“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.” –Anatole France
The once billowy snow has hardened into something that more resembles rock. The noonday perch of the sun is beginning to show some ambition. Daylight length is up to 10 hours and 49 minutes, and “length of visible light” is up to a democratic 11 hours and 48 minutes. Traveling through the woods on warm afternoons, at intervals where spring streams will later be, I hear rivulets of water gurgling under the snow.
This week at least, the paddle leans in front of the skis in the corner of the mudroom. The more insular world of woodstove and woodpile and backwoods trails holds its own attractions, but those attractions have paled. I am looking less for a covering of new snow and more for days with light winds and ample sunshine — days to get out on the water.
It is important to remember, though, that as the land begins its slow slide from one season to the next, the cold wet mass of the Atlantic acts like a parking brake. Penobscot Bay water temperatures are now a mere 34 degrees F — 4 degrees colder than a month ago — and still dropping.
Minnesota Sea Grant provides us with the sobering fact that, without a dry suit or wet suit, functional survival time in water of such temperature may be less than 15 minutes. I wear a dry suit. I go out only on calm days. I stay close to shore.
I’ve paddled three times in the last ten days after going an uncharacteristic two months without paddling. This time of year, paddling out onto Belfast Bay can feel like a lonely act. But it also feels like joining something. Currents bring flotsam and jetsam from afar. Sea ducks whirl about. Seals move like hidden fleets of submarines beneath the waves. The sky is big and the bay mirrors its color. The sun is doubled and re-doubled again and again on the surface of the water. Belfast Bay widens to Penobscot Bay which widens to the Gulf of Maine which widens to the Atlantic. Possibilities for wandering are limited only by time and imagination.
One who appears short of neither time nor imagination is Aleksander Doba, a 64 year old paddler from Poland, who recently — with very little media fanfare — completed an unsupported solo kayak journey from Africa to South America. It was only the 4th successful kayak crossing of the Atlantic and the first “continent to continent” crossing. Doba’s 3,345 mile crossing took him 99 days, also making it the longest open water journey in a kayak. Canoe & Kayak Magazine has posted an online article detailing the expedition that also includes photos of Doba’s specially designed 23′ x 36″ kayak.
Doba is ashore right now, but he wants to keep paddling. The United States is next on his list. Maybe, one day in the future, we’ll see him riding the tide into Belfast Harbor at sunset.
