Map of our route. Casco Bay on the left and Penobscot Bay on the right.

Damariscotta River to Bath.

I lounged around and wrote in my journal. I struck out into the woods and searched out a few seasoned oak branches, good for the campfire. The girls’ trip we had met yesterday rolled in; they had been poised to round Pemaquid Point on this beautiful day, but “Management” forced them to take a shuttle. They were bummed. We were pretty spread out across the big site, and so moved our stuff to one end to make room for them. A little later a group of boys pulled in, also in need of space. The guide was right: heavy-use. This was probably the absolute worst time and place to take a wind day. Serves me right.

I got antsy sitting in camp all day so I poled around the island. It was actually a cool little jaunt. I made eye contact with a bald eagle sitting on a low branch not twenty feet from me. I kept my movements slow and deliberate and he never left his perch. I continued around the island, poking among the garden of yellow and red seaweeds. Apparently I was not the only one wanting to escape the crowds, for there, headed toward mainland, was a swimming deer. I watched for a bit, it stood on shore for a while then vanished into the wood.

At low tide I went down to the edge of shore and collected mussels from the rocks. These were going to taste great in the gumbo soup. I collected a dozen apiece, hung them in a mesh sack suspended in seawater to clean themselves. Sean wondered about The Red Tide and I confessed I hadn’t thought about it. He called on his cell phone to a friend, who checked the internet and reported back that we were indeed in the middle of a Red Tide zone. Yikes! Nothing like paralytic shellfish poisoning to ruin your day. The burritos we had instead were very tasty. No gastroenteritis, paralysis or any of those other side effects. Somehow, a pound of dried burger, 4 servings of refried beans, a half-pound of cheese and a pint of salsa seemed to evaporate before our eyes. Burp.

(First Aid for paralytic shellfish poisoning. )

The Inside Passage.

I lay in my hammock this day knowing that we weren’t going to make our goal. But hey, that’s the nature of exploratory adventures like this. And who can feel bad when a day of sailing, paddling and reversing falls awaits. We scarfed down some oatmeal and got going. We wasted no time but I looked out to see one camp group already on the water, paddling away. How’d they do that?

Tide was still coming in but we cheated it and paddled a big eddy river right. Our goal was a cheat route that I had heard about on Native Trails’ website before it went the way of the natives. Down to East Boothbay, we wove our way amongst the moorings and boats, in through the barnacle-crusted piers in search of a fabled culvert, available at mid-tide. Lo and behold we found the secret passageway and none too soon; as it was we had to lie in our boats and walk our hands along the roof of the pipe. It was a portal to a different dimension; we suddenly found ourselves transported to a quiet little duck pond ringed by quaint cottages.

I turned to look back at the passageway. The opening shrank as the rising tide poured in. Soon there would be no going back, not for another twelve hours. We looked ahead and paddled along, in search of something that looked like a trailhead. In the far northwest corner a small culvert pipe emitted a trickle of water, and revealed the presence of a road not far through the brush. We pulled in and walked gingerly across the mucky inlet and climbed up onto the road. A short distance to the left was the entrance to a public boat launch. Beauty! The portage was a mere 200 feet and we covered it in no time. We met a number of curious folks about, who said that the route was locally well known. We lunched there at the picnic area and carted our boats right out to the end of a dock and loaded up.

The wind was kinda fluky so we paddled along the right shore for a while. As it picked up it straightened out a bit, enough to set sail for Spruce Point, way out in the bay. Sweet. As we stood out of the bay (that’s nautical talk – it means we piled on the sail and sat on our butts and let the wind do all the work), I noticed that the few sailboats were making no better progress than we were. I would expect a $50,000 boat with a 30’ mast would do a little better than a canoe with a snark sail on it, but there we were, keeping pace with the big boys. I think it’s because they sell sailboats to people who have money instead of giving them to people who deserve them. Like me! We rounded Spruce Point and paddled into Townsend Gut against a light headwind.

