Learning to sea kayak

     Up until Saturday, the only kayaking I had done was in a tandem kayak or an inflatable one (a toy kayak, really) but on Saturday, Rick and I and our friends Miriam and Bill joined a group at Lincoln Kayaks in Freeport, Maine for a lesson in sea kayaking, each in individual boats.

     Some immediate differences: Sea kayaks are longer (and faster), you wear a silly-looking “skirt” with an elasticized hem that fits around the lip of the opening you’re sitting in (to keep water out) and, of course, you’re on the ocean.
     This “ocean” was Casco Bay, with its many inviting islands, and for three-plus hours and 5.11 miles, we paddled in-between some of them. We watched harbor seals slither off rocks, the braver ones swimming toward us with their little doggie faces just above water. We saw a bald eagle’s nest high in a tree. We listened to the alarmed call of ospreys sitting like sentries in treetops. And, most dramatically, we watched a young cormorant struggle in the water as a seagull clutched its back and pecked it, trying to kill it for lunch.
     This last example of Harsh Nature was too much for some of us, and we kayaked over toward the conflict until the seagull took off, the cormorant dove and resurfaced, the seagull returned and tried again and was driven off again and the cormorant, we hope, survived to tell the tale. The seagull could have something else for lunch.
     Our group included young and old, men and women and I would recommend it to anyone interested in kayaking or exploring.
     For another day: The Maine Island Trail is a 375-mile chain of more than 190 coastal islands and sites along the coast of Maine, with overnight camping allowed on many of them. Kayaking to your campsite? Sounds like another blog possibility to me.