Waterlines -- A Paddler's Journal, Penobscot Bay, Maine

1-31-04:
Noticed a cluster of people out on the ice at Ducktrap Harbor this afternoon. Looking more closely, we saw a large seal was a reason for the commotion. We u-turned and pulled down the gravel road to the sandbar and small harbor. A bystander there told us that the seal appeared to be sick or injured and assured us that the folks at the Marine Mammal Lifeline had been contacted and were on their way. Turns out the seal on the ice was an adult male hooded seal. His photo can now be seen on the MML website. This less common seal is typically found on the heavy pack ice of the North Atlantic -- and spends its summers north of the Arctic circle. Adult males weigh as much as 900 pounds and can apparently be a aggressive when approached. The hooded seal is much larger than the harbor seals commonly seen along the Maine coast and is named for the large inflatable nasal bladder (males only) which is uses to intimidate other male seals and perhaps to impress the ladies.

According to Allied Whale, sightings of stray hooded seals have become more common in recent years -- with strays sometimes ending up as far south as Bermuda. Marine biologists have not been able to determine if the recent strandings are part of a large die-off of hooded seals triggered by disease, pollution, climate change, or some other factor. Most hooded seal strandings occur in the winter months.

1-27-04:
The cold weather continues. Belfast Harbor is "froze up pretty solid " as some of the locals might say. During daylight hours, you can get a look at harbor conditions by going to the Village Soup webcam. The water temperature in West Penobscot Bay at a depth of one meter as reported by GoMoos is 32.7 degrees. So it is no longer just an issue of the harbors freezing up. If the cold weather continues and the conditions are relatively calm, the whole bay could freeze up. Old timers will talk about years when the whole bay froze up, and how a person could walk -- or talk a car or skidoo -- 6 miles across the bay from North Haven island to the mainland. I'm not sure I would ever venture that far from land without a boat.

1-24-04:
I am off to NH for a few days. In the meantime, here are some great links to check out. Chesapeake Paddlers Association: Nice website design, quality information, nice resources page. The best kayak club website I have seen.

Also in that area, Sea Kayak Chesapeake Bay includes dozens of trip reports and information on dozens of launch ramps. Sites like these make me believe again that the internet can be a wonderful thing.


1-23-04:
Still on the kayak resistance and speed stuff. Peter Unold provides another article and chart, which contains some very interesting data. If you sort the columns for resistance at 2 knots, you will see that the VCP Avocet is tied for least resistance at 0.92 lbs. If you sort the column for resistance at 5 knots, the Avocet is 2nd to least efficient with 8.13 lbs. of drag. At the speed of 6 knots, the Avocet becomes the 4th most efficient hull again. How can this be true? I can only guess that -- as I have read -- hydrostatics is very complex -- and that because there are several sources of resistance (skin resistance and wave-making resistance), each with their own resistance curves, the curves for total resistance are not smoothly sloped.


1-21-04:
Came across some really interesting information on kayak resistance and speed at http://www.unold.dk/paddling/articles/kayakvelocity.html The chart points out that a speed of 3 knots, there is very little difference in the resistance of various hulls -- about a half pound of drag difference in the more than 100 boats tested. At 6 knots, there is a difference of more than 7 pounds of drag between the most and least efficient hulls. And this is a huge difference, considering the average paddler can only work against about 5 pounds of drag for long distances. The chart allows you to see the amount of resistance (measured in pounds of drag) the paddler will experience at different speeds. The chart points out that at speeds around 2 to 3 knots, shorter boats with short waterlines (for example the VCP Avocet) actually create less drag than longer, narrower boats such as the Seda Glider (normally thought to be a fast boat). Even at a speed of 4 knots the 16 foot Avocet (in polyethylene yet) is slightly more efficient than the 19 foot Glider. And most people who tour in kayaks rarely surpass 4 knots.

So the idea of a "fast kayak" is somewhat of a myth. Some kayaks take less effort to paddle at certain speeds than other kayaks; but the effort required will often be reversed when both kayaks are paddled at a different speed. If someone asks, "Is that a fast kayak?" We should respond, "It depends on how fast you paddle it?"

