Orient Point Scouting Trip

Only 15 pictures, so I thought I would do the slideshow option:


OK - truth be known, we didn't scout a lot, but we did scout just enough to know that the tides are the opposite of what we'd want them to be for a couple of the distance paddles that were under consideration for the Sebago "Orient Point Experience" 3-day trip. However, that in itself was a very fine thing to find out, and we are looking at an alternative that's a perfectly respectable distance & could even be a bit of a challenge given the swift currents & swirly waters of Plum Gut.

And with our mutually agreed-upon decision that we weren't going to try to go too far, we were freed up to spend the entire afternoon playing in the rocks, eddies and standing waves between the lighthouse and the point, which we did quite literally to our hearts' content. That was a fun first for me at Orient. The first time I went to the point was with my friend Ilene on my first trip out there - we had a couple of hours that day; we launched from Orient Beach, not realizing that you could launch from much closer, and we had a fine paddle but we were a little bit frustrated when we got to the point, found all these great standing waves and knew that we couldn't stay more than about 15 minutes if we wanted to get home at anything resembling a decent hour (also, there were SCADS of jellyfish that year - you really needed to not fall in, which meant you couldn't really cut loose).

Some of us who are doing the Long Island circumnavigation had a very nice bit of a frolic there last year, but we'd had a pretty long paddle from Orient Point & another long paddle the next day, so I at least was being a little conservative again. This time, TQ and I had no reason at all not to wear ourselves out, so we did and had an absolute blast doing it!

AND I finally got to go to the "Coffee Pot" lighthouse - and doesn't it look just like and old-timey percolator! I'm starting to lose track of how many times I've been out with a group from Sebago; the light house was always just a little too far out of the way of the day's planned paddling to do the short detour out there -- I never really asked, of course, always figured I'd get a chance sometime. This time, we went. There's a little embayment on the south side, we used that to take a breather and I also used the eddyline there to practice the nice low-brace peel-outs that I learned from Shawna and Leon when TQ & I went to Seattle & took an Ocean Currents class from Body Boat Blade a couple of years ago. I seriously think this is the first time I've seen an eddyline strong enough to begin to warrant using that manuever since that trip & it was fun to work on it again. We also did lots of eddy-hopping, ferry-angle-holding practice and even a little of what TQ (who's done a lot more whitewater than me) was calling "jet ferries", where we used a line of standing waves to surf back towards the point.

We were quite thoroughly wiped out out by the time we remembered to stop for lunch - but in a good way. What a great afternoon.