Back, eh? II

Along most coasts, sea breezes behave as they are supposed to. That is, the land heats more quickly than the water, and air moves toward the heated air column over the land. The waters of the Great Lakes create sea breezes for the same reason, but in the Thousand Islands, the sea breeze (S) blowing from Lake Ontario is magnified by the prevailing southwest wind (P), yielding a  wind speed (W) greater than either: S+P=W. The other relevant equation is a standard of marine piloting, the prediction of  wave height,  which is a function of wind speed, wind duration, and fetch (the distance a wave has traveled before it reaches the observer). Meteorological math lesson is over.

The Thousand Islands is a big place, as I said before, especially from west-southwest to east-northeast, where it's some 80 km long. On our first day, we began by crossing to Sugar Island, 3.5 km out in the stream (but less than halfway to the American mainland), a moderate hour's paddle. En route, we crossed the westerly bearings to Kingston, which lies at the meeting point of the river and Lake Ontario, and Wolfe Island, the large island that we crossed returning from the Rideau Lakes some years ago, mentioned in the opening part. The horizon is close from a kayak (8-10 km). Kingston lay over 30 km west of us, and the nearest end of Wolfe lay 15 km west: both were below our horizon.  Fifteen km is a good long fetch, capable of putting up interesting waves even in a few hours of moderate wind. The forecast was for peak winds of 14-18 km/hr., which we took with a grain of salt. All five of us are experienced mariners, with eight to ten years in kayaks. We thought we might see more wind than that before the day was out.

We had already spotted a couple of ospreys  over breakfast, and encountered occupied  artificial osprey nests perched on isolated rocks (=two trees short of an island). In the several years since we had been here, these beautiful birds, nearly as large as eagles, are now thriving along the river.  They don't accompany kayaks, as the albatross does ships, but one partner will fly above any vessel getting close to the nest, whilst the partner on the nest gives warning cries and stink-eye. We would go on having the company of many of the cited 36 osprey partners in the Park Canada zone all week.

Sugar Island is most noted as the summer retreat of the American Canoe Association (ACA), which includes members interested in canoeing (duh!) kayaking, river rafting (not here) and canoe sailing. The latter term conjures up images of quaint summer camp clumsiness. During the ACA's annual descent upon the island, the competition includes a sailing regatta. Divisions range from rigs that somewhat fall into the stereotype, being sails on canoes, to 5 metre and 10 metre canoes. These latter are canoes only in being narrow and double ended. They are sophisticated racing machines that reach speeds one would think impossible in a monohull: indeed, in most motorboats of similar size. Greg and Jean, in our party, once raced 10 metre canoes here. When we were there, the summer gathering was just a week away, and members began to show up for the party all week.

If your idea of a summer retreat includes someone bringing you cocktails on the porch and three distinct meals, professionally prepared, Sugar Island is not for you. This is wilderness camping. Apart from a few small, privately owned cottages at one end of the island (grandfathered in when ACA got the place), there's nothing standing but a few tent frames and platforms, and privies. And no signs. We landed in a  secondary cove, where Greg and Jean had to think a bit to recall where the nearest privy was. Turned out to be up a particularly overgrown trail, with one false scent (literally) caused by a dead fish in the shrubbery. The necessary was of the follow-your-nose variety, basic but better than using the bushes or the water.  A weak point of kayaks is their lack of toilets, which can make cruises a matter of john to john navigation.

Having satisfied sentimental recall (Greg and Jean), curiosity (the rest of us) and relief (all hands), we set out for our next  destination, Camelot Island. It is is the Lake Fleet Islands, named after warships in these waters in the War of 1812. We had studied the Parks Canada brochure before starting out, so we headed only for islands with designated paddling landings. It looked at first like we were heading for the New York mainland, but no: that was Grindstone Island, and we were still not halfway across the river.  I cracked a joke to Jean that I hoped we wouldn't become wetbacks, since my passport was locked up at the lodge. She, ever-prepared, replied that she had brought her passport.

Camelot,like many of the park islands, has docks, but docks intended for the larger sort of power boat. There is a set of evolutions in kayaking called the dock entry and exit. basically, the kayaker gets in by sitting on the dock with feet in the cockpit, deftly swivelling round to plant keester in seat, simultaneously sliding feet under foredeck, whilst using the paddle as a balancing pole. Piece of cake, eh? Getting out is just the reverse. This actually is a piece of cake in the wider sort of recreational kayak, but four of us paddle kayaks that wiggle if you just stare at them, even on dry land.  Even friends of the technique admit it requires a low dock for best results, not one at about the paddler's eye level.

