cold-weather clothes.)
The lowest mile or two of the North River is ruled by powerboats based at marinas. (The one I reconnoitered with the exorbitant ramp fee had an outdoor deck where drinks were being served to nicely-dressed customers. Not my kind of establishment.) The salt marsh on either bank is extensive and healthy-looking.
As I got higher into the river, cabin cruisers gave way to small runabouts, then skiffs, and the marsh changed to freshwater. Entering Stetson Marsh, I came upon the first "island"--a small but rather high hill whose feet bathed in the river. Teenagers on a nearby bank led me to keep paddling. I came to two more, lower, "islands." The last had a powerboat drawn up on the shore, so I paddled farther to see if there were any more camping places. Finding none, I turned back to the last, where the powerboat had just motored away, and went ashore. All of this time, and for some time after, the current continued to flow slowly upriver.
I cannot compare it to the two islands I passed up, but this was a great camp site. A clearing in the middle at a low elevation had a stone ring fireplace with a couple of plank benches. At the back and higher up was a site just big enough for my 3-man tent, with a view of the marsh below. A few steps away was an overlook, where you could contemplate events in the marsh perhaps ten feet below your feet with a morning cup of coffee or an evening glass of wine in hand.
Tired and unwilling to use mosquito repellent, I did not light up the stove but dined on tortilla chips and cheesy dip, and of course after-dinner wine. I didn't sleep well: the air mattress which used to be adequate for sleeping is no more: it's too narrow, making it difficult to roll over. (Next time I will take my self-inflating camp mattress; I've already figured out how to strap it to the rear deck to make enough room.)
The next day I had a lazy breakfast of oatmeal with a huge cup of coffee despite the danger of missing my tide, and didn't leave until about 8:40am--when the water was already higher than when I'd landed the evening before. I passed under route 3 less than an hour later; the tidal current sped up under the bridge, but not enough to cause real concern. I continued to ride the incoming (albeit slow) tide for the whole of the morning and a little beyond.
I somehow passed the confluence with the Indian Head River without realizing, later finding I'd mistaken a later little offshoot channel for the Indian Head River. Herring Brook narrowed and became increasingly choked by waterweed and then grass, until I could not be sure where the channel was. I worried that I would miss a left-hand turn that the instructions spoke of, and constantly probed for alternative channels. Finding the right channel should have been easy: I had made Google Earth images of the entire passage and put them in my phone, I had Google Maps in my phone with its built-in GPS, and I had an actual dedicated GPS (really intended for keeping track of distance run).
But a few simple, practical issues kept me confused. First, Google Maps would rotate the image to conform with my direction, but slow movement and the meandering stream meant it never settled in one direction, so that I was constantly trying to orient myself. The sun was too high to make a good compass. The phone screen was not bright enough in full sun, so that I had great difficulty in seeing the tiny blue thread that marked the supposed channels, and difficulty converting what I saw into compass directions. The Google Earth images, besides being difficult to see in the sun, were of little help without a precise idea of where I was. And the hand-held GPS was a cheap model with only the most rudimentary map.
The one thing that could have helped at that moment was the Google Earth app: I did not realize it at the time, but a few touches on the screen would bring up a dot on my position. (I was convinced the feature should exist, but didn't find it while afloat.) But even this has its drawbacks: I have since found that it is often only good to the nearest 10 meters. The little winding stream I was trying to follow had meanders so sharp that I sometimes had to work my 16 foot kayak around them by degrees, going forward and back several times to make the turn.
High in the brook, and shortly after working the boat over a sunken branch, I decided I had made a wrong turn and had to return the way I'd come. But the boat could not be turned around in a channel barely five feet wide, so--unable to paddle backwards without a way to see behind me, I put on my "wamping shoes," climbed out of the kayak, and half waded, half swum the boat backwards until I had room to work it around. I was surprised to find that the channel almost as deep as wide, with sides sloping steeply: until I learned to keep my weight off the slippery bottom by lying on my stomach on the kayak foredeck, I was in danger of slipping underneath the boat. Afraid of upsetting kayak and gear by trying to climb in in deep water, I finally found a submerged branch I could balance on, and flopped back into my seat.
