Hingham Harbor - Touch Ten Islands - 9/25/11

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norm
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Hingham Harbor - Touch Ten Islands - 9/25/11

Post by norm »

I got an idea in my head that it would be interesting to paddle around to all of the local islands that we circle regularly, but hardly ever stop on, and actually get out of the boat and stand on the island. Sounds ok in theory, but gets to be a pain in the neck when you have a boat that is not easy to get out of. I should have used my plastic boat, but I had just changed the outfitting on my fiberglass boat and this would be a good opportunity to test it out and make adjustments throughout the day before taking a long distance trip with no chance to get out and make corrections.

Of course this was another short notice trip posting, but I did get one response, Sue was interested. The tide was likely to be out when we were done at the end of the day so I tried to choose a spot where taking out would not be too muddy. I decided to try George Lane beach in North Weymouth. I planned to launch from the beach and if it was too muddy upon return, we could go around into the Back River and take out at the boat ramp. Since it is after Labor Day, I thought parking would be free but I was wrong. There are 2 parking lots, one for the boat ramp and the other for the beach. The beach parking lot costs $7 all the way through Columbus Day. I thought about going somewhere else, but we decided to stay put and pay the fee. It worked out ok as it was a pretty good launch and take out spot. Driving home, the Back River near Abigail Adams Park looked very muddy, so I think it was worth the money. I just wish I had offered to carpool with Sue to reduce the cost.

There is a little carry from the parking lot to the beach, across a quiet road, but people were nice about stopping for us as we used the cross-walk carrying the boats one at a time. We were ready to launch on time at 8:30. It looked like it was going to be a tough day for pictures with heavy cloud cover, but later on, I wished I had brought sunglasses.

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We headed straight across to Racoon Island. There was very little boat traffic, but we did come across a couple slow moving boats in

the channel that I failed to notice right away. It was a good wake-up call to pay better attention as we'd be crossing channels all day.

Racoon Island

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There was still plenty of junk on Racoon Island, but there were people arriving as we left, that looked like they were going to do some clean-up or salvage work.

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Sue thought the island smelled like skunk and then she notices a carcass in the water as we paddled away.

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We paddled along the Quincy Houghs Neck coast where I noticed this boat ramp setup that I had not seen before.

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Next we headed out to Peddocks Island. It was interesting to approach it from a different direction.

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I asked Sue if she'd paddled out here before and she had not, so we chose to circle around the whole island and through Hull Gut.

There were still people at the cottages in Portugese Cove near the pink house but it looked like some of the places were boarded up.

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Sue noticed this odd cloud brighter than the rest out beyond Long Island.

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Coming around the end of Peddocks Island into Hull Gut.

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It appears they're still not done working on Fort Andrew and this end of the island is still closed to visitors.

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We landed on the island anyway and looked at the progress, or lack thereof. It looks like they took down the building at the end of the parade ground.

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And it looks like the visitors center is going to have thorough renovations.

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Nothing has been done to the chapel yet.

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Next, off to Sheep Island.

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We circled Sheep Island and landed on a sand bar.

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On the sand bar were many birds, including these oyster catchers. They're not as colorful on this bland day.

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There's really not much on Sheep Island.

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We noticed some slate stone on the beach.

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The sand bar we landed on pointed to our next destination, Bumpkin Island.

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Again, I asked Sue if she had paddled around Bumpkin and she had not, so we swung around the north side to circle the island before landing near the dock. On the way, streams of cormorants flying in straight lines flew across our path. They were low to the water but would elevate together when they came to an obstacle, like us or the island. It was very interesting. It was like they were all headed to the same place or something.

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We also came across a couple guys pretty far out on SUP boards.

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As we came around to the dock side of the Bumpkin, two kayakers crossed our path and we said hi.

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On the beach, by the ranger's shack, there were a bunch of kayaks.

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We landed on the far side of the pier as it looked like there wasn't much room to land with the other boats. There wasn't much beach where we landed, but it was enough for the two of us with the tide going out. We were both hungry so we both ate our sandwiches before climbing up onto the dock. From the dock, we spoke with the group of kayakers that were now preparing to leave. They were a group from UNH that were camping on Grape Island for 2 nights.

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We took a look at the ranger's shack.