When we found the paddlers' landing we found we weren't alone. There were two gorgeous ocean kayaks pulled up on one side of the wood ramp of the landing. That ramp proved to be very slippery, so our lot pulled out on the other side and commandeered a picnic table at an unoccupied campsite.

Those Park islands that allow camping often present a sharp contrast between no-frills wilderness campsites on land, and (mostly motor) yachts with gleaming metalwork and every comfort at the docks. On weekdays at least, the votes were with the yachts. However, the owners of the other two kayaks showed up directly. We learned they were a Francophone couple from Quebec who had camped on Camelot for three days, and were off to repeat the show on another island. Kayak camping without a ridiculous deckload is an art, one which this couple had perfected. As in bicycle camping, one does have to be ready to be extremely chummy and pack a tent small enough to stow in a kayak cargo compartment.

One can point to many things the Canadians do better, and by thunder, one of them is build an outhouse. The ACA people could take notes. The privies on the St. Lawrence park islands are all composting toilets. They are odourless (the Mass Turnpike and NY Thruway johns smelled worse), cleaned frequently by people who initial their work on a chit, and are approached by wooden walkways spanned by arches made of native tree branches. My lack of a waterproof camera limited my ability to get too many underway pictures, but I could not pass up homage to the Canadian Throne:

The only thing missing from the Camelot men's was a copy of the operating instructions in English. Apparently some comedian had recently pilfered it.

By the time we were ready to go, the wind had increased  somewhat beyond the forecast levels, to Force 4, about 20-22 km/hr. We had decided over lunch that, even without a wind increase, we would head back by dodging amongst the Fleet Islands, then break from cover for the last 5 km back to the lodge. Mountaineers have peak-bagging, climbing as many mountains of a given size or range as they can. Call this island bagging: getting as close to as many islands as we could without rudeness.

We had begun to encounter geese (yes, Canada geese!) in small numbers south of Sugar Island. They began to appear in still larger numbers west and north of Camelot, probably for the one of the same reasons we were there: to stay out of the waves as long as possible.

Now is the moment to recall the meteorological math.  Our course, in island bagging,  was meant to bring us out into open water with a pretty straight shot back to the lodge. Unfortunately the wind had been as busy zig-zagging  as we. When we broke cover at last, our best course was no longer straight downwind. No watercraft really enjoy being pushed around by following seas, but kayaks manage a course straight downwind better than most. The wind shifts had us committed instead to five km of wind and sea on the starboard quarter, meaning the boats were constantly shoved around by waves propelled by a 15 km fetch times a 20 km/h wind, which a paddler could look straight in the eye, in the rare moments when the paddler wasn't very busy steering sort of straight and trying to stay upright. In addition to  wind-generated waves, we had periodic doses of large wake generated by the area's numerous tour boats. Thankfully, the other commercial traffic mostly sticks to the deep channel south of Grindstone, in American waters, or we might all have had more than we could handle.

One of the funniest (and most informative) lecturers on kayaking who ever lived was the Briton Derek Hutchinson. I had the good fortune to hear him speak on his epic kayak crossing of the North Sea not long before his passing. In it, he said "the kayaker is the butterfly of the ocean. If you stop beating your wings, you die." Open passages like the one we were on reinforced the truth behind the wry joke. We were all of us very busy beating our wings. Eventually, we shouted back and forth to make a plan. We would shift course slightly left, for Gordon Island, midway between our present location and the lodge. We hoped to find some shelter for a quick breather before taking the final leg.

Except that our course took us nowhere near Gordon's paddling landing, it worked. Those high power boat docks make excellent breakwaters but offered nowhere to land and pee. The conditions encouraged us to shoot past the lodge and approach it upwind, so that we could examine a new B&B which our landlady dismissively called "The Monstrosity."

Misty Isles Lodge is sheltered partly by Gordon, partly by three islands nearer shore, and partly by salt marsh, so the evolution seemed to go off rather well. That is, until we got ashore. The landlady, who is also a kayaking instructor, said she'd observed that we were all a bit knackered and that a couple of strokes seemed to be coming apart. I'd strained my right bicep early in the morning, so readily confessed to being one of the guilty parties. I also told her we entirely agreed about the Monstrosity. Despite the occasional infiltration of McMansions, and a handful of castles, most Thousand Island houses seem to place more value on scale and blending than on ostentation. This one, the sort of thing Palladio would have designed on crack, looked like a pair of glitter pumps at an Anglican funeral.

