#1: [13-Feb-02] (incomplete)

14-Apr-2002 -- This confluence sits about 1.3K off the coast of Cape Cod, in the Atlantic Ocean. I had wanted to visit the spot in February with a friend from Vermont, but he was convinced by another friend that the whole endeavor was foolhardy. Returning to the area in mid-April, I decided to give it a shot with my foldable kayak. The forecast was not very promising (20 kt. winds, 4 ft. seas, and chance of rain) but it was a sunny Sunday morning at my folks house in southern Massachusetts, so I convinced my father, Chris, and his wife, Elaine, to go for a drive and check it out. As it turned out, the day was perfect: warm temperatures, calm seas, few tourists, and forsythia and daffodils blooming everywhere. We took South Pamet Road from Rt. 6 in Truro, which leads straight to some nice beach access directly inland from the confluence.

I decided it was too warm for a drysuit, thereby insuring that I would flip the kayak while launching and soak myself, to the amusement of some surf-casters fishing nearby. With some help from my shore support I regrouped and launched successfully. About halfway to the confluence a humpback whale surfaced 70 meters in front of my kayak. Fantastic! A couple minutes later I heard the spray from her blowhole as she kept cruising north.

From the confluence there is a fine view of the Cape Cod coastline and the dunes and bluffs rising behind it. It took some pictures of land and tried to get a GPS shot, but the surface current pushed the kayak away from the confluence as soon as I stopped paddling.

It turns out that a house just down the road from the launching point once belonged to my paternal great-grandmother. She vacationed there with her second husband, a fellow named Drewsen, who was elected mayor of Northampton, Massachusetts on his platform to keep flouride out of the water.

In the Gulf of Maine, 0.9 mi from shore, but with a good view of land.