Today was a bit foggy,
A bit rainy,
And a bit cool
So we slept in a bit before heading in to get our first popovers
At The Stadium.
We left with some of their blueberry jam
And maple butter.
Sooooo good.
Bellies full,
We set out with our SUPs
Strapped to the van
(They said they could set anyone up to roll!)
And headed to Echo Lake…
Where it was also very foggy,
A bit rainy,
And a bit cool
With wetsuits on,
We headed out for adventure
It was only about a 1/4 mile across
(Which we didn’t know at the time),
But we couldn’t see ANYTHING
Which was both creepy and exciting
We decided the safest path would be to paddle the circumference
(Again, since we had no idea what the lake looked like)
We were surprised to find a beach at one end
It made a nice place to stop
Before heading back up the other shoreline
We set off again,
Keeping the shore in sight
Dad and Tuck were cold
And decided to pull out for lunch.
The rest of us powered on
We made it all the way to the other end,
Battling through a lot of wind and even some rain
4.1 miles of paddling was a bit of work
And we were a little disappointed that the fog never lifted
But it made for a pretty cool experience
We had a second adventure planned for today.
We fueled up at this cool Irish brewery
In Ellsworth
And then made our way to Castine Bay
We’re off on a night kayaking excursion
You might be wondering why we drove all the way out here,
Went through an hour safety briefing,
And were excited to see fog and clouds
For this kayaking trip.
For the bioluminescence.
It was so dark with the clouds and fog,
We had to maneuver our kayaks
Based solely on the sound of the waves on the cliffs beside us.
But the darkness was perfect.
About a mile away from our port
Where Castine Harbor meets Penobscot Bay,
The water began to sparkle.
At first it looked like a few random specks of glitter,
And then like light reflecting in ripples off the water,
Until it exploded into billions of stars twinkling in the water.
We tried to capture a picture or a video,
But no luck.
But it was nothing short of awesome.
We could stop smacking our paddled,
Running our hands through the water,
And smiling like a bunch of fools.
Mom and Dad said it was one of the coolest things they’d ever seen.
We agree.
Our guides said the darkness made it one of the best nights
They’d ever had.
But then…
The fog lifted just a bit
And the clouds cleared
And then it was nothing but stars above us
And stars below us.
It was so. COOL!
We were able to catch a few pictures of the paddling teams—
Dad and Tuck
Mom and Beck
And Jack and Wes
But then,
One last surprise.
Back at the harbor,
We discovered the plankton were heavily concentrated
under the dock in the seaweed.
One slap on the water
And it lit up like a scene out of Avatar.
We could have stayed there all night watching the sparkle.
Between the disorientingly foggy SUPs on Echo,
The jaw-dropping sparkle of the plankton,
And the billions of Maine deer we passed on our way home,
It was an absolutely memorable day.
No comments:
Post a Comment