Since the comments to the first item here brought up water temperature, I should note that the surface water was unusually warm. So was the air temperature, which was in the upper 20s to low 30s Celsius: very hot for the region. I didn't have a chance to test how close the thermocline layer was to the surface (say, by capsizing), but I suspect one didn't have to dive very deep to find water much colder.

Dinner after securing the kayaks. Dinner preparation rotates on these trips, and it was our night to east and wash dishes.



















































This was not the night for my wife and I to cook, so we did our duty and ate.

Back, eh?

Yup. And therein lies the first observation about Ontario. They do say "eh," but the near-universal affirmative is "yup." This comes more naturally to people from other parts of the US of A, where "yup" is heard in the land. Those of us brought up to some variant of "ayuh" have to school ourselves more carefully.

The trip from the North Shore to Gananoque, ON takes seven hours, according to Google Maps.  All but a tiny piece of this is on divided highways. This  time assumes drivers who don't have bladders or use some sort of underway elimination device, and who drive much faster than my spouse when she is doing her shift behind the wheel. The Google estimators must also drive vehicles with 25 gal. tanks that cruise at 26 mpg. Or better: those numbers would just barely get one there. So not only does one have to empty one's personal tank now and then (not to mention eat), one has to fill the vehicular tank. Twice, if one is foresighted. In upstate NY, gas runs about $3.87 a gallon. Not cheap, but hop over the bridge and it's $1.29...a litre. Do the math, eh? At any rate, anyone without this combination of blessings can expect the trip to take more like eight hours. Having got used to six hour trips to Ithaca, and seven hour voyages to Rochester, NY, as college parents, we soldiered on moderately well.

We must have hit some sort of slack spot crossing into Canada, because our wait was less than five minutes. The Canadian border person was young, professional, and personable, a good representative of a country that takes tourism seriously. Hold that thought until we get to the return visit.

Whenever we make this trip, we stop by our insurance agent and get what is colloquially known as a "Canada card." This certification of insurance coverage saves time and red tape in the event of an accident north of the border. We also patiently endure the lecture about how seriously Canadian provinces treat speeding offences. The patience is necessary because Canadians driving Highway 401 haven't heard it. The speed limit is 100kph (do the math: the metric system is good for you). I set my cruise control at 100 and very soon felt like we were standing still. Even so, it's only a few minutes to Gan, where we had three important errands. My wife wanted to get literature on the St. Lawrence boat tours (our rainy day fallback) and on everything else available in the area. While she was doing that, I dropped in to the LCBO to supplement the emergency supplies (Molson) that I had brought from home.

Bless us and splassh us, Precious! They has craft beer!  After much, much ado over the past decade, the provincial monopoly has caved in a limited way to market Canadian craft beer. Like everything else in the LCBOs, it's overpriced (I paid $2.80 CDN for 473ml cans), mostly comes in singles, and without having advance word on what was there and what the reviews were, I had to take my chances. I bought three Barking Squirrel lagers and three Hops and Robbers IPAs. Here are the brewers on the lager and the IPA, and here is the Beer Advocate on the former and latter. Barking Squirrel is better than off-the-shelf Canadian lager, but as BA says, still a "faux craft beer."  Hops and Robbers merits the BA's 79/100 rating, and could get better.

After the first two errands, we went to the Gan Metro. This is the down-home supermarket chain. Presumably the big stores, say in Windsor and metropolitan Toronto, have all the promoted comforts. The local here took over a former A&P location. It has the same footprint, similar limitations in merchandise, and the prices? A 2 litre carton of milk costs $3.99 CDN. Let that speak for the rest. When I consider what they pay for beer, gas and groceries, I admire the general good nature of Canadians* even more.

Our digs are the same as in 2005 and 2006. The owner is in semi-retirement, so she only takes reservations from people who have stayed there before. Once we had stashed the perishables, the first order of business was the kayaks.

Lest the reader forget, the main business of the trip is kayaking, not eating and drinking.  Thus the boats and their accoutrements got the lion's share of our attention at the start and finish of each day.  The placid body of water in the background is the St. Lawrence River. Choose your source, but past these riverside cabins flows something between one fifth and one third of all the fresh water on the planet. When one is on it, it's easy to forget that it is a river, because here in the Thousand Islands, the scale is so far beyond anything "river" means in most of the eastern USA. The weather forecast suggested that we would be able to spend all of our paddling time on the river. On past trips, high winds had led us to retreat to inland lakes with relatively less wind.

