World's End, Tool Afloat, and a Thoreau Voyage

 

The high point of my paddling week brought me to Hingham Harbor where I watched the sun climb above the trees while paddling towards World's End (photo above).  Prior to launching and while preparing my gear the sky was aglow (photo below)...

Reaching Martin's Cove the near slack waters of high tide allowed my entrance into Damde Meadows, a salt-water marsh...

In the 15-acre salt marsh (restored to being tidal in 2011) were great egrets, osprey, and white-tailed deer...

Returning to Hingham Harbor I headed north following the shore of the World's End peninsula.  Landed at the narrow "Bar" connecting two sections...

The view above is looking south towards Planters Hill with Hingham Harbor to the right and Weir River to the left.  Paddling around the northern tip I encountered a northeast breeze and this Osprey about to enjoy a snack...

World's End as seen from the Weir River side...

The trip back included views of the Boston skyline above a Boston Harbor island...

...as well as the MWRA's Deer Island wastewater treatment digesters appearing to loom above some houses...

Map (Boston Harbor Islands Partnership) showing World's End and the route I paddled...

World's End is considered to be part of the Boston Harbor Islands and is administered by The Trustees of  Reservations.

Earlier in the week, on Monday, I paddled the Assabet River in Stow and Maynard...

  

Soon after launching I came upon an almost suitcase-sized container floating in a slough.  The case contained a very heavy tool used in testing concrete...

Fortunately, there was a laminated paper inside with the owner's name thus allowing its return to the rightful owner.  The owner reported his job-site trailer (on a bridge spanning an Assabet tributary) having been broken into a few days prior.  He speculated the thieves didn't know what to make of this tool.

Later in my paddle I heard an eagle's call and looked upwards at the source...

Wrapped up the week yesterday on the Concord River with thoughts of John and Henry Thoreau's 1839 voyage from Concord, MA to Hooksett, NH via the Concord River, Middlesex Canal, and Merrimack River.  Like the brothers, I too started on a Saturday, the 31st day of August.  In A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Henry D. Thoreau described their vessel: "Our boat which had cost us a week's labor in the spring, was in form like a fisherman's dory, fifteen feet long, by three and a half in breadth at the widest part, painted green below, with a border of blue, with reference to the two elements in which it was to spend its existence.  It had been loaded the the evening before at our door, half a mile from the river, with potatoes and melons from a patch which we had cultivated, and a few utensils, and was provided with wheels in order to be rolled around falls, as well as two sets of oars, and several slender poles for shoving in shallow places, and also two masts, one of which served for a tent-pole at night; for a buffalo skin was to be our bed, and a tent of cotton cloth our roof.  It was strongly built but heavy, and hardly of better model than usual."

I followed their route, from where I believe they launched near the present-day Calf Pasture, downriver passing some of the landmarks Thoreau mentioned in his book and some he didn't:

The boathouse at the Old Manse...

...worthy of mention because their boat would ultimately come into Nathaniel Hawthorne's possession and be stored near this very spot.

The Old North Bridge replica (only the abutments of the original were there in 1839)...

The Minuteman statue (which didn't exist until 1875)...

 

Cardinal flowers were seen by both them and myself...

Upon encountering a man fishing Thoreau discussed fishing and the many species of fish.  It was only fitting that I would encounter a father-son team who'd just landed this good-sized bass...

The Thoreau brothers landed at Ball's Hill...

...which Thoreau referred to as "the St. Ann's of Concord voyageurs, not to say any prayer for the success of our voyage, but to gather the few berries which were still left on the hills..." 

I followed their route as far as the "Carlisle Bridge" (Rte. 225) which Thoreau described as having "twenty wooden piers in 1839 ...

Before turning about and heading upriver I looked through the bridge...

...towards where they continued another 2.5 miles before setting up camp on a small island in Billerica.

With meteorological summer now having come to an end I particularly liked Henry's comment while on their return trip nearly 2 weeks later.  Upon awaking on the last day of their trip: "That night was the turning point in the season.  We had gone to bed in summer and we awoke in autumn; for summer passes into autumn in some unimaginable point of time, like the turning of a leaf."  

 
Trash from the Assabet River (included the non-trash concrete tester)...

 Trash from Hingham Harbor/World's End was sparse...

Trash from the Concord River was also sparse with only 1 Mylar balloon...