Sheepscot River

Hey that's me sailing along! Sean Carapella photo

If ever there were a test of my traveling rig this was it. I’d say it passed with flying colors. Without sails, we would have had to paddle upstream along the Sheepscot quite a distance before making a nasty muscle-burning ferry across two miles of current. Instead, we ruddered with our paddles and grinned at each other across the waves. If there is a Heaven, I hope it’s on the Sheepscot and I in a sailing canoe.

Goose Rock Passage

Sasanoa River Route Map. Unknown source

Meanwhile I spied a sailing yacht of standard size also heading in, from the south. Mainsail full, jib taut as a drum, she knifed through the waves, leaving a great wake. Only problem was, she was not moving forward. She stood still in the great current, leaning the way sailboats do, the power of her sails exactly matched by the opposing power of the current. Our humble crafts, needing less than a foot of water to float in, were able to keep to the lesser currents of the shallows and make headway. We ferried across the current to the north bank and broke out lunch. Meanwhile, our friend in the sailboat displayed his knowledge of modern sailing technique by dropping his sails and starting his outboard. Good show! He motored to the north side of Whittum and ascended under power through the easier current. With our “itty yachts” beached on the seaweed, we waved as he passed. I’ll never know whether he raised his arm for a yachtsman-like salute or to flip us the bird, for at that very moment his six-foot keel kissed a rock. The stern of the boat rose out of the water several feet, his bikini-clad passengers lurched for a handhold, melons akimbo, and the poor man undoubtedly lost all thought for us wharf rats on shore.

Sasanoa River

Something familiar about this place...

It was a pleasant sail up the bay, tinged with anticipation of the dreaded Sasanoa Gates of Hell which lay at the far end. Sasanoa was a Wawenock Chieftain. Legend has it he was invited aboard Champlain’s vessel during the first exploration of this coast. The Maine Island Trail book describes the horrors of these reversing falls, great foaming rapids runnable by experts only. We dropped sails and began to paddle as the bay narrowed. The wind stopped, the birds fell silent. We spoke to each other in hushed tones. The sun alone shone bright, warm and lazy, but the world seemed to be holding it’s breath, waiting. Waiting for the ghost of Sasanoa to rise up and vent his fury upon us. We approached Beal Island in silence just before mid-tide. Where are the rapids? The eerie calm continued and we paddled, nervous and tense, waiting, watching.

A bumblebee flew in out of nowhere and hovered next to me, buzzing loudly, then flew off just as quickly. There were no rapids. More like vapids. It appears Chicken Little wrote the guidebook; it describes the worst case and forgets to mention everything else. We were headed from east to west on a mediocre flood tide. There were a couple of wavelets that lapped at the sides of our boats. No more.

We scouted Little Bare Island, it was bleak. One spot for a tent wedged among the bushes, and slim pickens for a hammocker. The shore was composed of deep sucking mud with only a light crust of vegetation to prevent sinking. We moved on. We settled at Castle Island, where the Chewonki Foundation has graciously offered a campsite at the south end. They have six islands along the coast where they allow visitors.  Again, there was plenty of mud near shore, but the campsite was high and dry, nestled in a grove of hardwoods. Sean put up his tent, I hung my hammock and we settled in to camp. I do love a hearty meal cooked from scratch over the campfire, golden brown bannock and a bubbling stew full of chunks of beef and soft-sided potatoes. But at dusk, on an island where fires are not allowed, and after yet another 12-hour day of hard travel, that's not likely. I want Food and I want it Now. We each selected a meal-for-2 from the supply of freeze-dried dinners and added boiling water.

This was our last camp of the trip, a time for thoughtful contemplation. As dinner settled, we heard a small noise in the leaves at the edge of camp. And again. We pinpointed the source and then watched a small disturbance from below, probably a mouse or a shrew, poking around under the leaves. We watched as the critter made it’s way from one end of the campsite to the other, traveling discretely, leaving no trace. Like us, I hope.

We'll save the rest of the route for later.

I think you would be hard pressed to find a more suitable vessel than a canoe, equipped with a pole for ascending rivers and streams, which then becomes the mast for a sail to cross lakes and bays, and a portage cart for traveling the now-paved ahwangans of the long lost natives of the Maine Coast. We only sampled a couple of the many ahwangans on this trip, but you can bank on seeing more accounts of my travels in this Land of the Wawenocks.