Deer Island - Challenging Old Sow

The plan was a circumnavigation of Deer Island.  Catch the flood from Lord's Cove through Head Harbour Passage, paddle across the north side of the island at the high, and ride the ebb out through Pendleton Island Passage.  Without the tide it would be a ten hour trip, but this way maybe six, hopefully with no hard paddling.

It was the latest in a grand scheme to collect experiences and turn them into a guide for exploring estuaries and harbours on the Bay of Fundy.  Many kayakers avoid the bay, wary of the 30 foot tides and powerful currents, but there is a way to use them to advantage.  While not a kayaking expert, a thorough understanding of how to take advantage of tides had opened my eyes to the opportunity.  Some of that experience was in kayaks and canoes, but most came from 40 years of coastal cruising under sail, a lot of it in the Bay of Fundy.  

Deer Island was the seventh and most ambitious expedition in the series.  Twenty more lie in the future. 

The circumnavigation went according to plan, but there were moments.  The 20 miles actually took six and a half hours.  I only wish I had more time to explore.  It was really a nutty way to see Deer Island, much too ambitious to take it all in, but the opportunity to use the tides to help make a quick circumnavigation was irresistible. 

 

The Fundy Isles are a paddling paradise; sadly, this trip missed a lot of the magic.  Due to the lack of time, dozens of isolated islands, sheltered coves, and beaches could not be explored, and had to be bypassed.  But I will be back.

The 10:00 am start at Lord's Harbour was an hour after the low.  It put me at Deer Island Point at half tide, smack dab at maximum flood when the current is most dangerous.  Old Sow was raising a ruckus and looked plenty rough.  There was no sign of a single huge vortex, but there were a lot of little ones and some fairly rough water.
 
The strategy was to stay tight against the shore line and paddle around the point in quiet water.  The problem was, the quiet water turned out to be a two knot counter current.  After struggling against it for fifteen minutes it became obvious the current would win.  I would run out of gas before I got through.  That left two options; land on the small beach just to the north-west of the point, which probably meant giving up, or let the counter current sweep me out into the race, which meant tangling with Old Sow.

 

I was confident I could paddle hard enough to stay out of the worst of it, so I picked option two, and worked out of the counter current and into the flood.  It was hairy for sure, at times a little frightening, but at no point did I come close to capsizing.  My kayak was a big Old Town Loon, not the fastest boat afloat, but the stability provided by the extra weight and beam was comforting and very welcome.
 I expected the current would be linear, and carry me fast and far.  Fat chance of that, it was very turbulent.  Bottom topography is rugged; depths plunge from 75 to 200 metres, then back again.  It was a constant struggle to keep the boat pointed in the right direction; it regularly spun 90 degrees or more.  A better route would be to give the area off the point a much wider berth.  The flood is a lot less turbulent near Campobello Island and the Eastport shore.  That would add a couple of miles to the trip, but the smoother water would repay the extra distance.  You would lose little, if any, time.

Whales and dolphins were absent during the trip, but seals were everywhere.  Most were nervous and kept their distance, but one curious gray swam slowly under my boat, it’s large black eyes tracking my progress through the clear water.

The last two miles up the narrows were into a light northerly which produced a small chop, but once in Passamaquoddy Bay the wind died completely.  A mile to the north-west the slack sails of four small dinghies pulled up on the American shore shone with reflected intensity in the glassy water. 

I paddled along the cliffs and past the bays in warm sunshine, threaded through the giant cages of an aquaculture site, and landed for a short break on a small, isolated beach.  

It took an hour and a half to reach Pendleton Island.  The tide was just beginning to ebb, and gave a fast but quiet ride through the passage.  The water was smooth at that point of the tide, but it would get much rougher the more the tide dropped.  In places I was passing over rocks and shoals.  They have the potential to be dangerous, and once exposed, would narrow the channel and produce a lot of turbulence.  

Past the ferry landing, the final two miles back to Lord's Cove was easy, there was almost no wind and that piece of water has very little current at any state of tide.  At times I had a little with me, at times a little against.
 
It would be a lot of fun to do a two or three day trip around Deer Island.  Stop for the night at B&B's along the way; maybe visit Campobello, and if you remember your passport, even Eastport.  Visit remote beaches and fishing weirs; and chat with the locals, who are colourful, charming, and friendly.  The passages are reasonably narrow so you wouldn't have a problem with wind, and even Passamaquoddy Bay should be doable in the typical summer south-westerly, the wind would be right on the stern.  Can’t wait ‘till next summer.