Convinced I needed to backtrack to find the right channel, I decided to go back downriver a little. I also wanted to find some shade so that I could rest, possibly make out my phone screen, and recharge the phone. It was then that I downloaded the Google Earth app, but failed to find the trick to locating myself on it. It was now nearing midafternoon, and the current had reversed. I tried a bit more to find possible alternative channels in the sea of surrounding grass using a useful trick: a mass of shrubs and small trees very near shows no channel in that direction, since these need soil above water in which too grow. This trick isn't foolproof, though: the windings of the channel might skirt shrubbery and then change direction to find a way through that isn't evident from my vantage point. The current was too weak to indicate the channel through the choking grass.
In the end, the only direction I could go with any confidence was back down the river. I abandoned the attempt for now, and headed back down, planning to pull out at Pantooset Farms, just up from the route 53 bridge. Arriving there in late afternoon, it became clear that no farm existed there: my guess is that it had been sold to developers years before, resulting in the high-priced condo development I could see in its stead. So instead I pulled the boat through ankle-deep mud to a private ramp, assembled the dolly, and got everything to the street, possibly leaving the absent owner none the wiser. My patient wife picked me up an hour later.
Post Mortem
NavigationAfter the fact, I was able to figure out my position at every point along the journey by manually plotting latitudes and longitudes from my old hand-held GPS onto Google Earth. I now know that I was in the right channel when I decided to turn around, but I also know I was unable to figure out where to go next in the sea of grass. I could not find my way in a little, meandering stream merely by knowing the general direction I was bound: the meanders often took me ninety degrees or even more from that overall trend at any given moment. The best tool is probably the Google Earth app, keeping in mind that it cannot reliably show you the channel, but it can certainly narrow down the choices to about a ten meter width most of the time. I have found that Google Earth typically locates my position about twenty feet southeast of my actual position, but once it was an inexplicable half-mile off. The hand-held GPS is still good for basic information such as distance and speed, and the track can be plotted on Google Earth afterwards.
Physical Issues
Discomfort and fatigue were factors in abandoning the attempt. I'm not young anymore, nor in good shape. I hadn't slept well. My seat did not allow for changes in position, and it wasn't soft enough for such long sitting. The difficulty of getting in and out of the kayak exacerbated this. There was no gentle bank on which I could disembark: water in which the kayak could float was usually at least thigh deep, often with a soft mud bottom. I worried about overturning the kayak if I needed to get back aboard from deeper water.
Despite my efforts to avoid blisters on my fingers (bandaids in advance on places I've gotten them in the past), I got at least one anyway. Gloves are in order on the next long paddle. My old gel padded bicycling gloves might do the trick.
The seat was another source of annoyance: I got very sore from sitting in the same position for seven hours with only one break. This despite having padded my seat with the nearly-deflated air mattress from the night before. I have a gel kneeling pad that I may try next, or a small inflated inner tube. (The inner tube could also double as a paddle float to help stabilize myself and the boat when getting in and out in deeper water.)
Some equipment needs to go, or at least be distributed to leave room for me to move. My big sleeping mattress will be added, but it can be tied on the rear deck to leave room in the cockpit. At risk of raising the center of gravity a bit, some gear can be tied atop big dry bag. I am unsure what equipment can be left behind. The machete was probably overkill, but takes up very little room, and I still don't know how useful it might be.
Lower North River
Lower river around marinas.
Lower but more unpeopled North River.
Drifting with the current.
Spartina saltmarsh.
Cattail (freshwater) marsh.
Stetson Marsh.
Sunset from camp.
Landing place.
Tour of camp.
Landing place.
Marsh overlook in evening.
Freshwater marsh dominated here by narrow-leaved cattail.
Log house right on the river would be an interesting place to live.
First sign of the grass that would become my nemesis.
Channel narrows.
Grass begins to become an impediment. Trees and shrubs near left bank show channel probably doesn't go that way.
Parked.
Headed back downriver.
No comments:
Post a Comment