Joe Dupere
10-20-2005, 03:23 PM
The latest in the never ending Joe and Glenn rowing saga..
On Columbus Day, my rowing buddy Glenn and I went to the Great Works Stream, which is across the Penobscot River from where I live. About 4 miles as the crow flies and about 12 miles by road. About a mile in from the river, there is a dam on Great Works stream where the boat launch is located. This was the Monday after the weekend we had 8" of rain. It was overcast with a steady drizzle, but never did actually rain. Here's a shot of the launch and dam...
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid191/p6088c8032b509d5be0b9d4766958c9e9/f1ceaa0b.jpg
The normal stream course is just a little wider than the orange floats, and as you can see, the dock is about 20 feet from where the shoreline was that day.
This next shot is looking up the stream from the dam. It's a very wide and fairly shallow pond. There is a channel in there somewhere, but for the first couple of miles it was hard to find.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid191/pa06133a8b5f0bed3c7e52cdd0f38891c/f1cea9fc.jpg
At one point we completely lost the channel because the water was so high. I stood up to look ahead and see where it might be. There was a slight breeze blowing so I opened my jacket to see if I could sail downwind a bit...
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid191/pa83a09db92110d3eeeaa2fa9fd570308/f1ceaa1a.jpg
Finally, we got out of the bog-pond and into the stream proper. The actual channel is to port of the island ahead of me...
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid191/p1b97ffbd225145ba38c87fc7a773ccaf/f1ceaa2f.jpg
When we got about 3 miles up the stream, we started seeing a number of hunting/fishing camps. This is one of the first ones. There are no roads into these camps, you either get there by boat or by snowmobile when the stream freezes over.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid191/p30b5c1ac0eeff089d12c5f30d85b917e/f1cea932.jpg
It was really nice and quiet back there, although I was surprised by the number of camps that had TV antennas or satellite dishes. Which meant they must have had generators. I'm not sure why they'd want to build a camp to get away from it all, and then bring it all with them. To each his own I guess.
According to the GPS we rowed a little over 6 miles before stopping for lunch on the bank. Once we got into the channel it was pretty winding. When I checked distance on a topo map after we got back, it's about 4 miles in a straight line. Due to the flooding in the bog-pond we were able to row pretty much in a straight line, otherwise we might have covered more distance by following the channel. We only saw one other person on the water when we were out. All told, according to the GPS, we rowed about 12 1/2 miles. It was a good day to be out even though it was damp. It was a very nice, quiet and comtemplative row.
Here's a final shot about 100 yards downstream from the dam in the first picture.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid191/pa1bed965602e52fea56276c163db790e/f1ce5bda.jpg
We're standing on the near shore, the far shore is usually just in front of the group of trees in the middle of the shot.
Your intrepid reporter,
Joe
On Columbus Day, my rowing buddy Glenn and I went to the Great Works Stream, which is across the Penobscot River from where I live. About 4 miles as the crow flies and about 12 miles by road. About a mile in from the river, there is a dam on Great Works stream where the boat launch is located. This was the Monday after the weekend we had 8" of rain. It was overcast with a steady drizzle, but never did actually rain. Here's a shot of the launch and dam...
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid191/p6088c8032b509d5be0b9d4766958c9e9/f1ceaa0b.jpg
The normal stream course is just a little wider than the orange floats, and as you can see, the dock is about 20 feet from where the shoreline was that day.
This next shot is looking up the stream from the dam. It's a very wide and fairly shallow pond. There is a channel in there somewhere, but for the first couple of miles it was hard to find.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid191/pa06133a8b5f0bed3c7e52cdd0f38891c/f1cea9fc.jpg
At one point we completely lost the channel because the water was so high. I stood up to look ahead and see where it might be. There was a slight breeze blowing so I opened my jacket to see if I could sail downwind a bit...
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid191/pa83a09db92110d3eeeaa2fa9fd570308/f1ceaa1a.jpg
Finally, we got out of the bog-pond and into the stream proper. The actual channel is to port of the island ahead of me...
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid191/p1b97ffbd225145ba38c87fc7a773ccaf/f1ceaa2f.jpg
When we got about 3 miles up the stream, we started seeing a number of hunting/fishing camps. This is one of the first ones. There are no roads into these camps, you either get there by boat or by snowmobile when the stream freezes over.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid191/p30b5c1ac0eeff089d12c5f30d85b917e/f1cea932.jpg
It was really nice and quiet back there, although I was surprised by the number of camps that had TV antennas or satellite dishes. Which meant they must have had generators. I'm not sure why they'd want to build a camp to get away from it all, and then bring it all with them. To each his own I guess.
According to the GPS we rowed a little over 6 miles before stopping for lunch on the bank. Once we got into the channel it was pretty winding. When I checked distance on a topo map after we got back, it's about 4 miles in a straight line. Due to the flooding in the bog-pond we were able to row pretty much in a straight line, otherwise we might have covered more distance by following the channel. We only saw one other person on the water when we were out. All told, according to the GPS, we rowed about 12 1/2 miles. It was a good day to be out even though it was damp. It was a very nice, quiet and comtemplative row.
Here's a final shot about 100 yards downstream from the dam in the first picture.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid191/pa1bed965602e52fea56276c163db790e/f1ce5bda.jpg
We're standing on the near shore, the far shore is usually just in front of the group of trees in the middle of the shot.
Your intrepid reporter,
Joe