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. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
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