Eagle Island On Ice

The white line across the Merrimack River's surface beyond the Chain Bridge put an end to my thoughts of riding the incoming tide to the Powwow River in Amesbury.  Actually it was a bit surreal seeing so much ice with the air temperature approaching 60 degrees F and bright sunshine (for a second day in a row). Seeing the ice helped to insure I'd have no regrets in being dressed for possible immersion.

So I turned towards Eagle Island where I hoped to find a place to land my boat...

Along the way I passed what looked to be a rooster sitting on a navigation buoy...

A closer look showed it to be some rather thick ice...

Landed on Eagle Island at the top of the tide...
...and it made a fine spot for taking my lunch and stretching my legs.  In walking a perhaps 100 foot radius around my boat a fair amount of plastic trash was gathered up.  The more I looked the more I found including 14 Hooksett Disks.  It's almost 8 years since somewhere between 4 and 8 million of the hi-tech plastic disks were accidentally released from a wastewater treatment facility 40 miles upriver.  In my Merrimack River and Ipswich Bay travels to date I've recovered more than 1400...
I know...there's only 13 on my hatch cover, but I can assure you I found a 14th before I dared to leave the island.  Not that I'm superstitious or anything.

Anyways, no sooner had I returned to the river than an eagle was seen landing in a tree on nearby Carr Island...

He took flight for a short distance...
...before landing on the ice behind the island...
...and a mano a mano showdown.

I returned to the river's south side and rode the receding tide back to my starting point at Cashman Park in Newburyport...
The area above will be filled with boat slips in a another month or so.


Before leaving the area I stopped on Deer Island after driving over the Chain Bridge and checked out the ice situation upriver towards Route 95...
...and then the area downriver and to the north of Deer Island...

The sign on the bridge displaying perhaps an earlier version of the Super Bowl champ New England Patriots' logo (or not)...

Got to admit that Punxsutawney Phil got it right on the money this year...at least so far (said while tapping on my noggin).


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Nubanusit and Spoonwood

Eden of the Kennebec

Staking Out the Sebasticook