ADAMSTOWN TOWNSHIP — The water always finds a way in — especially here. A spray deck lines the full length of Mark and Allisen Risinger’s 18 1/2-foot canoe. From a tarp-like surface that protects the boat’s insides to a skirt that keeps their bodies dry, it should, in theory, be easy for the Saco couple to stay dry.
The Rangeley Lakes region, though, can be humbling on any day. On days like Saturday? Forget it. Between the long distance, chilly air and rippling winds that produced notable waves, there was no way to get anything but drenched along a 20-mile paddle across Rangeley, Mooselookmeguntic and Upper Richardson lakes.
“It was brutal,” Mark Risinger said. “I actually swam because I was trying to put the (deck) back on and fell out of the front. I had to make sure to jump out so I didn’t take her with me.
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The big waves out here, that was tough. We were just eating them over the bow.” That was the story for each of the 74 paddlers and 47 boats that made the journey from Rangeley Town Cove Park to the Mill Brook boat launch in Adamstown Township on Saturday morning.
The first day of the two-day Rangeley Oquossoc Adventure Rendezvous marked a new competition in one of Maine’s iconic regions. The competition brings paddlers along a stretch of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, which stretches from Old Forge, New York, all the way to Fort Kent. The NFCT has hosted a number of similar competitions across Vermont and New York in recent years but still year.
