Thursday, January 2, 2020

New Year's Plunge Alternative

Yesterday while many folks were preparing to kick off the New Year with a Polar Plunge I was doing just the opposite...and donning attire meant to insulate me from any unplanned immersion.  As a paddler my intent was to welcome in the New Year on the water rather than in it.  Open water on local rivers made this possible.  The old year exited with a storm which gave us almost 2 inches of various forms of precipitation ...rain, sleet, hail, and snow.

At the Egg Rock inscription the words "Musketaquid, Before the White Men Came" had been submerged as a result of the storm...

I wondered if Fairhaven Bay and its island were accessible or iced-in...and headed up the Sudbury River to find out.   Paddling along Fairhaven Hill the scene of last week's tragic fire came into view...
For the past 120 years a stately mansion stood above the clearing...until last Friday when a 4-alarm fire reduced it to this...
 According to news reports the home had been built for a descendant of John Quincy Adams in 1899 and was called "Mt. Vernon".  The same reports noted firefighters efforts having been hindered by a lack of hydrants in the area.  Fortunately, no one was home.

Fairhaven Bay was found iced over on its east and west sides with a wide swath of open water running from its inlet to outlet (opening photo).  The island was accessible thanks to a narrow strip of open water through some shrubbery.  The ice to the island's south end had an orange peel finish...

The island's small beach afforded me my first island landfall of 2020 and the new decade...
...and a great spot for the first official cup of hot cocoa.

The trip back provided a wintry view of Thoreau's Bittern Cliff...
...the new year's first (and so far only) piece of trash...
...a remnant of Clamshell Bank in the sun...
...and a peek under the South Bridge to the Elm Street Bridge in the distance...

Hope this benign start bodes well for the upcoming year and decade.

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