Bantam

S surprised me this morning, "Let's go to the East River." 

I checked the weather as it was already suspiciously windy at our house, and the East River salt marsh is even more exposed.  I suggest Bantam as the wind would be lighter and the temperature about 5 degrees cooler, in exchange for an extra 20 minutes of driving.

We put in at the boat launch at the bottom of the lake, with me promise of a close up look at the "Thomas the Tank Engine" house.  We headed up the west shore to avoid a pair of expensive day waterski boats that were doing circles towing kids that would be better off paddling or learning to sail.  Once away from that mess, there was almost no traffic of any sort.  We don't paddle lakes that often, so it is a pleasant change, even if it isn't particularly wild - because it isn't.

Spotted 4 Great Blue Herons in close proximity to each other as we headed toward the Bantam River. They are usually not that near each other. 

We headed into the outflowing Bantam River, and then up the more interesting Butternut Brook. Spotted a muskrat on the way in.  We turned back at the first beaver dam, as there is only about a half mile more of paddling, and it gradually becomes more work the farther in one goes.  Spotted a small beaver on the way out.

Headed back to the lake and then went east along the lakeshore to the inflowing Bantam River.   Stopped and took a rest at the first beaver dam.  Then headed back down the lake on the east shore, making sure to stop an marvel at the "Thomas the Tank Engine" house (my name for it) and it's stern paddlewheeler boat.  The owner certainly put money into the decorative features.  It has a clock tower, gargoyles, and a chimney that is reminiscent of what you see on old buildings in England.  eE cross the lake from there and call it a day.

Chipuxet - Thirty Acre and Hundred Acre Ponds

I stopped at Worden Pond, my intended start point, but with just a 10mph north wind, it was choppy as hell.  Paddling the 1-1/2 miles up the lake on a calm day is a nice way to access the Chipuxet, but Worden is no fun with any wind.  I swear that the lake would form a chop if anyone in the county so much as sneezes.  I divert to the Taylor's Landing put-in a couple miles north.

The water is up with the recent rain, but not at any problem level. I decide to explore the river upstream (Worden Pond is downstream).  I have wanted to head up before, but kept putting it off and so far have only gone to the bottom of 30 Acre Pond, where there is a well built beaver dam.

Approaching Thirty Acre Pond

I duck under the road bridge and dodge the poison ivy tree on the other side, which serves as a good reminder to mind the many turns.  This river would be beginner water except for the proliferation of poison ivy planted precisely where a beginner would struggle to make a tight turn.  The beaver dam is a third of a mile up and is partially breached.  While I do have to step out, it is an easy crossing as the dam is old and makes for solid footing - as much so as the river bank.

Thirty Acre Pond is pretty much what I expected.  It is mostly marsh land with a 25-30 foot wide channel running through it.  The upper section is open water. It is beautiful with lots of pond lilies, lotus plants and pickerel weed.  Apparently it is peak pickerel weed - purple cone flowers and bees everywhere.

Above the pond, the river is shallow, but only briefly.  After passing under the railroad bridge the river goes deep again on its way to Hundred Acre Pond.  Swampy and forested, a docked pontoon boat surprises me.  From the maps, I expected to find a larger version of Thirty Acre Pond.  Instead, I find a small open lake - about a quarter mile by a long half mile.  There are about two dozen houses spaced out around the shoreline. 

The river enters in marshland on the northeast.  It is deep and 25-30 feet wide.  About a third of a mile up is another dam and the river necks down substantially.  The dam is solidly built, but the channel is indistinct above it.  The water is deep enough, but the river has no channel, rather it flows through a tangle of marsh shrubs. It would be nice to push in, but I am pretty sure I would end up with a massive dose of poison ivy.  One thing that I notice is the water temperature is cooler than the water below. I am a full hour out from my start point.

I head back and continue down past the put-in.  There is more current than I remember from past trips, probably due to the extra water, but it isn't bad.  Some narrow turns careful doding of the poison ivy take me into more open river.  I cross two beaver dams, both just slide-overs.  It is hot in this part of the river with no shade - it is open marsh, mainly cattails and shrubs and stunted maple trees.  I;m getting close to Worden Pond but feeling that it is time to head back.  I get to a beaver dam where the river narrows - a spot I remember as the first beaver dam up from the pond.  I'm probably a 1/4 or 1/3 of a mile away.  It is close enough and I retrace my route.

