Pemaquid River – Laurie Apgar Chandler

My go-to lakes

We’ve had an unprecedented stretch of blue-and-gold weather, perfect for getting outdoors, although the gardens are begging for rain. Or twice daily watering. Just so you know that I am not just running from lake to lake, counting them up (see my recent post A baptism), I did return to Webber Pond several more times, one time swimming with both a loon and bald eagle for company. The water is quickly warming up.

It’s almost cheating to count the next two lakes, my go-to favorites. On Friday, I strapped the canoe securely atop my RAV4, ready for new waters. It was late afternoon Saturday, with the brutal heat easing, before I got up the energy to pack a picnic supper and head for McCurdy Pond. This beauty is a little over half a mile from my home. I took my time, poking into the little coves, on the way to my usual swimming spot.

Canada geese

The lighting suited my mood, as I reunited with the curving shoreline that I know so well. A cluster of sheep laurel, with a backdrop of birch, drew me like a magnet. This member of the heath family is one of the showiest flowers found in our wetlands. The peaceful glow of soul and evening stayed with me through a leisurely swim and supper, for once just sitting and being.

Sheep laurel

Of course, I do not always go solo. In fact, for the past week, I have been surrounded with loving concern and care from the best of friends and family. I was supposed to have been on a much-anticipated visit to Pennsylvania and Virginia, until the shingles in my right eye flared up at a most inopportune moment. So, instead, I have been comforted here at home, most notably with a series of delicious meals.

I suppose I am now truly guilty of hopping from place to place. Yesterday after church found me with friends Bill, Mary, and Mary, paddling Biscay and Pemaquid ponds, which are connected by a tiny stretch of the Pemaquid River. In these COVID times, all of these waters seem busier than I ever remember them in June, and there were many fellow boaters to greet along the way.

Group gathering

Mary and Mary

After saying our good-byes, I swam from a tiny island in Biscay, which makes Lake #3 in my 2020 swimming quest. With the warmer water and some conditioning, I’m up to twenty minutes now. This lake is my oldest favorite, as evidenced by the photos below. Taken around a quarter of a century ago, they bring back a time of wonder, of discovering Maine through the eyes of my children, long before we lived here.

Biscay collage

The world is alive with the sound of music

041215 remnants of ice — Remnants of shrinking ice have a beauty all their own

041215 turtle underwater — A painted turtle meanders slowly across the muddy river bottom, beside the wavering reflection of a birch

This brilliant Monday morning was yet another gem in a string of true spring days. Lily (my black lab friend) literally bounced along on our early morning walk and I felt like bouncing too! Up she scrambled to the top of one of the few remaining snow mountains, then tore down to explore the mysterious muddy smells emerging from winter’s blanket.

The woodland symphony added some new members this morning. Joining our old friends the chickadees and woodpeckers were the first thrushes trilling from both sides of the road, between the impossibly deep drumming of not one, but two, pileated woodpeckers. The soft clucking of a distant turkey might have been lost, had we not stopped to enjoy the thrushes.

Yesterday on the river, the story was the same…life blossoming, spirits released from the rigid ice of winter. I am still paddling my kayak, with the new canoe scheduled to arrive early in May. I paddled the Pemaquid River from the visitor’s center to the bridge and back, about 4 miles.

Thought you would be interested in yesterday’s river wildlife list: wood duck, ruddy ducks, mallards, other yet-to-be-identified ducks, ospreys, great blue heron, swallows, and a painted turtle who was hanging out on the river bottom. The ducks were again great in number, rising in flocks long before I approached, with sometimes a group of delicate, downy feathers floating to mark where they had been.

Late this afternoon, I paddled the river again, going as far as the lake, where I met an unrelenting barrier of ice, then back to pull the boat out (about 3 miles). As my dog-sitting stay ends tomorrow, the kayak now waits at home for ice-out, when it will take up residence on a nearby lake.

A Good Friday

Today the temperature reached 60 degrees, according to The Weather Channel. After joyfully noting this miracle, I hurried home to walk the dog, then set off for the river, where I promptly came as close to being stuck as has ever happened with my RAV4. I guess you really can’t just drive ANYWHERE with aplomb. A bit of maneuvering and I was back on the gravel boat launch drive and unloading. What a joy it was to slide my kayak into the water for the first time in 2015.

Remember those stories of the earliest wilderness explorers, who wrote of vast flocks of waterfowl, more than could be counted? That was the Pemaquid River today. I felt like an interloper, one who had arrived weeks before human presence was allowed. On every side, ducks took flight and Canada geese honked belligerently from the water and on the ice.

My muscles know that I paddled today (and did my upper body workout with the weights). There is that familiar little nagging stab in my back, about halfway down and more to the right than to the left. Today I logged the first 2 miles of what will be many hundreds for the year. It was a good Friday and also Good Friday, with worship at the Bremen Union Church after my paddling adventure.

040415 water dripping — Liberated from its winter captivity in the barn, my paddle once again dipped and dripped in a comforting rhythm.