The U.S.S. Pediddleville is my Old Town Heron model kayak, a gift from my family, Christmas 2013. I had been wanting to explore many of the waterways in the Pediddleville area for some time, and had compiled a bucket list of them. Summer of 2014 turned out not to be very active on that front because of my extended trips to Michigan and Ohio that season, and I kicked myself for not finding a way to bring it with me and go out on Lake Huron, or even the Muskingum River, but I did hit a few targets that year. The 2015 season, now probably over, saw many of the targets hit. I would sometimes go out twice in a weekend, or after work on the long days till Sunset. I got many great pictures--though some of the best have been lost to The Water, and had a lot of life-affirming Solitude.
In 2014 I only got to the upper and lower Moodus Reservoirs, Babcock Pond, and the lower portion of Salmon Cove from the boat launch in view of the East Haddam swing bridge over the Connecticut River. Went up the Blackhall River in Old Lyme with X-Ray Man. I brought the kayak on vacation to Maine and hit the First and Second West Branch Ponds. I've been to Babcock Pond several times because it's close by and easy to get to if I just want to go out for the exercise or the sunset. Same with the reservoirs, which are much less clogged with lily pads. I think that was about it, just enough to get The Bug and compile the bucket list.
Early in the season of 2015 I got going on the quest. I had gotten a four day work week with Fridays off, and it made it easy to find the time to go out kayaking. One Friday I went out twice in one day. I got going early in the morning. I wanted to find a pond near me that I had seen on Google Earth. It was off a road near Babcock Pond. The road became gravel as it entered the deep woods, and I kept looking to my left for some way to get to my destination, Pine Meadows Park Pond, but wasn't seeing it. I was driving a Nissan Altima, not exactly a four-wheeler, and after a while started to wonder if this was a good idea. The road got "less-travelled" the further I went until it came to a T intersection. I tried a left, but the road soon got dicey, and with no way to turn around, I backed it up back to the intersection. Well, I had come this far, so it was worth at least trying the other direction, and I could see a watery area to the left as I went in. It looked very swampy rather than pond, but worth checking out. Soon I found a sign on the right that said "Standish Pond". Well, here we go! This pond was identified as state property on a sign I saw as I portaged the Pediddleville down to the pond. It had a little observation hut and a wooden footbridge (in disrepair) over a narrow part of the pond, and a big open field on the other side of the bridge. Clearly this pond is not visited often these days, and it was just what I was looking for! There was no boat access to speak of, but I found a way near a fallen tree. The pond had an abundance of lily pads and millfoil. There were really only a few open water areas, probably kept clear by the beavers, so the paddling was slow-going. There were several herons around the pond and a beaver lodge. The beavers were not used to any boat traffic, and made several loud splashes to send me the message that I was not welcome. But I WAS welcome in my own way! There was nobody to be seen this whole excursion--I've come to regard not seeing any human beings as a bonus on each trip. I realized when I was away out in Michigan by myself that Solitude is my Friend. Solitude feels most natural to me. Connecticut is densely populated, even out in the East, and finding seclusion like this near my home is a blessing. No sign of people, and The Silence!
I went out again that day, to Great Hill Pond, where I used to swim a lot when I was younger. The pond is loomed over by the small mountain my friends and I used to hike up, and party and camp out on the rocks, and bearing a resemblance to Glastonbury Tor in England, became part of our band mythology--another story for another time, except to say that when I was in Glastonbury I was overtaken by that Mystical feeling I have been getting lately from The Silence. Other trips this season were to Pickerel Lake right near me in Pediddleville, Mono Pond in Columbia, Williams Lake in Lebanon, Beseck Lake in Middlefield, Salmon River upstream from the cove to the Route 151 overpass, Salmon River above Leesville Dam as far as I could go (not very far), and Moodus River from the cove as far upstream as I could go.
