Saturday, June 21, 2008

Dawn of Summer on Musketaquid Waters

This morning, I trash patrolled the Sudbury River from Route 62 to Pantry Brook and back. I was on the water at 5:20 am and arrived at Fairhaven Bay one hour later. Twenty-one miscellaneous pieces of trash decorated my kayak's foredeck. Sitting in the middle of the bay, with a faded moon on my right and the first summer sun on my left, I refueled with a Power Bar and some Red Bull.
I guess I was relieved that summer did actually arrive, despite the high cost of gasoline and the declining economy. The fact that I had the whole bay to myself, probably has to do with the rising gasoline prices. Ordinarily, I would expect to see several power boats with fishermen in the bay on such a glorious Saturday morning in June. Today, I did not encounter a power boat, or for that matter any other boat, until I arrived at Pantry Brook a little past 7am. Just upstream from the brook's mouth, there were two guys fishing from a drifting bass boat.
Of course, the gasoline prices affected my plans also. I had planned to drive 115 miles to Casco Bay to participate in some paddling events at Peaks Island. Somehow, 4 hours of driving, the cost of a full tank of gas, and a sore muscle in my side made it easier to reconsider and paddle my local waters instead.
Had I gone to Maine, I would have missed numerous deer sightings. One solitary doe and later a group of four including a buck with what looked like antlers in the velvet stage. I also watched a great blue heron pull its head from the water with a beak full of river grass. The heron waded very deliberately to the shore, where it then separated the grass from the small fish hidden within. The herons seem to always be manning their posts. They are like the river's mile markers.
On my way back downriver, I encountered 2 power boats with fishermen heading towards Fairhaven Bay. At my takeout location, my empty container count had reached 26 bringing YTD to 1237. I arrived home at 9:30am, ready to continue enjoying and honoring this first day of summer 2008.

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