To the Crux

The weather has decided to cooperate.  The heat dome was pushed aside by two days of heavy rain and wind - almost 5 inches during that time and a lot of downed trees in parts of the state.  

I put in at Indian Well.  It is overcast with a very light mist starting as I get into the canoe.  Puffs of fog rise out of the hillside forest, that 100 degree weather meeting the heavy rain meeting the under 70F temperature of today.  I have the entire river to myself - it is a well known fact of science that motorboats can not be started when there is any hint of precipitation in the air. The mist is so light that it does not wet my clothing.

I head upstream.  Not 10 minutes in, a large mature Bald Eagle comes in from upriver and flies a wide circle and heads back from where it came.  I pass a Great Blue Heron every 1/4 mile or so.  It is a very pleasant day and makes up for not sleeping well last night.

There is a noticeable current when I reach the Boy Scout launch.  This section of the river is an old reservoir held back by an 1870's dam, which is quite a bit lower than the dam that might have been built 50 years later.  The reservoir is 5 miles long and narrow, so water has to move through it steadily.  If it has been raining a lot, the flow has to increase.  I usually see this during winter months, but after several inches of recent rainfall, it is no surprise.

The current really picks up at the bottom of the S-turn - no surprise.  I hop eddies on river right until I get up to the "shelf".  I believe that the shelf is a patch of bedrock that spans the river, forming a shallow where the current accelerates. The water depth is uniform bank to bank, so there is no easy route over the shelf.  I have a hunch that it might be possible to wade the river at the shelf when the water is low and moving rather slow. Today, you would get knocked off your feet.

I come out of the highest eddy and head out into the current.  It's maximum effort paddling at a pace that I can maintain for fifteen minutes or so, the time it might take to get over the shelf.  I gauge my progress by eyeballing a shoreline stump.  A canoe length might take two minutes, the smooth water above the shelf is tantalizing.  I've been here before and I now that the crux is the upper edge of the shelf - the spot where the water is fastest.  I've been at it for ten minutes as I get to the top of the shelf. I can see the bottom.  I no longer watch the shoreline stump, but instead keep an eye on my progress by watching the river bottom.  And, it doesn't take a few seconds to see that I am no longer making any headway. A few more paddle strokes and I begin losing ground.  I turn and ride the current.

The mist has slowly increased since I started, though it never rose to the level of a sprinkle. 

I spot an Osprey butterfly swimming a large fish to shore.  I've seen Eagles do this with large dead fish.  The Osprey perches on the dead fish and watches me.  It will not eat or drag the fish farther until I am gone, so I leave.

I have a second Eagle sighting about a mile from my take-out.  I suspect that it is the same Eagle that I saw when I started out. 

Where - Housatonic2.

Frankenpaddle

The oppressive heat done has moved on to the Hell it belongs in and morning comes twenty some degrees cooler with almost calm wind.  It is humid and overcast, but the temperature makes it comfortable.

I head to Pond Cove.  Yesterday's thunderstorms hit this area harder than at our house and I have to make a short detour off of my normal route where a large tree has fallen onto heavy duty powerlines.  It looks like a half day job for that tree removal.  

I set out and find it quiet for an Independence Day weekend. I head out of the cove and follow the shore down river, following the shore somewhat closely so that I can stare up into the forest keeping a sharp lookout for the huldra.

Frankenpaddle is in my hands today.  I carved this paddle several years ago from a single piece of western red cedar.  The blade was pointed trompe l'oeil to resemble a cedar basket, western red cedar being a superb basket material used by the first people of the Northwest coast.  As a paddle, it was light and reasonably tough, and easy to carve.  It's not a great canoe paddle wood, but it is not a bad one either.  One day, I split the blade after striking a rock while paddling against a stiff current.  Usually, a split blade is easily repaired by opening the split with a thin saw and gluing a piece of wood veneer into the gap.  Unfortunately, the cedar blade split in a jagged mess.  A couple attempts at gluing it back together failed, so I cut the split section out and glued a scrap from a poplar paddle into the large opening.  The trompe l'oeil artwork on the blade disappeared with this fix. 