We went to Maine again on vacation, and I went to Jordan Pond and Long Pond in the Acadia National Park area, and also went on my first salt-water venture out into Seal Cove and Mt. Desert narrows and explored Moose Island. Again I was alone for most of this. I was perturbed because the Pediddleville was at home in Connecticut, and I was using my sister-in-law's Pelican kayak, which was very tippy compared to mine. I'm surprised I risked it on my first excursion into the freezing cold Atlantic in this kayak, but I was determined. It was a very overcast, misty day and I got across the narrows to the island without incident. I had to constantly use my legs as a counter to the tipping in the rough water, living and learning. The island was beautiful. The spruce forest was thick, except for a storm-damaged swampy grove I walked through on the path that circuited the island. Sphagnum moss everywhere. The path went into the woods and emerged on the coast, then continued along it, looping back to where I had parked the kayak on a spit of sea stones at the narrows. I was looking for blueberries, which were not near ready yet, when I looked down at my feet and saw, smack-dab in the middle of the path, a tiny blueberry bush with one ripe blueberry at its top. How unlikely! It was a gift, and I ate it right there. As I walked along I suddenly panicked that maybe the tide had come in and that I had not pulled the kayak far enough away from shore. I started running, imagining seeing the kayak floating away and stranding me there. It was still safely there when I got to it, and it was time to go. It rained heavily as I got near where my car was parked--getting drenched was another first.
The upper part of Salmon Cove became a go-to spot for me this past season. This is a wide open area of water at the base of Mt. Tom, Machimoodus State Park, the supposed source of the famed "Moodus Noises", where the Salmon and Moodus rivers merge. There is a road off Johnsonville Road that leads down to a small parking area near the water access. At this point the Connecticut River and these tributaries are tidal. At low tide water access is sometimes iffy, and not wanting to drag the kayak through thirty feet of muck, I would go somewhere else if need be. At high tide it's no problem. My first, much anticipated trip up Salmon River from here took place after a couple of tide-thwarted attempts. I went in the late afternoon one day, got into the water, and headed upstream. Soon I found that there is no cell signal there, which I find thrilling, though potentially disastrous. I get into losing myself and not being found. There were multiple small islands on the river, which at some point I will explore on foot. The water is deep enough here to warrant a rope swing and jump-off spot off a big rock face soon after rounding a bend out of the cove. The trick here is finding a landing spot, and I'll jump sometime next season. As I went upstream I began to see the houses of the river-dwellers and wondered what it must be like living along the waterway. Do people travel by boat to each other's houses for parties? Or are these people the type that keep to themselves by their river Shangri-Las? Probably a mixture of both. I continued on past the old resort I used to work at, now torn down and made into a state park. Maybe some of those stories will pop up on this blog at some point. On the opposite side of the river the dwellings were up on a steep incline with steps down to the river, and were tucked into the trees almost invisible from the foliage. I got a creepy feeling that with a private road access, these were really private dwellings where I imagined the possibility that very secret things could occur...When I got to the overpass of Route 151 I stopped and enjoyed seeing the area from the new angle I was getting, and turned around to head back.
The cove is also the mouth of the Moodus River, a smaller river that flows out of the Johnsonville millpond. As far as you can go up this river there are no houses, few signs of human activity but for one observation hut and a few bird nesting houses. The water is calm and very reflective and surrounded by wilderness at the base of Mt. Tom and further in. Some fallen trees have been cut to allow passage, though one big one that is not cut makes passage under it difficult at high tide. This is a magical excursion, winding its way through woods with no sign of people. Kingfishers, herons, and interesting water-side plants everywhere, and there is a little side gulley leading to a beaver pond near the river. My first trip up Moodus River made a great impression on me, that this existed so near my home, and my second was accompanied by experiencing the tide coming in, which pushed my kayak effortlessly upstream for a time before rounding a bend. Here's another spot I will return to many times when the bucket list is less important than easy access and guaranteed splendor.
