Every time I step out my door and breathe in the sights before me, I realize how lucky we are in Maine to have so many options of beautiful wilderness places to explore thanks to the efforts of many conservation organizations. Without them the depth of the experiences we are privileged to indulge in just wouldn’t be possible!

Over Columbus Day weekend I circumnavigated Great Wass Island, a Nature Conservancy Preserve, and explored the archipelago’s surrounding islands by sea kayak with friends. Great Wass is just south of Jonesport in Washington County.

It was as if we were the characters in a perfect postcard, experiencing every detail that the picture portrayed, from the myriad of colors on the water and in the sky to the aromas of the pines and the fresh salt air. Not only did still life images fill our eyes, but we became part of the video of the mass migration of birds and whales.

Our journey began in circles as Andrea Reny and I headed up the night before to get a jumpstart. As we caught up on stories of the past summer, we casually determined that we would take the Route 1A shortcut. What we didn’t notice was that Route 1A is only Route 1A for a short stretch! As we passed through town after town, somewhere in the recesses of our minds we noticed that all these towns seemed very similar.

Our recessed thoughts sprang forward when we noticed a house decorated for Halloween exactly the same as one we’d seen 15 minutes earlier. It was way too much of a coincidence! How could there possibly be two houses exactly the same in another town? After several minutes of intense laughter, we realized that we’d actually made a complete circle and we were retracing our path. This was just the beginning of the circles we would experience on our journey.

To get an early start on Saturday, we camped Friday night at the Jonesport town campground. Folks in Jonesport were incredibly friendly.

We stopped for breakfast at a local diner, the Lighthouse Cafe, where we met up with the owners and two very friendly local brothers (whose great grandfather founded Beals Island). They were not only a wealth of information about the history of the area but also generously offered the use of their islands to us and even gave us their phone number in case we needed anything. They were also sure to tell us that they would be monitoring channel 63 on the marine band radio. They suggested we launch at the northeast tip of Beals Island. Seeing Beals Island is like stepping back in time, where fishermen’s docks still line the coastline instead of McMansions.

We met up with our friend Barb Todd at the put-in. After a lot of stuffing and sorting of gear, we launched our boats at the beach and made a decision to head east with the northwest wind at our backs. The ebbing tide made for a smooth ride.

We first crossed between Pig and Beals, past Sheep Island to the west side of Head Harbor. Strong ebbing currents swept the outgoing tide southward through the narrow passage, creating a little riptide. We meandered along in the lee of Harbor Island through the Hardwood Islands just in the nick of time before the lowering tide made them impassable. Huge colonies of white seals covered many of the ledges.

We rounded the pink granite of Crow Point into the passage between Head Harbor Island and Steele Harbor Island into the bay known as the Cow Yard. As we passed the small protected inlet of Head Harbor Cove and looked at its grassy fields beyond, I visualized what it must have been like in days past as a working farm with cows grazing on some islands, sheep and pigs on others, visited by their farmer in his dory.

At breakfast, brothers Dickson and Aaron Smith shared the history of Head Harbor Island, telling us it was where the original settlement was established. When the Beals Island Bridge made Beals more accessible, the houses from Head Harbor were apparently floated over to Beals with all their belongings intact.

The passage to the open sea between Steele and Head Harbor is sheltered by the Man Islands, which are protected by the Nature Conservancy. One has to wonder how these islands were named. Pig, Sheep, Cow and Crow all make sense, but then Man? Hmm? Their sweeping grassy-topped knolls reminded me of a scene from Ireland.

We picnicked high above the sea spray where the rocks captured pools of fresh rainwater. We traversed to the summit of western Man where we found evidence of a bald eagle perch, feathers and droppings filled with small bones, high upon the top with an incredible panoramic lookout.

From Man Islands we paddled on to visit Mistake Island Preserve, home of Moose Peak Lighthouse, built in 1827. There is nothing quite like the experience of paddling up to a lighthouse on Maine’s rugged coast. We took countless pictures, and I even managed to keep my kayak still enough to get one with the sun radiating behind the beacon as if it were the light.

One of our guidebooks, “Kayaking the Maine Coast,” by Dorcas S. Miller, indicated that there was a boardwalk to the lighthouse accessible from the landing between Mistake and Knight. Circumnavigating the island, all we could find was a boathouse with no possible access from our low tidal perspective. We scaled the rocks and eventually found the path to the boardwalk as the setting sun created amazing pastel colors on the granite rocks of the passage and a fiery reflection on the metal door of the lighthouse. Apparently the landing has fallen into disrepair.

