Tips Sail

Portage Bay - before I can even get seated at my kneeling thwart, a young bald eagle sweeps by pursued by a blackbird. The eagle is just newly mature with brown feathers still mixed in with the white tail that is the signature of maturity. The wind bumps me up against the beaver lodge and I watch until the eagle decides to soar high over the 'Crossing Over Place'.
There are clouds today and it is windy. I believe it will rain later. The blue that shows between the clouds is a single color that we see when the weather blows the ocean moisture away. It is a blue that hurts ones eyes to look at too much, like a pure musical note that bears on the ear when held too long. If one makes a landscape painting with the sky done in this color, it might be judged to be a poor painting because no one ever remembers the sky being this pure color. Today, the clouds save me from madness, but at the cost of a couple downpours.

I find three pairs of northern shovelers near the west lodge. I usually only see one pair in any one place, so they may be preparing for migration. They do not seem to nest here. With the very high water, I head up Ravenna Creek and find that I can go all of the way to "Where the Water Reappears", the name I have for the end of the culvert where this creek resurfaces after passing under a shopping center. It is lots of twisting, ducking and nudging to pass through low branches and fallen trees, but it is not especially difficult. It begins to rain hard and on the way out, two cinnamon teal are flushed and the male is truly the color of cinnamon. Another pair of northern shovelers wait at the mouth of the creek.
It is straight across the bay to the north end of the east marsh. This area will be totally destroyed by a new bridge with an obsolete and unimaginative design, a bridge that will not only be obsolete twenty years from now, but will be obsolete on the day it is finished. So, I drag my canoe over the 30 feet of floating bog to one of the beaver canals that is just inches wider than my boat. Then, I pole and nudge the canoe into the center where I just sit and soak it all in for awhile. There are dozens of rounded tree stumps, little sculptures left by the beaver and they remind me of garden gnomes. I want to remember this place. No one else ever comes in here, they look at the little channels and can't imagine that they go anywhere, but they do, they go here and I sense something special in this place. It is mine, for now.

I am still a visitor in this place.  I can feel, and see, in my notes that I have not yet crossed over into where the spirits are.


Finding the spirit in nature has never been as easy as stepping out of a car at a scenic overlook and oohing and aahing at the view.  It takes effort and more than that, it takes time.  It is observing until noticing becomes knowing, where knowing is not simply the facts, but knowing inside yourself where you are in as many different meanings as you can conjure up... and in many meanings that you cannot.  In fact, knowing the facts isn't all that important.  It is becoming aware and opening all of one's senses, especially the senses that biology has not discovered.  I have not put my time in for that, yet.


I miss the water mammals most.  The otter and harbor seals, and especially the beaver were spirit animals for me in my west coast travels.  They were creatures that helped one cross the boundary.  I have not seen any of them here, yet, but I do see loons.  They winter here and they are a power to be reckoned with.  They will lead somewhere, I will follow.

the smaller red throated loon

I put in on the calmest day I have yet seen here.  Long Island Sound is almost glassy smooth.  Low overcast disappears the horizon.  The tide is rising but will be of little interest as I head up coast.  I push brants ahead of me at each rock outcropping and when I get to the next point, where there are rocky islets, I find a few long tailed ducks.

the larger common loon

As I cross the next cove, new water to me, a common loon calls to my left.  It dives and a few moments later surfaces to my right, perhaps a swim of 150 yards.  It continues to vocalize as it swims off, its head rising just a bit with each call.



When I get to that next point I recognize it as the neighborhood that some new friends live in.  I round the point until I can see New Haven in the distance.  This is far enough.