Nearing the end of the season, I felt a need to go up Salmon River again, this time the goal being as far up as possible below Leesville Dam. It was a really nice day, and I figured I had better not miss perhaps the last opportunity of the season. I got into the cove and noticed a number of swans floating around. They were ahead of my course upstream, and a few took off in flight as I approached. After a short while I noticed something floating on the water. Nearing it, I saw that it was a dead swan, its arrestingly long neck sticking straight out from its body floating on the surface. Part of its torso along the spine was torn open. It is rare to be able to see a swan up this close, and really perceive the great size of the bird. I got the vague sense that I might be attacked by the other swans if I lingered too long, so I moved on upstream. Change of plans as I noticed a small tributary river to my left and decided to explore the waterway-less-travelled. This stream wound its way through tall reeds and into the woods. I saw only one house along the way up a steep bank tucked into the forest and from there it was wilderness. I don't know the name of this river, may find it out later, but it turned out to be a key trip that may be my last for the season, and though there may be a few more days left before it gets too cold, it may be fitting to stop for the season. I got to the end of the line for this river as a deposit of small stones across the flow made it impassable. I got out of the kayak here to pee and look around. It was a nice setting for an end-of-the-line, end-of-the-season picture of the U.S.S. Pediddleville. I had my phone in a plastic zip-lock bag and had stupidly placed it on top of the kayak as I took the photo with my camera--I usually snap redundant photos with the camera and with the phone. When I went to get back in the kayak I moved it toward the water and then saw the bag with the phone in the water. I grabbed it quickly and shook the water out of it as best as I could, but the bag had not been sealed, and the phone was swamped. This phone was a trooper--it had fallen into a toilet at a Starbuck's in Michigan, and also the Lower Moodus Reservoir, and though it was still working at this point, it soon would not take a charge and I found out that charging it was the worst thing I could do, and I lost all of my photos on that phone!
So with consternation about the phone I headed back down stream, and back into Salmon River. The tide was coming in and I had to paddle against the waves of the flood tide coming up from the cove. I looked for the dead swan and didn't see it at first. There were still lots of swans around, a bit further down stream exiting the cove. I would guess there were about thirty of them, and I noticed that they seemed to be lined up, just drifting down stream in a line that I followed to my right, and then I found the dead swan, maybe an eighth of a mile downstream from where I saw it last, still floating and bringing up the rear of this swan flotilla. Were these swans in mourning for the dead one? Swans are known to mate for life, maybe they also grieve their dead. Was this a funeral procession? I wondered how far down the river they would accompany the dead one--till it sinks, or gets snagged in a tree limb or washes ashore? Would they go all the way down to Long Island Sound?
I sat for a while and pondered all of this. Yes, it was a good thing I didn't miss this opportunity to go kayaking one last time, and had the chance to see this most rarified of scenes, a near Mystical experience. I looked up the symbolism of seeing a dead swan--I could only find the meaning of seeing a dead swan in a dream--and since I enter a dream-like state on these excursions, took that as the true template. A dead swan signifies frustration towards a person or situation, and it just so happens that that was another reason I went out that day! It's good for me to get out into the Solitude, the Silence, yes even the head music stops sometimes when I'm out there.
Silence tells a real good story
Perfect Silence-never boring
It's like Music-all around
Silence is my favorite sound---Sylvia Platypus
I'm absolutely enamored with your descriptions and accounts. My grandparents lived in Black Rock (Bridgeport) right across the street from Ash Creek. When I'd visit, one of my favorite things was staring out their big living room picture window with a clear view of the Creek, and watching the waterfowl and other birds. My Grandmother had those Golden Guide books for animals, birds, plant life, and trees. We'd spend lots of time looking through those books to identify what we saw. It was from those times that I learned to appreciate the natural world. It still holds a spell on me. And, of course, my favorite t.v. show was Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. I should put up a framed picture of Marlin Perkins.
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