1-19-04:
Martin Luther King Day. Posted an comment on the Paddling.net message board that based on my observations of this part of the country and of paddling magazines, the paddling community does not "look like America" and is not very diverse. My post received a lot of thoughtful responses as to why the paddling scene in the United States is so "white." I think the answer that gets closest to the truth is simply that most people simply end up adopting the activities that the people they grow up with participate in. This says a lot for the need to form community boating groups -- and outdoor groups -- whose mission it is to get kids out enjoying themselves in nature. To me, it seems a lost opportunity if kids grow up never having been exposed to outdoor activities such as backpacking and paddling. And, for many, it can be life-changing as well.

In my final comment, I wrote: " Ok, so its hard for me to admit that paddling may not be the route to nirvana for everyone. On the other hand, the teacher in me (I teach in a public high school) knows that kids will often initially resist (and express disdain for)experiences they later grow to enjoy. I think it is a missed opportunity if millions of kids are growing up in this country without ever having been exposed to paddling (and other outdoor activities such as backpacking and mountain biking). And this may not be a luxury either: if we are ever going to solve environmental problems, we're going to need a generation that has some experience with and affinity for the land and the water."


1-18-04:
I've been reading about the Inuit in the book Cold Oceans (see 1-17-04 entry), and so an article about the latest threat to the Inuit caught my eye. This threat to their way of life and continuation as a people is not economic, political, or cultural -- although the 90,000 Inuit remaining in Canada and eastern Greenland have undoubtedly faced more than their share of these threats already. This newest threat is an invisible ecological one. Toxic compounds originating in industrialized countries to the south find their way north in the form of air pollution, and then make their way into the local food chain. According to an article in the ContraCosta Times, the whale, seal, and walrus, and seabird meat that makes up much of the Inuit diet contains extremely high concentrations of PCP's and mercury. These, in turn, show up in the Inuit themselves, and in the breast milk of Inuit mothers (which contain PCP's and Mercury at a rate up to 50 times higher than that of women in the US or Europe). Yet another example of how our world is so much smaller and more fragile than we might think.

1-17-04:
"They carried all their belongings on ten komatiks: furs for the winter, tents for the summer, and kayaks for hunting in open water . . . The tribe stopped for the summer when the ice broke up in July. Some of the hunters explored inland to hunt caribou while others harpooned seals, narwhals, and walrus from their kayaks. They built stone igloos and insulated them with sod for a winter camp. During the long dark time, they lived by the light and heat of their blubber lamps . The the full moon, hunters waited patiently by aglus to harpoon seals. They set out again in the spring."

-- from the story of Qitdlaq, an Inuit shaman who committed a murder and then fled with a band of followers across the ice to Greenland. In his book, Cold Oceans, Jon documents the 550 mile journey he and his wife made to retrace the route taken by Qitdlaq. They traveled up the east coast of Ellesmere island and then across Smith Sound to Greenland, alternately paddling and dragging their plastic kayaks. During their journey, Jon and Cathy found a site on which stood the remains of 8 stone igloos, which likely had been built by Qitdlaq and his group. Photos and maps are available on Jon Turk's web site.

1-16-04:
More than 10 degrees below zero F in Maine again this morning. This is a time for dreams, and dreaming of the trips we will undertake when our part of the world again swings a bit closer to the sun. Apparently Australian Michael O'Shea has been doing some rather big dreaming of his own. The news article about his planned kayak trip down the Mekong River outlines a route that will cover 4,800 km and pass through 6 countries. O'Shea's trip will be the longest ever continuous navigation of the river from near its source on the Tibetan plateau to the delta leading to the South China Sea in southern Vietnam. His trip will be burdened by the presence of a film crew, however. My experience of traveling in less developed places is that the authenticity ratio goes sharply down in proportion to the number of cameras present. Circus anyone?


Waterlines Archives:
December 2003
January 1 - 15, 2004

lives a mile from the water in Belfast, Maine with his wife, 2 daughters, and 3 dogs. He is owner of Water Walker Sea Kayaks and also teaches English at a local public high school. Please write him with comments, questions, or suggestions.