The next day our goal was to explore the tip of Great Wass. Reaching the tip of Great Wass is an epic accomplishment. Paddling there is not for the inexperienced. The waves of the Atlantic Ocean with prevailing southwest winds in the summer often torment the outer reaches of the archipelago, which should cause wise paddlers to change their trip plans and search for calmer waters.

There is nothing beyond to the south but the open ocean. Luckily, with autumn winds prevailing out of the north, the water at the tip of Great Wass was glass calm. The risk of fog was minimized, too, with water and air temperatures equalized.

Canyon-like cliffs rise up from the sea at Red Head, the southern tip of Great Wass, most likely named for the pink and orange granite. As we paddled in awe, two peregrine falcons caught our attention. They were waiting for small migrating birds to come their way, tired and exhausted, easy prey.

We watched as the two worked together, charging a small songbird from the outer sea, diving and poking at it. It was difficult to decide who to cheer for, understanding the pattern of nature yet able to feel compassion for the underdog. After a final jab at the little bird, the songbird desperately flew into a crevice and hid, safe for the moment from the attack.

From there we paddled into The Pond with plenty of time left before the tide emptied out and visited our friend’s well- stocked houseboat, left a note and paddled on.

Our next destination was Crumple Island, a beautiful island of granite with a deep inner passage filled with crystal-clear water folded in its center. Kelp, rockweed and brown pompom seaweeds swayed back and forth beneath our kayaks as the sea undulated into the crevice. We took endless photographs trying to capture the essence of it.

We stopped for lunch on an island that belonged to our friends from town which provided us with a front-row seat to view immense migrations of cormorants, geese and eiders passing on a flyway along the outer coastal islands. A lone piping plover wandered through the beached seaweed as the tide ebbed, completely at ease with our presence. Perhaps he was just exhausted from his flight.

As we neared the western islands of Sands, Drisko and Stevens, after the 21/2-mile crossing, one lone warbler flew at least that distance over water toward us, perhaps thinking we’d make a safe haven. We cheered him on as he flapped his tired little wings. Just as he neared the rock face, needing to gain some elevation to clear it, a black-backed gull swooped in at him. With no energy left to react, he fell into the water.

Realizing he might drown, we made a beeline for him. Andrea reached into the water to scoop him up, which gave him just the lift he needed to spring from her hand and fly the 10 feet more to reach the safety of the rocks. He puffed up his little wings to try to dry himself and gain some warmth.

After making sure that he was OK, we paddled to the other side of the island and hiked a small trail where we ran into his flock happily feeding on mountain ash berries and taking fresh water baths in the pools on the rocks. Hopefully, he heard their songs and caught up with them.

The trees of the island were laden with pine cones, and after observing a hermit thrush tiptoeing through a forest clearing, we began to notice a constant clicking noise. I realized it was birds eating the pine cones and jumped to the conclusion that it must be crossbills, as I’d read about how they pry open the cones by inserting their closed crossed beaks and then opening. We had earlier found some unfamiliar feathers that were black with two white spots on them, clearly theirs.

I later learned that the crossbills are here much earlier than usual due to a blight happening in their northern territories. We left a note of thanks and a gift of a feather for the generous island owners before the light of the day began to escape.

We paddled a zigzag pattern amongst the chain of islands. Incredible sand beaches flowed into the sea. The sun set and an almost full moon rose. As we came into the small crescent cove of Stevens Island, we noticed a strange almost man-made-looking rectangular object in the water. It was the baleen of a whale. I was surprised to find it was soft, with almost a hair-like quality, especially at the frayed edges.

Baleen is similar to a tooth and acts as a sieve for whales to filter out water. Little did we realize that this baleen had recently been attached to a humpback calf that was washed up on our pristine little island. We discovered the whale in the morning. It was definitely a humpback calf. It appeared to be a tragedy of the demands of its migration.

After our weekend of being part of the natural world and truly experiencing the joys and perils of migration, our re-entry into civilization was passing through the outgoing racing current of the Beals Island Bridge to return to the put-in. Since our trip I’ve had so much more empathy for the birds I see, thinking about the importance of places that they count on in their migration and the importance of our wild and preserved lands.