It must have been a Canadian who coined the term "Thousand Islands," because it's comparatively modest. There are actually 1864 land (or rock) masses that meet the agreed-upon definition of an island: above water 365 days a year, with at least two trees growing on it. It's largest island is bigger than Acquidneck Island, Rhode Island (with about a tenth of the population, even in summer). The smallest barely meet the standard. We passed by one that was inhabited by one woman and a dog, living in a tent and traveling by canoe. An American would have called it the Ten Thousand Islands and slackened the definition.

And Thousand Island dressing really was invented there, but we'll save that for another edition.

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* I make an exception to this compliment for Habs and Laffs fans.

Screw waiting for the big idea

Backstory. A couple of weeks ago I bought a used kayak, of a make and model that has enchanted me since I tried out a new one a couple of years ago. What I bought cost half what a new one does, and has all the features I loved at first sight, and for which I've managed to set aside a few bucks a week ever since.

Nothing is easy, getting into the details of the new machine included. The bad part of the deal is that I probably paid about $50 too much. The good part is that the kayak has idiosyncrasies. A number of these completely buffaloed the earnest libertarian type who sold me the thing. I'm resolving these one at a time. The Internet only helps you if you know how to research.

Nothing is easy. Kayaks have three types of steering systems: none at all, rudders, or skegs. The uber-purists go for none at all. Everyone else chooses the rudder, which moves and with which one can actually steer, or the skeg*, which merely simplifies steering by paddle. One would think that a sport a benign as kayaking would have mellow ways to resolve these differences.

Not.

I had (still have, actually) a rudder kayak, whose chief benefit is that it came free. I'm moving to a skeg kayak, which in some circles is tantamount to defection. There's a lot to learn about the thing.

Nothing is easy. There are two types of skeg mechanisms. One uses a metal cable (cyclists can envision a really really long rear derailleur cable) to raise and lower the skeg. The other uses a small diameter rope.

The kayak I bought has a rope skeg, which requires some tuning. But it turns out that the cable skeg people and the rope skeg people are barely on speaking terms. This makes it very difficult to get accurate, objective information on tuning and using skegs. So I'm faking it to a degree.

Something, though, is easy, and that is using the kayak. It's shorter than the old one, so slightly slower, but spectacularly nimble. It has already shown its stuff in waves and surf around here, and I'm looking forward to using it on my favourite rivers and marshes.

I'll drop in just one random thought among many rattling round my head. I want to be sure that all the states getting a piece of the tropical depression formerly known as Lee enjoy it, and notice that we in the northeast always want to share the love. I'm also waiting to see whether Rick Perry's prayers succeed in steering any of that rain toward the dust bowl formerly known as Texas. So far, it ain't working, Ricky.

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* What is called a skeg in kayak-land is more like a centreboard in sailboat-world. Nothing indeed is easy.

Silver Linings

The first silver lining on the programme is that by being behind in one's musings, one is freed from the necessity of making topical comments.

Last week, we were on holiday in somewhat northern parts of Vermont. The objective was kayaking, not uncommonly late spring skiing. We had hoped that by taking off before July 4, we would avoid vast family crowds and hordes of motorboats. We didn't expect to avoid motorboats and their bastard offspring, "personal watercraft," almost altogether.

We have the prodigious spring floods of Vermont to thank for that. Although the flood stage moment has gone by in most places, there is hardly a body of water in this part of the state that has got down to normal. We were on Lake Champlain proper once, and another time paddled two of its tributaries. Water level was two to three feet above normal. Launching ramps, beaches, and one large pier were still submerged. A good part of the day-use facilities at Burton Island State Park were more or less in ruins.

Those who haven't been around a flood of long duration may think that the water just comes and goes. Oh no: especially not when the flooded lake is so large that it has a visible horizon line North and South. There are waves on that flood water, which extend the damage well above the official flood stage line. Three or four weeks under water is enough to permit all sorts of marine life to gain a foothold. In some places, small isolated ponds full of fish were stranded by the receding waters. This was a blessing for the seabirds, foxes, cats, and carrion feeders of the area, but they were untidy eaters. To walk along the newly-freed waterfront property was to stroll over marine slime and partially-devoured fish.

