North Shore Rambles

 

This past Wednesday, on an idyllic summer morning, I left my tent at Cape Ann Camp Site in Gloucester, MA and paddled out of the Jones River into the Annisquam River and towards its namesake village...

Paddling against the incoming tide brought me to Annisquam Lighthouse where I rounded the point past the lighthouse into Ipswich Bay and eastward to Hodgkins Cove...

...where a younger and stronger version of myself would have "paddled on" for another 16 miles or so around Cape Ann while participating in past years' Blackburn Challenge events.  The present version of myself chose instead to return to the Annisquam River for a lazy morning swim in that incoming tide...

Post swim I enjoyed paddling the Annisquam River down to the A. Piatt Andrew Bridge...

Turned about there and exited the Annisquam River between Rust and Pearce islands enroute back to the Jones River.  Headed to this small islet...

...where, a "top of the tide" landing, allowed for a second swim ...

The day before I'd taken the long way to Gloucester via Plum Island, an approximately 9 mile long barrier island.  At the island's Parker River National Wildlife Refuge I launched into the Plum Island River.  When I launched into the same river last December I encountered this... 

...whereas on Tuesday conditions were more welcoming...

Paddled with the incoming tide to Browns Island (almost reaching the Parker River) then turned about and paddled through the Donald A. Wilkinson Bridge...

...into the Merrimack River's Newburyport Harbor.   Plum Island's northern tip could be seen...

The view across the Merrimack's Joppa Flats toward Newburyport...

Last September I paddled the area near the Merrimack's mouth having launched from the Salisbury Reservation.  It was the 250th anniversary of the Arnold Expedition's 1775 departure from Newburyport aboard 11 small ships.   After exiting the Merrimack River the approximately 1,000-man force sailed along the coast to Maine's Kennebec River where they eventually struggled through the wilderness of western Maine in order to reach Quebec City on the St. Lawrence River 

Post paddle and on my way to Gloucester I drove through Ipswich, MA where, after crossing over the Choate Bridge (dating to 1764), I stopped at the South Green in order to find and snap a photo of the historic marker commemorating the expedition's passing through town...

 ...

John Peirce, the expedition's 30 year old surveyor, described Ipswich in his journal entry for September 15, 1775 (with his minimal punctuation): "Treadwell and Devvons Tavern in Ipswich Situated pleasantly over the bridge on a Side Hill-Tavern Sign of pipes and Grapes   Dial on each Side of the Steeple of the meeting a Small Town House-Great appearance of a Shower  Company all well  Drank Toddy on the Province Cost-1000 Pretty Girls-Taverns very Plenty of all sorts to bear a Good aspect."

Wildlife encountered over the course of my 2 paddles:

A deceased horseshoe crab floating in the Plum Island River... 

Numerous other deceased or perhaps molted horseshoe crabs drew attention from shorebirds...

A great egret "meet and greet" on the Annisquam...

Cormorants at Hodgkins Cove...

A pair of eider ducks also at Hodgkins...

Birds of a feather?...

Couldn't leave Gloucester without an early morning stroll along Stacy Boulevard...

...where the mariner still has a steady hand on the wheel...

Trash was few and far between...