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EASTPORT, Maine -- Chaos isn't just a theory in the Passamaquoddy Bay.
Here in the waters off of Eastport, Maine, lurks the Old Sow, the western hemisphere's biggest whirlpool.
She shows up wherever and whenever the spirit and tides move her, occasionally opening her maw suddenly in the form of a madly spinning, 40-foot-deep hole in the ocean, several hundred feet wide.
Sometimes she's more subdued, creating a funnel-shaped hole roughly 12 feet wide and 12 feet deep.
"A local fisherman summed it up pretty well when he said, 'I didn't mind so much getting caught in it. But I did resent having to row uphill to get out,'" said Robert Godfrey, the self-appointed president for life of the Old Sow Whirlpool Survivors' Association.
Godfrey, a website designer and photographer, figures about 100 people who have lived to tell of their experience with the whirlpool belong to the association. Some members have even been through the whirlpool more than once.
"Riding the Sow is fun," said survivor John Charlton. "But I have to admit that it's more fun after you're out of it than it is when it's actually happening."
The Old Sow is a tidal whirlpool, and so opens up at a location determined by each day's currents and tide height. New and full-moon high tides almost always bring Old Sow roaring out of her sty. Locals usually have a good sense of when and where the Sow will be spinning.
Charlton once went out looking for the Old Sow with his wife, Terry. The couple searched in all the usual places with no success.
They were about to give up the hunt when they suddenly realized they were surrounded by 12-foot-high walls of water. The whirlpool had opened up right beneath their 13-foot whaler.
"There was absolutely no sensation of dropping or falling," said Terry Charlton. "All of a sudden we were just inside a deep hole in the ocean, surrounded by water, right inside Old Whirly."
She added that the only time she calls the whirlpool the Old Whirly is when she happens to be inside it.
"Your vocabulary sure changes when you're in the whirlpool," John Charlton said. "You use language you'd never even think of saying at other times, but mostly the words you use aren't as benign as 'Old Whirly.'"
Even when the Sow isn't present in all her glory, smaller whirlpools referred to as "piglets" often can be seen swirling in the bay. There are also 100-foot-long trenches that suddenly open in the ocean. And there are the "boils," circular sections of water that rise like a giant zit and sometimes explode into fountains that spew water up to 20 feet high.
There are several causes for all this watery chaos, Godfrey explained. First, the Passamaquoddy Bay has remarkably high tides; 40 billion cubic feet of water pours into the bay with each incoming tide.
Directly outside the opening to the bay there's a 400-foot trench in the ocean floor that's bisected by a 281-foot undersea mountain. Before entering the bay, the incoming water has to make a sharp right turn, where it slams into the mountain.
"Mix that terrestrial configuration with a good high tide and a heavy wind, and it's total liquid chaos," said Godfrey.
David and Ruth Sousa, residents of nearby Calais, Maine, saw the chaos up close and personal three years ago.
Out for a sail on the bay with his sister and her two children, David Sousa spotted the Old Sow, spinning madly and full of debris. Logs, sheets of plywood and wooden shipping containers, among other things, were circling in the vortex.
"I'd never seen the whirlpool as big and as full of junk as she was that day," he recalled.
An experienced sailor, Sousa decided it would be fun to give the kids a taste of Mother Nature's own amusement-park ride, and nosed his 19-foot boat just barely into the whirlpool.
The result should have been just a bit of a controlled spin around the Sow, but the boat's engine suddenly stalled. The boat was pulled right into the maelstrom.
"We went around and around at least a hundred times," said Sousa. "Tell you the truth, I didn't think we'd be able to get out. But then my sister looked at the kids and said, 'Don't worry, Uncle Dave will handle this,' so I knew I had to stay calm and get the motor started."
But during one of the many rotations around the Sow a piece of wood had gotten stuck in the boat's propeller. Due to the action of the whirlpool, the boat's bow was sticking 30 degrees in the air. Sousa's family had to dangle him over the stern by his ankles so he could clear the propeller.
"It's not an experience I plan to repeat," he said.
Local sailors advise those who get caught in the Old Sow to simply go with the flow. Keep the boat from getting swamped, and eventually the Sow will throw you up and out of her maw.
But maintaining control of the boat isn't always an easy task, especially without a motor. Lack of engine power puts you almost totally at Old Sow's mercy, and she's not known for showing pity.
Several years ago, Eastport resident Barbara Barrett was out fishing with her friend's two young daughters. Barrett saw that a big storm was forming directly in front of them. The only way to get home was to pass right through Old Sow.
Barrett steered her 20-foot boat into the Sow and was doing just fine until her engine stalled. She managed to start it up, but had blown the forward gear and was only able to go in reverse. So she backed up the boat through the vortex.
"The kids were laughing the whole time. It was a very interesting mix of happy and hysterical laughter," recalls Barrett. "But the really funny thing is, the storm we were trying to escape quickly changed course and blew out to sea, so as it turned out there was no reason at all for us to go through the whirlpool."
All the members of the survivors' group laugh as they recount their experiences with the whirlpool. But they are also very aware of how lucky they are to have survived their encounter with Old Sow. Godfrey figures the whirlpool has been responsible for at least a dozen deaths, along with scores of sunken or wrecked vessels.
"But even though the Old Sow has brought death and grief, it's also heart-stoppingly beautiful," said Eastport resident Sarah Graves, who has had brief encounters with the whirlpool. "It is a magnificent thing to see."
"Watching the whirlpool also is the best way to truly understand chaos theory," adds Godfrey. "You never know what the Old Sow will do next. It's chaos in its purest form."
Godfrey encourages the curious to visit Eastport and go out on the bay with an experienced local captain to see the action firsthand.
Afterward, the shaken and stirred visitors can apply for membership in the Old Sow survivors' association.
*(Michelle Delio and photographer Laszlo Pataki have begun their four-week geek-seeking journey along U.S. Route 1. If you know a town they should visit, a person they should meet, a weird roadside attraction they must see or a great place to fuel up on lobster rolls, barbecue, conch fritters and the like, send an e-mail to wiredroadtrip@earthlink.net.) *