As usual, the inhabited areas most exposed to flood damage were those whose residents were least able to afford disaster. The camps of the affluent were mostly well above flood stage. It seems that many of the flooded dwellings had long since ceased to be seasonal. They were, instead, homes for people with little choice but to take a chance. They lost, in this year of 500-year floods.

The floods also left behind a vast amount of driftwood, especially in the smaller ponds we visited. Few motorboaters care to be banged about by floating objects ranging from the size of baseball bats to that of fence posts. Fewer were attracted by the smelly ruins along lakes and rivers. Thus the public waters generally belonged, by default, to human-powered vehicles.

We went bear-less again. Part of our troupe stayed in a campground, not in a cabin, and were once escorted back by a juvenile moose. We shared one lunch spot with a trio of otters. (Judging by size they were an indifferent father, a helicopter mom, and a clueless and accident-prone juvenile.) Our chief companions were birds, ranging from swallows to herons and snowy egrets, plus several ospreys and an eagle.

Final silver lining came after we arrived home and I found my cell phone missing. I began the motions of reporting a lost phone, which came to naught because my daughter owns the account. She was spending the weekend communing with condors in the California boonies, far beyond any cell phone tower. At this moment my wife opened her phone and found a message from Grantham, NH. A couple there had found the phone by the roadside. (We determined I had lost it during a brief driver swap on the way home.) They left their number and arranged to send it back. I have it now. This is a valuable corrective for a cynical old fart with a low opinion of most of my fellow primates, and I suppose I should get myself out and pay this forward. There is all the more reason for doing so, in that the people who returned the phone were themselves paying forward a similar gesture.

Finally, a tangential comment on current affairs comes to us from Thoreau: "Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk." Google and ponder that, if you will.

On the flood the rude bridge arches

This family unit has sadly delayed kayaking the Concord River. Do you give credence to evidence from an authoritative written source, in this case Quiet Water Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island? Or do you prefer hearsay from a library patron? Typically, my librarian spouse won't believe it's raining without finding a forecast online, in print, or broadcast: but in this case she chose to believe a hearsay account that the Concord River is too crowded with speeding motorboats to make good kayaking. Of such things resistance to good ideas is made.

Possibly there are seasons when the river is crowded with motorboats. Possibly in those seasons the motorboats habitually scoff at the 10 mph speed limit. Neither was the case this weekend, when I finally sold the trip at home.

The launching ramp off Route 225 was certainly busy, but the number of stinkpotters getting out balanced the number going in. These weren't joyriders or water-skiers, but fisherfolk, who weren't in much of a hurry to go anywhere and generally respectful of the speed limit. There was no problem sharing the water. We set out upstream, our usual practice, although the Concord River's current ranges from imperceptible to negligible. We'd started late, so it was a question how far we'd get. We agreed it would be nice to reach the North Bridge on this expedition.

Despite downstream dams and gentrified encroachment, and thanks to remediation of what was once one of America's most polluted rivers, the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge offers a fairly good idea of what Henry David Thoreau and his brother saw during their rowing trip on the Concord and Merrimack River in 1839. This isn't a long river, but it's a respectably wide one that swallows up, or minimises, most evidence of its human users and abuttors.

The two most prominent species of resident seemed to be Great Blue herons in many stages of development, and more turtles—probably painted turtles— than I can recall seeing in one place at one time.

No, we didn't make it to Concord and the North Bridge: time ran out on us maybe twenty minutes short of that destination, and with the lack of current we wanted to be sure to get back to the landing in daylight. Never mind: that gives us a reason to go back.

Score one for evidence.

Mixed feelings on the river

Our quest to find some interesting paddling close to my sister-in-law in NH is a success. The Connecticut River may hold some sort of prize for the most impounded river in the East, so one's happy waters come at an ecological price. Granted, Bellows Falls have been there for several millennia, probably since the ice sheet left. However, the falls have been improved in the interests of humanity, most recently hydroelectric interests. The result of the improvement is a sheet of fairly placid water that extends to the Wilder Dam, just north of Hanover, NH.

That would be an appealing bit of kayaking if one did not have to share the river with a good many power boats. Armed with local knowledge, they had laid claim to the best landing spots on the river, and amused themselves by flying upriver and down ad infinitum, towing their offspring on inflatables at high speed.