Frankenpaddle

This worked for a while, but the flexing of the blade eventually caused this fix to fail.  After a few months, I decide to fiberglass the blade.  Although sturdy, the paddle was no longer well balanced.  It felt like a cheapshit department store paddle, and got benched for a spell. By this time, the repairs were a project into what was required at a minimum. So then, I peeled the fiberglass off and went to work removing wood.  The blade at it's thickest is about half of what it originally was.  I re-glassed it and it immediately became my favorite paddle - well balanced, light, and sturdy.  Unfortunately, in time, the crude glue joint at the top of the poplar piece flexed too much and eventually broke the fiberglass and I benched it once more.  This time, I peeled a small section of fiberglass off of the problem area - about the size of a playing card on each side.  Then, I cut 3 thin slots across the problem joint and glued in thin strips of wood, and patched the glass.  Today, I took it out for the first time and once again, it is my favorite paddle, not only because of how it feels in the hand, but also because it wears the scars of many trips in the canoe.  The new fix, the three strips of glued in wood look something like the sutures on Frankenstein's forehead. 

Salmon River with P.

 I set out with P in the bow from the launch at the bottom of Salmon Cove.  We started reasonably early, unreasonably early for P by the growling and groaning that was going on as he tried to move his self, but reasonable for me, knowing how warm the day would become.  As it was, we were the only boat in attendance.

Right off, we started seeing Osprey.  The nest on the point doesn't look to be in use this season, and a minor brush pile in the top of a snag indicated that another nest might have gotten wrecked in the winds that we had a couple weeks back.  It certainly looked like a deconstructed nest.

Made our first stop at the Dibble Creek Beaver Dam.  Although most of it is well concealed in the summer growth of cattails, a narrow channel led up to the dam with  the lodge just 20 feet on the other side.  The dam that we could see was exceptionally well packed with mud and holding back about 15-18 inches of water - noting that this is low tide.

We continued up the west side of the cove and on into the Salmon River, where we soon spotted a mature Bald Eagle heading up river away from us.  Also saw some Great Egrets, more Osprey, and a couple of Great Blue Herons.  

Took the back channel around the first island, which just had enough water for passage, and then the narrow back channel around the island below the Leesville Bridge, which also had just barely enough water.  Paddled up to the dam.  Very little current today...scraped a couple of rocks, and then headed back down the main channel.  Flushed and immature Bald Eagle somewhere in there, as well.  Came across a white tail deer splashing through the cattails at the top of the cove as we headed over toward the Moodus.

We took a short run up the Moodus, not quite getting to the 90 degree bend below Johnsonville.  We had to cross one low beaver dam to get there, but the second dam would require too much work considering that above it we would run out of water in about a hundred yards.

Headed back out following the east shore.  Saw not a single person on the water until we got back to the launch. 

Out and Back Between the High Bridges

I put in under the big highway.  It is overcast and humid although with the temperature still in the 70's, it is not uncomfortable, and there is little wind.  I head right across the river just downstream of the railroad drawbridge and follow the west shore up into the quad islands.  The tide is dropping and there is a stiff current in places.  I flush several Yellow Crowned Night Herons, one of which flies three circles around me all the time scolding me. 

I cross over to the east side below Fowler Island and continue up until reaching the high Merritt bridge, where I cross back to the west shore.  There are surprisingly few boats in the river on what is a pleasant Friday afternoon. Go figure.  It is an easy paddle back with the current behind me. 

I head back through the islands, passing around the west side of Peacock Island, where I flush a few more Yellow Crowned Night Herons.  I also spot a family of Mute Swans.  They have 6 cygnets, 3 of which are white. 

Cygnets are usually gray and I have only seen a single white in any brood before. I cross back from the bottom of the islands and take out.

Shephaug Redux

S and I set out from Pond Brook on a calm somewhat humid and warm day.  Tranquil would be a good adjective. There were clouds, but just enough to shield the day from the sun without making it seem cloudy.

We paddled down Pond Brook, which is a cove ever since this section of the river was dammed about 70 years ago.  At the main river, we cross straight away and follow the shoreline down and around the point into the Shephaug.  There are some kayakers and boaters, but almost all of them are fishing and they don't move about very much.

We paddle, we talk, and we relax.  Such calm conditions can almost lull one to sleep.  It seems that the wildlife might agree with us. We see some high soaring Vultures, a few Osprey and Ducks, a junior high school field trip of Canada Geese, and S spots a white tail deer in the orchard of the old house above the wide place.  We don't see any Eagles today.

We turn back about a half mile below the cascades, both of us already feeling quite washed out.