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Signs of Life

Nancy L. Horner

One Morning in Maine

The weather was perfect: sunny, dry, in the upper 60’s with lovely little puffy clouds speckling a cerulean sky, a mild breeze tossing our hair. After a minor spit of rain in the morning, it looked like our morning ”walk-on discovery adventure”—a beginning lesson in kayaking—would be unmarred by even the vaguest hint of bad weather. We signed up at L.L. Bean's gigantic store in Freeport, Maine and climbed into their mini-bus, a vehicle that the driver noted was powered on their own blend of soy oil and diesel. "It's noisy," she said, "but environmentally friendly."

Roughly ten minutes of driving through Maine countryside and we arrived at our destination. Our trip leaders were Ken and Megan. Ken gave us a quick lesson in Personal Flotation Device (PFD) adjustment and warned all that we'd be hiking through a pasture with cows, mud, and perhaps some fresh, warm manure, "So watch your step; you have been warned." He also told us to hold our paddles vertically because "You won't stay friends with the closest person for long if you don't." Ken obviously had a decent sense of humor.

We introduced ourselves, then slipped into water shoes and PFDs, grabbed our paddles and hiked past cows to an open area, where we formed a circle and listened to basic instruction on paddling. Then, down to the bay we marched, to a row of kayaks tied against a narrow dock.

After learning how to board a kayak without spilling into the bay, we were loaded into kayaks by Ken, Megan, and a couple of other people who were already on-hand when we reached the dock. We gathered together before heading out into the bay.

"First rule of thumb," Ken told us, "regarding right-of-way: the higher-tonnage boat wins." For that reason, he said, we would wait till two approaching motorized boats passed before quickly crossing an open expanse of water, where unmanned sailboats bobbed in gentle swells.

Shortly after crossing the open channel, we gathered together to wait for a lobsterman to pull the last of his traps before proceeding. Ken explained that the stripes on lobster boats matched the color of the floats attached to their traps. "That's really helpful when you're trying to see how much more work they have to do," he said. "I don't want to get in the way of the working people." This particular boat only had one trap remaining, so our wait was brief.

On the way to our next gathering spot, I managed to get myself hung up on a sizeable boulder just inches below the water's surface. There's some cosmic rule similar to Murphy's Law that states, "If there is a place one can get wedged while boating, Nancy will find it." I looked around as I tried to use my paddle to shove myself off the rock. All of my family members had paddled away happily, totally oblivious to my plight. The period during which I fruitlessly attempted to remove myself from the rock was the only time I felt likely to tip over and end up getting fished out of the bay. Fortunately, a fresh-faced teenager by the name of Ben came to my rescue. A few helpful pushes from Ben added to my own and I was back under way. I thanked him and he replied with a gentle smile and a nod. Like most Maine natives we encountered on our vacation, he was incredibly polite and relaxed.

The next challenge I encountered involved another teenager, this time female.

"I chipped my nails!" she said. "One, two, three—oh no, five of them!"

While this young lass was counting her fingernail chips and prattling on about how she was going to have to fix them, she paddled aimlessly with one hand or simply allowed herself to drift into other kayakers. After aiming several different directions and repeatedly getting bashed or blocked, I finally maneuvered my way around her. I studied her a bit—brown hair pulled into a ponytail, perky nose, red kayak—and resolved to carefully avoid going anywhere near her in the future.

Eventually, the same girl became so rowdy—splashing her friends and deliberately bumping them—that Ken warned her she'd better stop, "because I'd really prefer not to do a rescue."

After an hour-and-a-half of paddling around in the bay we returned to the dock, soaked and happy. Once more, we hiked the rugged path through cow fields. In front of me, two girls chatted away.

"A squirrel bites you. What do you do?" the girl in front of me said to her companion as we neared the barn.

Megan turned around. "What is this, some kind of survival game you're playing?"

"I have a scarf that has all sorts of 'what if' questions all over it and it tells you what to do, like if someone faints or something and you have to help them," one of the girls replied. "It shows how to do CPR and everything."

"What about the squirrel?" the other girl asked. "Is a squirrel bite bad?"

"I had a friend who got bit by a chipmunk and it wasn't bad or anything, but that was a pet."

"Chipmunks aren't as big as squirrels."

I was enjoying the conversation, but talk ceased as we reached the barn and dispersed. "Changing rooms are inside; however, remember this is a working barn," Ken told us. "It's not advisable to walk into it with bare feet. You will encounter splinters and other hazards you don't want to subject your feet to."

My entire family made the mistake of not bringing along a change of clothes, so the four of us hauled our soaked selves into the barn to change shoes and fetch our belongings before climbing into the van. An hour later we realized our jeans were nearly dry. Coupled with the fact that I hadn't broken a sweat while vigorously paddling around a bay with a fat plastic thing around my chest, the realization was probably a greater shock than I could have acquired by sticking my finger into a light socket. Maybe I've lived in the hot, humid South for too long.

After a warm lunch, we climbed into our car. Immediately, little splats of rain began to hit the windshield, followed by a good, outright pouring. Full of clam chowder, kayaking stories, and with happy thoughts of paddling in the bay, there was nothing Mother Nature could do to get us down. We had definitely had a perfect morning in Maine.