[Paddlewise] Cape Ann, MA. Trip Report

Cape Ann, MA.  Or You Might Be A Redneck If.....

You might be a redneck if you go out for an 8 hour paddle on a bright,
sunshiny day without your floppy hat and your sunscreen.

The weekend was supposed to be a little cooler and less humid than the
past week so I planned on mowing the lawn and doing other chores around
the house.  Have you ever had one of those silly jingles or some tune go
through your head over and over and over?  I woke up about 4am on
Saturday with 'Cape Ann, Cape Ann' going through mine.  I took that as
an omen and said to hell with the lawn and chores.  They'll still be
there when I get back (and they're still there).

Ipswich, MA is about an hour and fifteen minutes from where I live in
southern New Hampshire and I got there at 8:30am which was fairly close
to high tide.  This is the same place I put in a month or two ago for
Plum Island (the mud banks).  It was while preparing to launch I
realized my floppy hat was with some other paddle stuff I had washed and
the sun screen was in a bag I had taken on the surf zone class.  I also
forgot the GPS so I couldn't play with it either.  At least I had a
baseball cap in the back of the truck.

I went out along Castle Neck which is mostly sandy beach and sand dunes.
Looking down the coast I saw that's what most of that part of Ipswich
Bay was like.  Across the bay, this side of Cape Ann didn't seem to be
particularly exciting either so I decided to head 4 miles or so directly
across the bay to the tip of Cape Ann.

There were no waves nor wind and this, my longest crossing to date, was
pretty boring.  You know that saying, 'a watched pot never boils'?  Well
'a watched shore comes no closer' either.  The few power boats I saw
didn't come too close to me.

As I neared Cape Ann, the power boat traffic in and out of the Essex
River picked up and they seemed to be hugging the coast fairly close.
Just as I was about to cross the apparent channel, I saw two mid-sized
power boats coming in abreast, followed by two more beside each other
followed by a fifth.

Being pretty much a wuss when it comes to power boats, I just sat there
and watched them come in.  Then I saw two more power boats coming out
from the river, followed by two more.  It looked like some sort of power
boat demonstration with all these boats in apparent formation.  Looking
at them, I thought some of them might go on either side of me which I'm
sure would have been a lot of fun.  Not!

They all passed in front of me and I paddled to the shore with no
further excitement.  The outer part of Cape Ann is mostly rocky ledges,
one on top of the other which makes for a somewhat interesting
landscape.  Of course the entire point is lined with houses.

I had lunch and then paddled down the other side of Cape Ann through
Southeast Harbor to Inner Harbor.  Lunch consisted of a leftover bean
and tomato concoction from the night before.  I figured if I needed a
tail wind I'd have my own built in whenever I needed it.  Of course I
tightened the spray skirt down before launching.  It would not be a good
thing to have it blown off.

Glouster, MA is down here.  You may remember Glouster as a whaling
village from your early American History lessons.  Around 1pm I decided
to head back because I was expecting 15-20 knot winds soon.  (They never
did appear).

Back at the tip of Cape Ann, I was watching the bottom, which was either
patches of white sand or white rock, when I came across a school of 30
or so, 12-18 inch fish, which I assume were juvenile stripers.  They
kinda congregated around the kayak, looking for shade, thinking I was
their mother, wanting to party or something.

My leg was cramping up a little so I started looking for a landing spot
where I could take a break when I see a canoe heading my way with a big
cloud (slight exaggeration) hanging over it.  As I got closer I see two
guys in their 20's paddling with two women seated in the middle.  With
the long hair and beards (the guys had the beards), they reminded me of
the flower children of years gone by.  As I got a whiff of their smoke
as I went by, I was further reminded of the past and came away with a
slight buzz.  Hey, second hand smoke ain't always bad.

There were houses and people all along that stretch of coast so I didn't
stop for a break and headed across the bay again.  As I got near the
other side, I see a line of power boats anchored and as I get closer I
see a lot of people walking on water?  As I got even closer I could see
a number of people in lawn chairs.  There were about 20 boats and 100
people apparently having a party on a sand bar out in the bay.

The bay narrows down to a hundred yards or so between Plum Island and
Castle Neck.  It's about 4pm as I'm coming in and there is a very large
amount of power boat traffic.  Some of them are big and they are flying
and generating some good sized waves.  The waves, of course are crashing
into shore and reflecting back making for some very choppy and confused
water.  A 15-20 foot outboard boat came out of the Ipswich River with a
man and woman and two small children (all wearing PFD's).  They had a
fairly hard time and I kept an eye on them until they reached calmer
water.  I would not have been surprised to see them capsize.

There were so many boats going in and out it was like standing along a
highway at rush hour watching the cars zoom by.  And they were zooming.
IMHO they were going much to fast and half of them appeared to be
ignoring a red nun and going on either side of it so it was difficult to
find a safe place out of the 'channel'.  I paddled to the mouth of the
river before attempting to make a mad dash across the channel just to
minimize the distance I'd have to paddle.

Once on shore, I was greeted by a couple of the dreaded green heads,
those nasty, blood sucking flies.  A bunch of noseeum's also thought I'd
make a tasty snack.  I got tired of smacking myself on sunburned arms
and ended up putting on my rain suit with the hood up to protect myself.

My route home was over the Merrimack River and when I got there the
drawbridge was stuck open and traffic was directed away from the river.
After wandering around some back roads for a while, I finally found my
way out and back home.

I thought briefly about mowing the lawn when I got home and decided it
could wait till next week.  Without 'gentle reminders' from a S.O. I can
do it whenever I please.  In fact, I'm thinking about letting the lawns
revert back to nature.  I've already done that with one lawn.

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