Never mind, our chief interest was Gollum-like poking and prodding into the wetlands on either side. In the longest of these, we found ourselves accompanied by relays from a colony of kingfishers. My wife had never seen--or observed--kingfishers before, so it was a new experience for her. There were swallows in plenty, but also a small hawk. It was either a pigeon hawk or Cooper's hawk: at any rate, a hawk that makes its living off small birds. Kayakers coming downstream had alerted us to a bald eagle, but we didn't see it until we too had turned around.

The main event in this marsh was eliciting a tail slap from an angry beaver. I'd heard about this defensive measure since I was a kid, but had never heard it. Yes, it's loud: I was engrossed in the kingfishers and apparently invaded this beaver's personal space. The next moment came the "thwap!" I thought at first that some local kids had managed to find their way into the marsh and were amusing themselves throwing rocks at the tourists, but my wife and her sister, behind, saw it all unfold.

Beavers and powerboats notwithstanding, I'd like to try this bit of river again. Reason says that some at least of these dams have to go some time in the future. Being very much a flat water kayaker, I hope to get the most of the present situation while it lasts, without standing in the way of giving the river back to its inhabitants.

Fitness Education

The trouble with relying on gyms for your fitness quotient is that other people rely on them too.

Hence, you get 30 minutes a session--or whatever mite it is--so that everybody can share. You come away with an illusion of fitness.

Submitted as evidence: this weekend, August 1-2, was the first weekend this summer on which we kayaked on two successive days. Saturday was a mere shakedown cruise of an hour and a half or so out the hahbah and back, hastened by the reported coliform cooties in the water. OK, stiff yes, but not horrible.

Today we went up to the Ipswich River, to get the benefit of an unseasonably high water level and flow. Thanks to suburban fiefdoms with acres of lawns needing watering, this river, which is fed only by brooks and wetlands, has sometimes been dry or near dry by August 2. As you might guess, this is not so this year. It is not white water by any means, but it made a challenging slog upstream for just under two hours, followed by a lively spin downstream in just over half the time.

We hurt. This is not just a matter of effort, but a souvenir of assorted small traumas that come from downstream collisions with river debris ranging from clusters of twigs to whole trees. If you don't kayak on streams, do this to get the effect. Find a large staircase with columns at the bottom. Run down it as fast as you can whilst staying upright. At the bottom, stop yourself by holding one arm out so that it runs into the column.

Uh huh. It was fun, but it's troubling to be this far off our form when we're going for a one week kayak vacation in six weeks. Either kayak more, or be more obnoxious over the gym machinery.

Long weekend

Along with several thousand other people in or close to my line of work, my three days off were clouded by the decision of our favourite Federal agency to release an important document the afternoon of July 3. I managed to keep my mind mostly off it, so spent my kind of Monday (busy as hell) doing what I had to do with the information.

What I did *not* do over the weekend was go to Beverly Fahms for their horribles parade. Ours is a kid's event. The Fahms' is typically PG as I understand it. (Beverly Farms is a very rich enclave of a more diverse city, and is practically a town in its own right.) The float mocking pregnant Gloucester girls and its accessories reached an R rating very easily, and has now reached a national audience, thanks to the blunted judgment of pack journalism.

Listen: spoiled rich kids have been ridiculing poor kids with crude, tasteless humour since the beginning of time. and that's all this was. It merits no further attention and I won't supply any links for those who don't know what I'm talking about.

What I *did* do was go kayaking on fresh water for a change. Motivated in part by a body of water filled with loud (absolutely), drunken (possibly) people in rented canoes, we took an actual, liquid, road not taken.

Marvelous. At our starting point, the boors were making so much noise that they failed to notice how they frightened all the local wildlife into silent invisibility. Within a few minutes, we had red-wing blackbirds for company, then a pair of cormorants and a great blue heron. The latter is always a treat, but that day was outshone.

We saw great white egrets: they're a rare site most places, but especially in New England, at the extreme northern end of their range. They are large birds, nearly as large as the blue herons, which stand four feet high. While discretion moved them away from people--even kayakers carefully shifting to the other side of the waterway--they were quite calm around quiet people in quiet boats. They were content to fly briefly away, then circle back to water they rightly called their own.

The canoe clowns don't come this way, perhaps because it's a dead end that leads away from the place they rent the canoes. The wildlife does, perhaps on account of the clowns. It was a pleasure to share the water with them for a couple of hours.

From what I saw of the other animals, I hope the canoe rental shop has good liability insurance.