Woody Debriss

The air is thick and about as heavy with moisture as it could be without falling to earth. It almost mists, but it is more as if you can smell it rather than feel it. The dense fog that was forecast did not materialize, or if it did, it stayed about 150 feet above the ground. Treetops on the surrounding hills fade away to gray dissolving into the clouds.

I put in under the big bridge right at the peak of high tide and head upriver. It is calm and about 40F, and this weather will not turn into rain.
 

There is a lot of woody debris in the water. I suppose this is in part due to the recent rain storm that hit most of New England, and in part due to the high tide rinsing the marshy shoreline of it's captured treasures. I will head up the east shore instead of my usual crossing to the other side and passing behind the PLCP islands (Pope, Long, Carting, Peacock).

The term, "woody debris," is a memory trigger. As an artist, I got to take part in some archaeology work. The field archaeologist, who oversaw and taught us the technical parts, aside from being excellent at his job, had a great smart alecky sense of humor. GB had a high school degree, and had been a farm worker until he signed up for an archaeology field school. GB was very intelligent and well suited with the particular mix of skills required to do field work. The head archaeologist said that GB was fully capable of doing her job, except that he probably wouldn't like writing the necessary reports. In fact GB was every bit as skilled as most any of the degreed archaeologists that he worked with. He also had a full and varied wardrobe of university sweatshirts just for fieldwork. Okay, now for the woody debris part. GB told a story of doing a survey during a reservoir draw down. When reservoirs are lowered for dam work or checks, archaeologists are often sent out to walk the shoreline and see if anything important has eroded out. GB was paired with a new archaeologist checking out Baker Lake.
There was a lot of wood in the water, so GB says, in order to check the guy out, "There sure is a lot of woody debriss in the water."
Yes, he pronounced the silent "s". No response.
So, he says it again, "There sure is a lot of woody debriss."
"It's pronounced, debreee," said the other guy.*

*FYI, that was the C minus response. The appropriate reply would be more like, "Do ya suppose any of it is fossils?" Or some other equally stupid thing.

Anyway, that's where I end up when I see woody debriss.

Besides calm, it is quite. The low ceiling has kept the usual small airplane traffic on the ground and the helicopters at the dragonfly factory, even though they are weather capable, stay grounded since they are mostly in a test or checkout phase. Even the birds are somewhat rare. I spot a few Buffleheads, four Mallards, two Great Blue Herons, a Downy Woodpecker, one Merganser and a Kingfisher. That's just about nothing for a 3-1/2 hour trip.

I get to the island above the nameless island. I turn back from there and get the advantage of the ebb current, which cuts almost a half hour off the return.