August 16, 2008

I left the boatyard on Aug 2, headed for Maine. It has been a very hot summer in MD and I was looking forward to some cooler weather in Maine.

From the boatyard I went north to the Bohemia River and anchored in the mouth of it. That is about as close to the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal as you can anchor. Leaving there the next morning, I went on through the canal with a stop for fuel in the middle at Summit North Marina. I was in and out there in about a half hour which is pretty good for me. I caught the favorable tide and was going though the canal at over 7 knots. It was hard to imagine that there is somewhat of a fuel crisis. There were more of the big speedboats out than I have ever seen. They seemed to average about 60 mph and of course run with no mufflers. I kept hoping for more logs floating down the bay and canal.

Once I got to the Delaware Bay, I was able to start sailing and had a nice wind for most of the day. Again I caught the tide and had a really nice sail down the bay. The wind dropped as it got dark and I had to start the engine to motorsail. I don't like going through tight areas at night and was relieved to get into the ocean and turn north about midnight. The wind was still light so I was still motorsailing. There was not a whole lot to see along the southern NJ coast. Cape May has a lot of tourist stuff that they keep lit up all night but the real lights don't start until Atlantic City. It was light by the time I got there this trip although I could see the lights from many miles south. The last time I made this trip it was still dark and the light shows are pretty wild. There was one building that appeared to have one side that was a video screen. The only new thing I noticed were the five windmills they have built. They look a little strange in the middle of a city but I guess that will become more common, especially along the coast. I was about three miles off shore when I took that picture.

I was planning on stopping to see some friends from VIERS, Pete and Laura Regan, on the west end of Long Island on the way up. They had arranged a mooring at their yacht club for me to use so I was trying to get there before dark at about 8:00. I didn't think I could get there by then when I left so I left late planning on getting there the next day. I made up so much time that it looked like I might make it or would have to find someplace to anchor and go in the next day. I was motorsailing but the wind got light and started shifting around so I ended up pretty much motoring. There must be a fairly strong south flowing current along NJ because I could barely maintain 5 knots up power. I kept watch the predicted arrival time on the GPS and it looked like it be really close. As I approached NY harbor, the winds picked up and swung around from the west. The last twenty or so miles were pretty fast and I got there about twenty minutes before sundown. I dropped the sails and motored into Rockaway Inlet with a strong flood tide. I was going three and a half knots in neutral! We got tied up before dark and in time to enjoy a real New York pizza. It seemed a bit strange to be sitting at the beach and seeing the Empire State Building across the water. The next day they picked me up and gave me a tour of Rockaway Beach and surroundings. It is a beautiful area with a great beach on the south side and a protected harbor on the north. It is on a peninsula that is only about 4 blocks wide so you're never far from the beach. Of course the beach is lined with houses but it is an eclectic mix of small bungalows all the up to large high rise apartments. There is a 7.5 mile boardwalk that is a great place for a bike ride. Pete and Laura were great hosts but after a couple of days I left Long Island and headed for Maine.

The trip to Maine started a little slow with light winds but about noon on the first day they picked up and I was able to sail and had the wind vane steering. It is so nice to be able to use the wind vane since it is very accurate and quiet. Shortly after dark as I was nearing the east end of Long Island, a large thunderstorm system swept through. I saw it coming on radar and dropped my sails started the engine to motor through it. There wasn't a lot of wind or rain but there sure was a lot of lightning. The five pictures are of one bolt of lightening that I got with the video mode of my camera.

I think the first one is the most interesting because you can see the path loop around as it follows the charges in the atmosphere. No problems from the storm but the wind didn't come back very well for the rest of the trip and I ended up motorsailing the rest of the way to Maine.

I got to the mouth of the Penobscot Bay about 3:00 Sunday morning. It was really dark and all I could see were occasional lobster trap floats going by. I couldn't see them until they were beside me which was of course too late to miss any that were in my path. Not wanting to start my Maine trip with a line around the prop, I stopped the engine and put up the sail. There was almost no wind and I could float with the tide at about 1.5 knot or sail at about 2 with some control of where I was going. Since there were some large ships going up the Penobscot shipping lanes, I decided the control would be good. I was pretty tired at this point and would have liked to just float and sleep but being run over by a car carrier would be even worse than a line wrapped on the prop so I steered. I didn't realize it then but as soon as it started to get light, I could see that I was in a fog bank. At least I could see the floats in time to dodge them so I started up the engine and headed up Penobscot Bay. I stayed out of the shipping lane so I wasn't too worried about the big ships although I still needed to watch for the lobster boats. The fog lasted for several hours but cleared somewhere around Rockland and setting back in by Rockland. I had about an hour of visibility.

