Dibble Creek

I left home not knowing where I would paddle, making last minute decisions and ending up at the bottom of Salmon Cove. I set out from there not knowing exactly where I will paddle to. Goals and ambition does not seem to be part of this day. 

The water is higher than expected (later I find out that the Hartford gauge is about 5 or 6 feet higher than normal).  I paddle up the river-right side of the cove and into the tiny bay in the outside corner where the cove bends away from the big river.  It is in the upper 60's with sun and a light cooling wind.

Towards Dibble Creek

I cross the old beaver dam that guards the bottom of Dibble Creek from the typical visitors. The dam is old and stable.  It has been here for awhile and will not be going anywhere in the next hundred years.  Beaver dams can last a very long time.  This one is stable enough that saplings have taken root.  The beaver cut the saplings down every so often.  I imagine that most people looking into the bay see the wall of plants on the dam and assume it to be the shoreline. Beyond the dam are a couple acres of very peaceful marsh of sedges, pickerelweed, and pond lilies.  It is bounded on the north and east by steep forested hillsides, and on the west by lowland trees.  

Upstream of the old beaver dam

The creek enters from the north, tumbling down 20 feet of bedrock from a small marshy valley where an old hunting camp once was.  And by old, I mean 3000 to 6000 years old.  But, I cannot go any farther up the creek than where I am.  The dry land here is a no trespassing National Wildlife Refuge.  There once was a nuclear power plant about a half mile away.  This is a good news/bad news kind of thing though.  The plant is completely removed except for a building containing spent fuel rods.  But the good news is that this side of the cove was saved from people coming in and building much bigger houses than they need in a place that is much better left to be wild.   

The high water lets me access the backsides of marsh islands that normally are mudflat.  I go as far as Pine Brook, where I spend some time in one of those back channels.  I hope the wild rice returns soon.  Mid-summer high water killed off a large patch of rice at the bottom of the brook - it was unable to produce seed because the plants were submerged. On the backside of another island, I look ahead an find a deer standing chest deep in the river.  It retreats back into the cattails, and I hear it splashing ahead of me.  We make eye contact again at the bottom of the cattail patch.  There are two deer.

I head back, taking a detour up the Moodus, as I almost always do.