This morning I walked a mile into town at 8am to walk around before reporting to training. On West St, there are a handful of gilded age "cottages" that weren't leveled after WWII or burned in the huge fire of 1947. The brick one below is La Rochelle. The architect was Andrews, Jaques and Rantoul of Boston and the estate
was built for George Sullivan Bowdoin. There was no brick factory in the
vicinity, so this home was only the second one to be built of brick on
Mount Desert Island. The forty-one room, 13,000 square foot lavish
chateaux has twelve bedrooms and nine full bathrooms on two acres of
land. It currently houses the Historical Society.
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The two homes above are private homes with Frenchman's Bay behind them..beautiful!
There's a cute art deco theater downtown that plays current films.
The Village Green overlooks the bay and there are plenty of shops nearby...
I reported to work at 9AM where we were scheduled for a paddle with our boss and the tour coordinator, a girl. There are 9 of us in the guide class and we were given PFDs (life preserver), dry bag and a spray skirt to keep for the season. The spray skirt fits snugly around the rim of the seat in the kayak and keeps the COLD water off when you're paddling. Photo at the end..... we watched as another guide greeted her group, fitted them for jackets/skirt and gave them the safety talk. After that, we walked 4-5 blocks to the launch site, lugging our gear.
Tides variations are huge here and can be a 12-14 feet change, so they launch from different sites depending on the tide. We put in at the end of Bridge St, at the land bridge to Bar Island. At high tide, it is covered by water so if you walk over it you'd better turn around before it is covered up!
Below... the 151′ Schooner Margaret Todd, passing the island we were resting on.
We used tandem kayaks, and I got my first intro to using a rudder and foot pegs to control it. All while trying to synchronize my paddle strokes with my kayak mate, a guy from Montana who lives here now. I sat in front, just paddling, on the way out (1:15 minutes) and sat in back and steered on the way back (1 hour). Seemed straight forward but I kept getting right/left backwards with the pegs 😕 We had two "crossings" where we paddled across a channel from one of the Porcupine islands to another on our way out of Frenchman's Bay.
Water was glassy when we launched but it got really windy and choppy about 10 minutes later with some rolling waves. We passed one island and then beached our kayaks (learned how to do this and get out!) and went ashore on the 2nd island for about 30 minutes before heading back. We'll do the same when we have guests on a tour. Along the way from launch to returning, the boss and tour coordinator covered a lot of info and on the water instructions. Sea kayaking in choppy waves is a lot different then sit-down paddle boarding in a FL lagoon or calm NC marsh! Add to that being responsible for a group of 12 possibly inexperienced strangers in 6 tandem kayaks for 2-4 hours, 2 to 3x a day.. and that's going to be my summer. Hmm... and the coastline is a bit more boring than I envisioned. Just pine trees and rocks. A bit of a surprise. After reading all the books on Bar Harbor history, I thought maybe we would be hugging the coastline, pointing out the huge "cottages", talking about early settlers, the 1947 fire, society scandals and the captains of industry that built this town. Instead, we paddle straight out into the Bay and around the pine and rock covered Porcupine Islands... then back again. Maybe we'll see some seals or porpoises soon.
Me in my "spray skirt". It's held on by suspenders, and once seated, I attach it behind me and pull it tightly around to the front.. to fasten it. If you ever tip over, the first thing you do while rolling is grab the front rip cord to release the skirt (and me!) and then push your way out of the kayak so the life preserver will pull you up. Interesting first day. Tomorrow we meet at the YWCA and start our morning classes, followed by lunch and 3-4 hours paddling in the afternoon. We also get our gear... things like a pump, deck compass, sponge, MDI nautical charts, base plate compass, mesh tote bag, air horn etc. Some they provide, and some we have to buy. Despite doing two 90 minute paddles last week in FL, I think I'm going to be sore tomorrow, along with having a swollen knee from working those foot pegs and walking to and from work (2 miles RT) As I write this, I'm back home on my bed with iced knee and heating pad on my back. I feel blisters forming on my thumbs from paddling too. My face also got sunburned despite cloudy skies and a visor. Lesson learned...reflection from the water!
