Crunch! Bam! Crunch!
Grinding, scraping and cracking are not noises you want to hear while kayaking, but at least they didn’t come from running over shoals or slamming into rocks. Our vessels generated these sounds earlier this week while breaking through ice on the Connecticut River, where friends and I planned to watch wintering bald eagles.
“I hope we don’t wind up like Shackleton,” Dave Schultz of Mystic called out, as he slammed his 14-foot plastic vessel into a sheet of inch-thick frozen rime.
“Or Franklin,” I replied, paddling behind him in a 22-foot fiberglass tandem with Frost White of Ledyard. Bob Graham of Ledyard in his 15-foot fiberglass boat made up the fourth member of our party.
I felt pretty confident we wouldn’t suffer the fate of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Anglo-Irish explorer whose ship, Endurance, was trapped in pack ice and slowly crushed in 1915 while on a trans-Arctic expedition. Shackleton and his 22-man crew drifted for months on an ice floe before five of them left to get help. This small band made an 850-mile ocean crossing in an open lifeboat and then and equally perilous mountaineering traverse on South Georgia Island in order to summon a rescue vessel. When they finally returned they found all the men alive – the greatest survival tale ever.
As for Sir John Franklin, the fabled British explorer set out in 1845 to chart the last unknown sections of the Northwest Passage. I won’t go into details about his travails except to say it’s never good when your journey becomes known as the lost expedition.
Anyway, with a much more modest itinerary in mind we rendezvoused on Groundhog Day at a public launch site at the end of Ely’s Ferry Road in Lyme, intending to kayak just under six miles north to Gillette Castle State Park, and then paddle back. En route we would be passing Hamburg Cove and Selden Island, where in past winters I’ve watched eagles fly, perch on trees along the banks and dive for fish. Last year one flew about 10 feet over my head; a few years earlier two dozen stood together on a drifting floe across from the Deep River town landing.
On those outings I encountered plenty of ice along the shore but not much in the river, which typically would be clear as far north as Middletown. Not this year.
“Doesn’t look too navigable,” I said as we stared at the frozen surface.
Bob gave me one of his I-had-a-feeling-something-like-this-would-happen looks, which I admit was warranted because of my reputation for embracing spontaneity over meticulous planning. Frankly, Bob’s attendance on this outing surprised me since earlier he had vowed that under no circumstances would he venture out if the air temperature dipped below 30 degrees. My thermometer read 28 – but at least there was no wind.
“Let’s try the ferry dock,” I suggested. So we drove north to Hadlyme, and sure enough found some open water near the launch site. Unfortunately it extended only a few hundred yards before closing in to a narrow channel.
We designated Dave, in his plastic boat, the expedition icebreaker, and he managed to plow north through crust for about 50 yards in order to reach another meandering band of river. We followed that stretch for about half a mile and then found ourselves in a frozen cul-de-sac. Time to turn around.
“Hey, there’s one!” Frost cried, and sure enough, a solitary eagle flew just above the trees on the western bank.
A few minutes later another cruised by – unless it was the same bird doubling back.
We continued south for another half-mile or so past the ferry landing, and once again reached a dead end. Our kayaks were able to break through about an inch of ice and even then it was challenging to jab your paddle in and try to propel forward. With more than an inch the boats rode up on the frozen surface and it was next to impossible to maneuver.
After an hour or so of bashing and wandering in circles we decided to abandon ship.
“We can at least hike up to the castle,” I suggested.
After beaching our boats we followed a path near the ferry landing and reached the top of the bluff in about 10 minutes.
The 24-room, medieval style castle, built as a private mansion nearly 100 years ago by actor William Gillette, is now the focal point of a state park. Though the castle is closed until Memorial Day we were able to stroll the grounds and take in a sprawling view of the river from a patio.
It revealed what we already knew: Ice was everywhere, and no open-water passage extended beyond a half-mile or so.
Too bad Shackleton or Franklin hadn’t been able to climb a hill before their misadventures.