AMC Paddle - Potter's Cove past Gould Island

Just one week later and I'm here's another part of  Narragansett Bay I've never paddled.  This one starts in Jamestown, the largest island in the bay, directly across the channel from Newport, home to the Newport mansions, summer "cottages" of the extremely wealthy of the late 19th and early 20th century.  To get to the put-in, I will actually have to take the Jamestown Verrazanno Bridge to Conanicut Island (Jamestown), making sure to get off at the last exit before the toll on the Newport Bridge.  Surprisingly, it was just three of us paddling again this weekend:  Mike, Mike, and me.

As it turns out, the world famous Newport Folk Festival was also going on this weekend, and we could discern occasional drum and bass sounds coming across the water.

Our first destination was Gould Island, a former WWII  torpedo testing facility in the middle of the bay.

From a distance, the area to the right of the smokestack looked like a hill, but it is actually the remains of a very large building.

At the south end is a marker for the "airport" part of the island.  Sea planes would land here and pull into a former hanger.

We landed our kayaks and explored a little of the island.
From the large concrete lot,one has a great view of the suspension bridge into Newport.

There were remains of old buildings, but we found evidence that there had been some clean up or other activity here recently.

Out a long pier from the other buildings was the torpedo firing facility. 

From this angle, you can see the two torpedo recovery bays.  The launchers were on the flat side of the building between the towers.

This building is the old North Light House at the northern tip of Jamestown Island.  You can see above the square building how it formerly would have had a light housing.

We looked a while for a lunch spot after around the north tip of the island, but eventually made our way back to land at this public beach on the east side.  The rocks and waves were much smaller and easier on the boats.

The Newport Bridge is very impressive, but it took us forever to paddle down to it.  It seemed like it was closer than it actually was, I guess.  In any event, when we got there, we went a little further to circle around one of the pylons so we could say we paddled under it.

The three of us kept a steady but reasonable pace, so we covered 12.25 miles in a little over 5 hours

including 40 minutes for lunch.  The sun peeked in and out a little during the day, but there was a light haze in the air all day.  For this reason, it was great to be on the cooling waters of the bay.

AMC Paddle - Spink Neck Beach to Prudence Island

When a paddling activity is posted to someplace I haven't been before, I generally jump at the chance to go.  Such was the case with this trip.  When I arrived, I expected to see many of the usual paddlers, but today it was just the leader, co-leader, and me. 

Once again in the Narragansett Bay, our plan was to swing by Hope Island and then head over to Prudence Island.  Weather conditions, of course, would dictate the actual route.  The weather today was bright and sunny with a bit of a breeze.  Unlike the last several excursions, this trip started north of Quonset Naval Air Station.  But to get there, I still passed by the expansive car unloading facility where one could view acres and acres of new automobiles freshly arrived from overseas. 

We departed on time, just after 10am.

This is our whole group today.  This paddle would take us over large expanses of open water.

Hope Island is covered primarily in poison ivy.  Nearby are a couple of tidal rock islands like this one frequented by sea gulls and cormorants.

Making it to our lunch stop on Prudence Island, we find serpentine inlets and salt marshes.  The landscape was very similar to bay side on Cape Cod.

There is a year round population on Prudence Island, but the only way on or off the island is by boat.  A ferry runs from the other side of the island to Bristol, RI.

There was no place to sit for lunch, but the beach was easy for us to land and launch from.

The skies were still bright but wind picked up after lunch.  I wanted to take a picture of the 12"-18" waves we were going through, but honestly, I didn't want to take my hands off my paddle as I needed to stay focused.

We finished up around 2:30pm after paddling 10.7 miles.  I found that with the crosswind and following waves, I had to drop my skeg for most of the crossing back across the bay just to keep going straight. A little challenging, but a great adventure nonetheless.