A Kayak Trip Around Maine’s Swan Island This Weekend Could Have Ended in Disaster

With the weather this past Sunday and Monday being exceptional, lots of Mainers found themselves out and about on adventures, be it trips to the beach, fishing, lake swimming, or hiking. It's truly when we thrive the most in the area (they don't call us Vacationland for nothing, right?)

While for the most part, these adventures tend to be low-key and done in the "buddy system" so to speak, occasionally a Mainer will tackle an adventure solo, as was the case with Reddit user ghill1987. Because in wanting to take advantage of the gorgeous Sunday afternoon weather, they decided to navigate the perimeter of Swan Island and got way more than they bargained for.

Fully embracing the gorgeous weather, ghill1987 was feeling ambitious and decided to set out for a paddle sesh around the island. The biggest mistake may have been how late they decided to kick off the adventure in general.

"By the time I popped out of the channel by Little Swan Island I figured, 'Well, might as well keep trucking around the island.' By the time I got to the southern tip I was pretty well over it, but still a LONG way from home. I started at about 2:30, didn't get back to the apartment till 9:30."

And you can see based on the pictures they posted that they ended up kayaking in the pitch-black dark toward the end of the trip, too. Definitely a dangerous situation since they probably weren't properly prepared to be on the water that late at night (lacking light, enough food, dealing with strong currents, etc.)

Thankfully, based on their comments about the adventure, they didn't deal with the strong currents in the pitch black of night; however, they said the water was definitely choppy in areas throughout the journey, with waves crashing on the front of the kayak and spraying them in the face.

"The tide was already going out when I put in. 4 hours later I was trying to navigate the marshy/grassy area around the southern end of the island and I kept hitting dead ends with about 2 inches of water. Then I struggled like hell to paddle the first quarter mile or so headed upstream, and the water level was still so low that I ran aground and had to carry my kayak back to my apartment, some 3 hours after my initial push upstream."

What started out as a nice little afternoon paddle could have turned sideways quickly, but as ghill1987 put it:

"Many things have tried to kill me over the years. None have succeeded."