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Sue was curious about the inside and found that the door was just held closed by a stick so we went inside.

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There was nothing much inside the shack. We decided to take a walk around the island.

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There are still some remnants of roadways leftover from when the island was used for military training during WW1 and WW2.

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And there is an old farmhouse from the 1800's.

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Sue took notice of the good condition of the wood frame of a former window.

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This side of the island had a nice view of Hull and Spinnaker Island.

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Further along the trail, we came across remains of a WW1 building. It was a mess hall that could feed all 1700 troops on the island in 30 minutes (according to one of the Boston Harbor books).

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A nice view and a place to sit and enjoy it.

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We took a walk up the trail to the top of the island where the Burrage Hospital was located. It burned to the ground in 1946 and now there is nothing left but a pile of bricks.

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Sue tried out a seat that somebody made out of a pile of bricks.

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Next we came across a small, group camping site.

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A view of Hingham Harbor...our next destination.

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Our next destination, Langlee Island.

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There were so many less birds on Langlee than we see here in the spring, but there were a few.

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The boat traffic in Hingham Harbor was pretty quiet for such a nice Sunday.

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Next we did the short paddle across to Sarah Island. This tree may look familiar to the Thursday night regulars.

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And this beach is normally full of birds in the spring, to the point that you wouldn't normally consider landing here.

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I don't recall noticing how sharp some of the rocks on Sarah are as we've paddled by so many times.

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It looks like there's a chance we may get some nice foliage colors on the south shore.

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We made the paddle to Button Island and Sue was satisfied to touch this island from her boat as I got out to at least walk up above the high tide line.

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On the way back out toward Ragged Island, we came across a lone SUP boarder.

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We made a quick stop in this little cove of Ragged Island.

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All those cormorants we had crossed paths with were on a sand bar of Slate Island.

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We tried to paddle by without spooking them. You don't want flocks of cormorants taking off and flying over your head unless you have an umbrella. Most of them stayed put and continued airing out their wings.

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Our stop on Slate was quick.

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Sue chose to just touch Slate from her boat.

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The book says Grape Island was not named for the presence of grapes, but somebody along the way has planted a nice grape arbor at the island's welcoming area near the dock. A family was searching the arbor and still able to find a few grapes. They said some of them were good, so I guess some of them were not so good.

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I remembered seeing a narly tree at the group camping site near the beach, so we took a walk to find it.

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We found the group site and the tree. Actually there were 2 trees. They're getting old and weak and a few of the branches were reinforced with heavy black nylon ropes to help them last a while longer.

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On our way back to the take-out, we encountered the most traffic we'd seen all day. We waited for these two power boats to pass and then made a dash across the channel.

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We crossed at the thinnest part of the channel, right at the end of Webb Memorial Park. George Lane beach had a few people sitting around sun-bathing when we were taking the boats out. It worked out to be a very good spot for a low tide landing.

Here is a topo map with the route we traveled highlighted.

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A few stats from the trip:
Launch time: 8:30am
Islands visited: 10
Take-out time: 3:24pm
Distance Paddled: 14.685


Thanks for joining me on this trip Sue. We had a great day of paddling even without bright sunshine. Thanks for putting up with my silly idea of getting out on ten islands. I hope we can put together a trip with a larger group and visit the outer harbor islands this year.

Norm
centered
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Re: Hingham Harbor - Touch Ten Islands - 9/25/11

Post by centered »

Thank you , Norm. It was a good day. I have since read about the islands through the WATD link you posted and learned a lot. It's amazing how varied the uses were for some of the islands; farmland, children's hospital, military camps and prisons. Hard to imagine 1700 people on Bumpkin at one time!
Thanks again for the trip.
Sue
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Birdseye
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Re: Hingham Harbor - Touch Ten Islands - 9/25/11

Post by Birdseye »

Good report. I thought your mileage would have been a little higher.

Nelson
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NorwayLady
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Re: Hingham Harbor - Touch Ten Islands - 9/25/11

Post by NorwayLady »

Awesome report, Norm. Looks like you guys had a great day. Amazing how many cormorants you saw on Slate!

Agree with Nelson, thought you would have covered alot more miles since Peddocks island alone is huge! 15 miles is a perrect day paddle! :D
Bea
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