Doing the Wash

It is the time of the autumn winds. The forecast is for 10-15mph wind for the foreseeable future.  But, these fall season winds often have a mind of their own and just as often as strong gusty days might show up, an afternoon or morning might go calm.  Such is life.  It is about 70F and cloudy.

I put in at Indian Well on the reach I call Housatonic 2, which is above the Derby Dam and below the Stevenson Dam.  It is not my favorite place to paddle, having a busy road on one side and a bit too mny shoreline houses, but it is near home and being in a forested valley it can be a good paddle on a windy day.

I put in and the wind is coming in gusts up the river, close to being exactly the opposite direction of the forecast, which is a NE wind.  I cross the river to the east side and find it near calm.  Up river I go.

I flush a Great Blue Heron from the bank.  It does this twice. Herons often do this, short flights up and away from the oncoming canoe until, at some point, they circle around and return to near where they were first seen.  At the second stop, I avoid direct eye contact and slip by just 3 canoe lengths away without flushing the bird.  Add to that another Heron, a couple Kingfishers, an immature Bald Eagle and a dozen or so non-migratory Canada Geese.  Add to that two guys fishing from an aluminum boat and a rowing Shell. That's the traffic report.

I head up an hour, to just below the shelf, then turn and head back.  I feel washed.

Because I am Still Curious

It is overcast with a possibility of rain, but there might have to be more vertical motion in the cluds before anything noticeable comes of it.  There is a very light wind, so light that I don't care what direction it comes from, and it is humid and about 80F.  I ut in under the highway and head down to the marsh.  The tide is rising, but not quite halfway up, so it is a good time to bird watch.  It was a good time to feed my curiosity.

The milk bottle was pulled out just above the paddle blade

The upper entrance to the maze is still too shallow for passage.  I divert to the upper Nell's channel entry.  I find and recover a milk bottle from the cut bank just inside the entrance.  It is 3 paddle blades deep - about 22 inches.  It is a well embossed bottle from the City Dairy, wherever that is. Without dating it, the depth suggests about 1940, as my current calculations for soil accretion in the marsh are 50 years/foot.  I find another bottle about 20 yards in. It is a surface find that won't help in the dating process, but it is old.  It's a small bottle that was cork sealed, mold made, but the glass has an uneven blue tint and there are several large bubbles in the glass.  It will probably date to about 1900 because of the bubbles and blue tint.

As I head into the maze, I flush a Night Heron here and there - one at a time.  There are also a few Great Egrets, and a couple Snowys.  The water level is just perfect to get under the root ball log, and I should note that this is just above the minimum level for a passage through the maze.  At most tides, the log blocks passage and requires a short detour.  I jot down the time, 2:10 pm so that I can check the tide level for future trips (tide is at about 4.25 feet and flooding). 

The tide is flooding and at 4.25 feet.

After exiting the maze, I head up to Milford Point by an indirect route, and then into the center of the marsh. About 30 Egrets fly by, too far for me to be the cause, but they must have been in the marsh somewhere west of the Central Phragmites Patsh.  

I work my way over to the east side, and then head back out via the inner Sneak.  With the flood tide, it is an easy upriver paddle. 

Afternoon in the Big Marsh

Our plans changed due to A's schoolwork, but it all worked out as by afternoon the tide was near high and we could go most anywhere in the marsh.  As a plus, the winds of midday had started to subside, so we wouldn't get pushed around, yet there was still a gentle breeze to keep the no-see-ums at bay.  We put in at the refuge launch.  It is mid70's and overcast.

First stop was the Central Phragmites Patch, where we flushed five or six Black Crowned Night Herons. Then we headed up and into Beaver Brook.  The brook was unusually quiet and while we flushed a dozen or so Mallards, we didn't find any of the tree perchers such as Night Herons and Osprey.  But we did scare up a Green Heron on the way out.

Next was to see if I could find that hard-to-find inner channel that I miss more often than not.  We find it on the second or third try and only make one wrong turn as we head down.  But, no birds at all in there.  We check the time and A decides that we should head to Milford Point.  From there, we cross back to our put-in where we find three early season Goose hunters preparing to set out.  We have a little chat while taking out and loading the canoe.

The Most Perfect of Days

When I brought S her morning coffee, I asked her what she had planned for the day.
"Canoeing?"  she answered.  My clever ploy of bringing her coffee every morning for several decades has panned out.

There is no hurry with the high tide at about 2:30 in the afternoon.  The weather is about as good as one could hope for to be out in - 70F, sunny, and with a wind that is of no consequence.

We put in at the old stage crossing about halfway into the rising tide.  The water is plenty deep and there is no wading or dodging of rocks.  Autumn seems to be arriving noticed by the lower sun casting shadows out over the river.  I would gladly trade summer for extra autumn and spring.  

There are few birds in the forest section.  A few very boisterous Kingfishers try to make up for that.  The day is so beautiful that I ease up and try to draw it all in. 

Just above the Post Road, a Kingfisher makes two spectacular dives, catching a fish with the second one and flying off to a nearby tree. 

Below the post road is a small flock of Laughing Gulls, hanging out on one of the junk docks. 

Once in the lower marsh, we take the Long Cut, a snaky and narrow passage to Bailey Creek.  It is grown in with cord grass more than usual, but with the high water we push through easily.  We flush one Black Duck at the upper end of the Long Cut.  Later this fall, this will be a favorite hang out for Black Ducks. A pair of Osprey are perched in the dead tree island nearby.

