Hi all, in previous Maine Trail Finder blog posts I commented on accessibility of particular trails from a hand cycler’s perspective (Race Point, Red Point).
In this post, I share one of the ways I’ve managed to stay active in nature, even with physical challenges. It’s by towing a kayak behind my hand cycle to a public landing, transferring to the kayak in the water, having a good paddle, then transferring back to the hand cycle and heading home.
There are 581 public landings listed at the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry (DACF). Many of these should be ones where hand cyclers living nearby could do the same as I did on this trip – just check the DACF registry online.
The public landing for this trip was Bug Light in South Portland, and the 4-mile round trip paddle I’m reporting on had the trajectory in the image below. I’ve taken this trip many times because it’s a great way to get exercise and enjoy nature nearby my house. Sometimes, I go the other direction from the landing and navigate around the network of marinas, condos, and working waterfront piers, under the Casco Bay Bridge, and up into the deeper reaches of the Fore River. That one is a fantastic trip too, and very different.
Some kayakers also venture from the landing to Fort Gorges (photos farther below) – I do not do this in a kayak as small as mine (11’) and wouldn’t recommend it because you’d have to cross the shipping channel, which seems unsafe. Although I have made the trip from the public landing on the other side of the harbor, on Portland’s Eastern Prominade. I highly recommend that trip too – Fort Gorges is spectacular to see up close -- and even pull up the kayak and explore the ruins.
For any of these trips, first I have to get there. To set up the hand cycle for this, a few years back I built several tow-along contraptions that didn’t work very well, so I finally bought a small used trailer by Maine-based trailer company Malone. It is perfect, both for the job and storing my kayak off the ground over winter.
The trailer has a reduced-size ball hitch that I mounted to a piece of pipe and placed in the flagpole hole behind my seat. I don’t leave it in all the time; I just swap out the flag-holder from the top of the bike’s frame and then swap back after each boat trip. It’s a pretty slick combo and moves nicely through traffic, if I do get some funny looks and comments.
Once there, I back the bike down the ramp just like a boat trailer and roll the kayak into waist-deep the water. This is a necessary part of the process for me, because I can’t lift the kayak on and off the trailer myself very well …
...but once it is floating, and I have rolled the trailer up using pedal assist on the bike and locked the bike to a nearby park bench, I can drop into the kayak from the pier, put the spray skirt on, and I’m off. For take-out, the process is simply reversed.
For folks with adaptive needs who may want to try this vehicle combination, it will be good to pay attention to the tide calendar, because it determines how far down and up the public landing ramp you will need to walk or bike with the trailer.
One tip is that it’s good to have the middle of the trip span high tide. That way the total descent down and climb up the landing splits the difference between put-in and take-out. For me, this minimizes how much I ask of both my legs and my pedal-assist motor at any one time, which can help extend my activities. On this trip I put in at 11:45 AM and took out at 1:54 PM, because high tide was at 1:47 PM.
Once in Portland Harbor, the sights are rich: Bug Light, Fort Gorges, pipeline infrastructure, cruise ships and sailboats, a historic WWII fort, sand beaches, and more.
And as any sea kayaker will attest, paddles like this provide plenty of opportunities for wildlife watching. On this trip, just as I was passing Bug Light a Cormorant surfaced not far from the boat with a 6-8” crab kicking in its bill. After a few unsuccessful attempts at gulping their lunch, the bird started to fly away with the crab - but dropped it just two flaps into takeoff. Three seconds later a Herring Gull swooped in and snagged the crab, arcing away to land on the lighthouse handrail and not-so-delicately shred its lunch.
Another tip for a trip like this includes what to pack: make sure to bring not just standards like sunglasses and a brimmed hat, crocs or other wettable footwear, sunscreen, towel, water bottle, snacks, and a life jacket, but I’d also recommend two dry bags, one for wallet and keys that goes under the spray skirt, and a second for your phone/camera. I use one with a lanyard and clear plastic sides – this way I can keep it around my neck for easy access to take shots while paddling and the wave spray doesn’t matter.
It's a beautiful coastline we live near; having mobility issues is no reason not to get out and enjoy it! I highly recommend trying any way you can to get even a small boat in the water and bouncing about a bit.
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