Local sea kayakers document storm damage to islands in Casco Bay

Glen Gordon isn’t one to shy away from a breaking wave.

“If there’s a wave in sight, Glen will go beelining for it,” says his paddling partner, Tom Allen, laughing.

“I like the energy of the ocean,” Gordon admits. Kayaking, he says, is “more fun than I’ve had doing anything else in my life.”

In January, two consecutive storms battered the Maine coast with a ferocity that Gordon and fellow members of the Southern Maine Sea Kayaking Network had never seen.

“Our group is really all about safety and community,” says John Haile, the network’s current president. The damage, he says, led him to reflect on “how little the human community can do to change what nature’s going to do, except in the sense of climate change that causes these storms.”

“You always see a little bit of change on the coast year to year,” adds Gordon, “but compared to this year, nothing compared.”

Since January, Allen, Gordon, and Haile have coordinated a series of trips to islands in Casco Bay to photograph the aftermath. All three reside in the Midcoast, with Allen living on Harpswell Neck. Their work is helping nonprofits and a state park inventory damage and prepare their response.

The idea started with the Maine Island Trail Association and Maria Jenness, the nonprofit’s stewardship manager for the Midcoast.

“Having a heads-up about the work that needs to be done on the islands gives us a leg up on our planning and helps us to address things earlier,” says Jenness.

Before the heavy summer boating season begins in April, the association conducts routine checks of the islands under its care to ensure that campsites, trails, and, in some cases, docks are ready for public use. This year, Jenness contacted sea kayaker Janet Robinson to see whether the winter paddling community might be willing to chip in.

Robinson, a trustee of the Maine Island Trail Association and former president of the Southern Maine Sea Kayaking Network, was happy to help.

The Maine Island Trail Association “enhances the experience of sea kayakers and boaters in Maine,” says Robinson, who’s been paddling and guiding in Maine since the ’90s. “I got in touch with the people in the club that I know are experienced paddlers, competent paddlers, winter paddlers. This is a way for the club to give back.”

“When we got a message from Janet saying, ‘Hey, MITA could really use our help,’ it was like, wow, we get an opportunity to really give back to these groups,” Gordon says. “I was honored to get the opportunity to do that.”

One of the paddlers’ stops was Eagle Island, a state historic site that was the summer home of the Arctic explorer Adm. Robert Peary. Although the state owns Eagle Island, the Maine Island Trail Association assists with stewardship efforts.

First, the group contacted Steve Ingram, president of the Friends of Eagle Island, to ask permission to land on the island outside of the visiting season. Ingram “was very enthusiastic,” says Allen. “In fact, he wanted to come with us.”

In the end, Ingram didn’t make the trip. But on a sunny morning in March, seven members of the Southern Maine Sea Kayaking Network launched from the Potts Point boat ramp in Harpswell to make the roughly 2-mile crossing to Eagle Island.

The damage they found was extensive. Three of the four stone cribs that bolstered the pier “had been completely wiped out and washed up onto the sandbar at the northern end of the island, and one of them was still filled with stone,” Allen says. “The ocean there was incredible. I don’t think you could have built a strong enough pier to stand up to that.”

Except for one broken window, the island’s museum was unscathed. But erosion on the southern end of the island, where the storm hit hardest, would become a theme on the paddlers’ other island visits. The state has closed the island for the 2024 season.

Before the paddle to Eagle Island, Gordon had made a solo trip to Lanes Island, off Freeport, and a group of Southern Maine Sea Kayaking Network paddlers had taken photos on Little Chebeague, Bangs, and nearby Crow Island. On Lanes, a campsite was in danger of falling into the beach from erosion.

The Maine Coast Heritage Trust owns Lanes Island. The state owns Bangs, Crow and Little Chebeague islands, which it manages in partnership with the Maine Island Trail Association.

“For me, it was a reminder of how fragile these island ecosystems are,” says Allen. “It takes hundreds, thousands of years to build up soil on islands, and you can lose a hefty percentage of that with just one or two big storms.”

Yet another trip brought the group to Whaleboat Island, Little Whaleboat, and The Goslings — a group of islands in Middle Bay, off Harpswell Neck, that are owned by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust and stewarded by the Maine Island Trail Association. Further up the coast, they found blowdowns obstructing the trail systems on Monroe and Sheep islands, which are conserved by Maine Coast Heritage Trust but are not on the Maine Island Trail.

“I’ve been with MITA for 12 years now and it’s definitely beyond anything I’ve seen during that time,” Jenness says of the damage. The photos and reports from the kayakers “are incredibly important,” she says.

Although the Maine Island Trail Association partners with close to 1,000 volunteers every year, this year’s partnership with the Southern Maine Sea Kayaking Network was unprecedented.

“It mobilized a group of experienced year-round paddlers who regularly visit the islands,” Jenness says.

For Allen, Gordon, and Haile, participating in the effort to ready local islands for the summer boating season was something of a no-brainer.

“I’m intimately familiar with the islands and with the coves and shorelines,” says Allen, who used to guide for the Orr’s Island-based H20 Outfitters. “The reason that we’re doing it is that we are so grateful to the organizations that own and manage these islands for taking care of them because, as sea kayakers, they are a prime resource that we use almost every time we go out.”

Luna Soley, of Portland, is a freelance journalist and a 2022 graduate of Bowdoin College whose work has appeared in Outside and Backpacker magazines. A former reporter for The Times Record, she grew up on Peaks Island in Casco Bay.