[Journal entry for August 29, 2016; Jewell Island, Casco Bay Maine] I launched Lava, my new Wilderness Systems Tsunami 165, from the Colony Beach in Potts Harbor, Harpswell Neck and headed towards Jewell Island. I crossed the harbor obliquely and turned to a heading of N240E (magnetic) once I passed tiny Thrumcap (island), which pointed me straight towards Jewell Island, three miles away. I was able to maintain my course for a mile or so, but once in Broad Sound I began to experience gusty wind and choppy seas. I headed west and followed the shore of Bates Island and Cliff Island, where the sea was a bit calmer, until I was between Cliff and Jewell, and then crossed the much calmer water to Jewell. I pulled up into Cocktail Cove, on the west side of the island. I carried my kayak up to the head of the cove and stashed it above the high water mark, for although the tide was outgoing, I didn’t want to take chances.

Jewell is a large island, about a mile long and a third of a mile wide and is parkland. The interior is wooded, mainly with conifers and birch, and the ground is surprisingly damp, with bogs and cattail marshes scattered about. I walked a trail to the south end of the island, past many decaying military structures that date from World Wars I and II, when the island hosted anti-submarine defense batteries. Most are small: concrete block huts, concrete foundations of long vanished wooden sheds. Several host large machines: a boiler, a water purification system. I stopped at one of the Fire Control Towers and climbed the stairs – at my own risk, as the sign said - up to the top of this four-floor concrete structure. The rooms are square, with circular mounts that I guess hosted telescopes or guns, and have a low window that wraps around the exterior wall, offering a three hundred sixty degree view. The view from the uppermost floor was nice. I could see a neighboring tower, the intervening woods and the sea. The entrance to an underground bunker is near the tower. I peered past the rusting steel doors but did not enter. I continued on the trail to Smuggler’s Cove, a small indentation in the coastline surrounded by beautiful fields of goldenrod in full bloom. I took a different trail back, one that visited the south tip of the island. I then took the main trail north to the Punchbowl, a circular cove on the northeastern tip of the island. It too is surrounded by fields of yellow goldenrod. I climbed around on the rocks – typical Harpswell phyllite –for a bit, avoiding the poison ivy that grew there. I then headed back. Finally, I took a spur trail that followed the cliff above Cocktail Cove, as far as an overlook with benches.

Returning to the beach, I had to carry my kayak a hundred yards to the water, for the tide was not low. The paddle back was very tough, for the wind had picked up and the sea, especially in Broad Sound, was very choppy. Furthermore, the waves were very disorganized. I could not hold the N60E direct heading, but rather took a more northerly path towards Barnes Island, way off in the distance and just west of Basin Point. It was oblique to the wind and easier to paddle than the direct route. I turned and ran with the wind when I was close to Upper Flag Island, sliding around like crazy and surfing, though rather ineffectually, until I found a protected spot between Upper Flag and Haskell Islands where I could catch my breath. From that point on, the paddling was much easier. I sighted half dozen Harbor Seals sunning themselves on a ledge near the northeast end of Upper Flag Island. They all slid into the water while I was still a hundred yards off, so I did not get a close look at them. A lobster boat was unloading at Dick’s Lobsters and Crabs as I arrived in South Harpswell. The mud flats were showing by the Colony Beach, so I had to carry my kayak across mud and Spartina marsh before finally setting it on the grass below the Colony swimming pool.

The trip out took 1:15 and the trip back took somewhat longer. I hiked about the island for about two hours. Had the sea been calm, as it sometimes is, the paddling would have been relaxing. But because of the wind and chop, it was very tough, not something that I will lightly undertake again in such conditions. Five hours, overall.