We head down Bailey and start our return by heading through the Sneak, another "secret" passage, a reward for being curious.  We have some flood tide current with us for part of the upriver return.  At the highway bridge, crashing in the brush alerts us to a pair of deer - I think a doe and a yearling.  S gets a charge out of the close up view.

The rst of the return is spent thinking about what a wonderful day it has been. 

 

 

After the Rainstorm

It dumped rain this morning, I'd guess something just under 2 inches as it pretty much poured for a couple hours (it was actually closer to 4 inches).  By noon it was starting to ease up and I needed some outdoor air.

I put in under the highway.  It is lightly sprinkling, light enough to go sans rain gear.  The tide is near high, and it is a very high tide with the fixed portions of the boat ramp docks right at the water's level. As expected, the able bodied seamen have not ventured into the semi-briney.  I have the put-in to myself and there is not a moving boat anywhere in sight.

I head across and up through the channel between Peacock and Karting Islands.  It is easy paddling on smooth water.  The only other boat that I will see passes by somewhere near the Pecks Mill site.  There is a rush of water draining from the pond, which I assume was the old mill pond. 

It is a bird quiet day, as I expected coming this way. One Night Heron, one Great Blue Heron, a few Osprey, several Mallards and a couple Kingfishers. 

I turn back at the Wind Tunnel, just a bit over an hour out.  The tide is dropping and the current is starting to show.  It is a moderately speedy return with the current behind me. The sun peeks through on occasion.  It has become a very fine day for canoeing. When I take out, there are still no other boats or trailers at the put-in.   

The Inner Sanctum

I put in about a hour before a very high tide from the "under the highway" boat launch.  There is a peppy upriver flood current, but it is easy paddling down to the marsh.  Big currents that occur with very high tides create long sections of eddies and stagnant water along the east river bank. It is sunny and 75F with a fair wind out of the east.  There is a bit of motorboat traffic and some of them are using Nell's Channel with the water high enough that the motorboat drivers don't need to worry about the sand bars.  I'm planning on inner channel exploring, so they can have it.

I enter in the channel left of Nell's.  There is a nice inner channel that I found earlier in the year.  I couldn't find it on 3 out of 4 tries since then.  Today, after three attempts, I find the lower entrance, or at least I think I have.  I pay close attention as I head in, realizing why the channel is so hard to find.  There is nothing that stands out as a landmark. The channel is a series of narrows and wide spots, and at each wide spot, I have to look for the channel.  I flush only a few Mallards.

At the root ball.

I make it through and head over to the Nell's entrance to the Maze.   With the water level up, the paddling and route finding is easy.  I flush a dozen or more Night Herons, mostly Yellow Crowned or juveniles. At the root ball, there are two dozen Egrets, of which about a 1/3 are Greats, the others Snowy's.  There is a single and rather unconcerned Willet and a Great Blue Heron that flushes and heads east.About this time, I notice 2 kayakers behind me.  I don't know if they followed me in, or if they knew about the Maze beforehand, but I'd rather have this place to myself, and if they are exploring, they deserve to get to explore on their own, like I did.  So, I duck down a little and put the power on, and soon I am out of sight.

I cross the marsh to the east side.  I can see Egrets in the trees, and I would guess that some of the Night Herons are there as well.  I make my usual stop at the Central Phragmites Patch, where I see about 20 Black Crowned Night Herons.  From there, I head out and back upriver.

Some Rain, Some Silence

I put in at Pond Brook meeting 15 kayaks as I set the canoe in the water. It's 2 parties with the first 4 people too cool to wear PFDs.  The second party has a leader and all of them wear PFDs.  It's why I added my rescue throw bag (it has 50 feet of floating rescue rope) to my kit for the day. 

I head out of the cove and turn downriver towards the chinkapin oak.  If I made a hand drawn map of this area (something that I do as an artist), the chinkapins would be on it. Not because they are particularly rare (they are not), but because this is the first place where I learned of their existance.  On that day I noticed acorns on a tree that seemed to have the wrong leaf, but it was just an oak that I had never noticed.

Chinkapin Oak

I turn the point finding a boatfull of bros fishing, not a forward bill cap amongst them. Next up was an Osprey perched in a tree, and then one of many Great Blue Herons that I would see.  Then, I spotted a weasel running along the bank.  It disappeared.  Mink are more common sightings, but mink are a bit larger and the ones I have seen have always popped up out of their hiding spot to look at me, at least once.  Mink seem to be curious.

At times, the water is glassy smooth. 

It starts to sprinkle, which gradually turns to a light rain.  I pass 2 fishermen hiding under the trees and ask them how it is going.   "A little wet," is the reply.  I respond, "yeah, but it limits the boat traffic."

There are very few boats out here for any weekend, let alone a Labor Day weekend.  Clouds knock out at least half of the boaters, and a bit of rain knocks out most of the rest. 

The rain stops, not that it was that big of a deal, and I continue up to the cascades.  I get rained on again as I near.  I turn and head back.

I have the river to myself at times, and for longer than I would ever expect.  And, it is quiet - no overhead planes, no motorboats, and no leaf blowers.  I cease paddling and soak in the silence.

More boats show up while I am in the last mile, but it still isn't anything like I expected.  

It was a fine day.