By now, most of Belfast’s boat-owning residents have tucked away their vessels for the season.
But on Tuesday morning, with temperatures hovering around 30 degrees and snow coating the docks, Nicolle Littrell untied her own watercraft, a wooden Swampscott dory. Soon, she had left the marina behind and was gliding through Belfast Harbor, pulling her oars through its frigid waters.
While there are many midcoast residents who regularly get out on the water even in the thick of winter, whether it be for fishing, transportation or other marine trades, it’s less common for recreational boaters to do so.
Littrell is the rare sort who does.
“This is one of my favorite times of the year to row, the winter,” Littrell said. “It’s a little quieter this time of year. I can’t imagine why people don’t want to row in the snow and the ice.” With a laugh, she added, “but there are certainly people that do.”
Littrell also runs DoryWoman Rowing, a company that offers year-round row boat excursions.
As protection from the cold, she wears plenty of layers. She also knows that the act of rowing her boat, which she has named Sorciere, will get her blood flowing and temperature rising.
Dories are small, flat-bottomed boats with pointed ends that can be propelled in a variety of ways, including motors and rowing, and that have been widely used in New England’s fishing history.
Littrell purchased hers after the community rowing sessions that she’d enjoyed in Belfast were canceled at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and she soon decided to start her own guiding business taking passengers out on Penobscot Bay.
Now, while it’s easy to get a ride on someone else’s boat in the warmer months, DoryWoman Rowing is more unique for offering trips between fall and spring.
“I have the kind of boat that allows me to do that,” Littrell said. “A dory is designed for these waters and designed to row year-round. This boat that we’re in is a very sturdy, sea-worthy vessel that can handle waves.”
Littrell offers trips themed to the holidays and seasons, such as a winter solstice row and others in which she attaches bells to the oars and encourages the singing of carols on the Passagassawakeag River.
On top of offering rowing lessons to her clients, she also helps them take in the natural wonders of the midcoast in winter, such as the ice floes that form in the water, as well as the sea birds and other wildlife that can handle the colder temperatures.
When she took a passenger out earlier this week, sea fog was coming off Belfast Harbor as geese and gulls flew overhead against a gray sky — an experience Littrell compares to “being inside a snow globe.”
“This time of year offers a really unique way to commune with the elements,” she said. “There’s a sense of wonder about rowing in the winter.”