I had been talking to Sally Shafer, a friend from the sailing club in Lexington, who was in Maine at her cottage. Phil and Louise, her uncle and aunt from MD that I had stopped to see on my trip south last Oct., were coming in the same day and Sally offered to pick me up to go to her cottage for a few days. The fog finally cleared and I got to Belfast about 11:00 that morning. I got a mooring for Bella Vita and a shower for me before meeting Sally. I think I stayed awake for most of the trip to her place and Phil, Louise and their daughter Gale were all there when we got there. I was there a couple of years ago and it is still as idyllic as before. It was so nice to just relax with friends for a couple of days. The more active went canoeing or sailing but I sat around and watched the wildlife although I did help pick enough blueberries for two pies and misc other blueberry stuff. The squirrel would climb up the bird feeder and hang from its roof by his rear feet while raiding the birdseed. The loons seem to be getting bolder and don't pay a lot of attention to the people around them. After a couple of days it was time to get back to the boat and Sally came along to sail for a few days. We stopped in Bangor to see Steven Kings house. It is a beautiful Victorian house with a most unusual fence around it. No, I don't think that is Steven King painting the porch.

Sally and I left Belfast to do some sailing but there wasn't any wind so we motored out past Buoy 2 where her father's ashes were spread and then down along Islesboro Island. We went in through Gilkey Harbor on Islesboro Island before heading for Camden. The wind had picked up by then and we were able to sail across West Penobscot Bay. Camden is a really busy harbor and the home for many of the Maine Schooners that take tourists out for rides. We motored through and then headed east to anchor in Pulpit Harbor. Pulpit Harbor is a small very protected harbor on North Haven Island. Lots of other people have heard about it and it can get quite crowded. It wasn't too bad when we were there although still a bit crowded for me. Pulpit Rock is at the entrance to the harbor and an Osprey has built a next on top of the rock. I managed to get a couple of pictures of the Osprey while he flew around yelling at us.

We spent a night at Pulpit Harbor and got up in the morning to fog. It started to clear by mid morning by then it was too late to do our intended route through the Fox Island Thorofare, a narrow channel through a many small islands. So we headed north to the Barred Islands. There is an anchorage there that is hidden between a group of small islands. It is unusual since it is mostly exposed all around but is still protected by very shallow bars. We stopped there for lunch and some exploring on shore. The shore in the tidal range is covered with seaweed and mussel shells making for a very pretty walk. The tide was out while we were there so we had a chance to walk around quite a bit. The land is private and posted so you need to stay in the tidal areas.

After our exploring, we headed for Holbrook Island to anchor for the night. Holbrook Island is across the bay from Belfast and there is a large but well protected anchorage behind it. I have stayed there several times. This time we shared it with a few other boats, one being a very unusual design with lee boards, a gaff rig and a mizzen sheeted to a boomkin. It was a rather boxy design but with its tanbark sails was still somehow attractive. There is a small island in the middle of the harbor called Ram Island. It is a nature preserve with a nice anchorage behind it. There was a boat there already when we came in so we anchored between Ram Island and Holbrook Island. In the morning there were several seals near Ram Island that provided considerable entertainment. But eventually we headed back to Belfast so Sally could return to her cottage. I spent the night there and did laundry as well as cleaning me up.

I got up this morning planning on going to the grocery store before heading out. Checking my position I found that my GPS seems to have died overnight. I checked it out as much as I could and can't find the problem so I guess I will be going back to Searsport on Monday to buy a new one. I have a backup that would do most of what I want but I don't have the data cable to connect it to the PC. It is so old that I doubt that I will be able to find the cable anywhere.

I am anchored behind Holbrook Island now across the Bagaduce River from Castine. On the way over from Belfast, on the Passagassawakeag River, I hit a patch of fog as I rounded the north end of Islesboro Island. It didn't last too long but as it started to thin out I looked up and saw four sails coming through it. In a few minutes it had lifted enough for me to see over thirty sailboats all coming my way. I had motored right into the middle of a sailboat race. No close calls but I did nave to dodge a few. I will probably go into Castine tomorrow and use the Internet access at the library to update the web site and send new pictures to the broker for his listing of Bella Vita.

August 18, 2008

This morning I went to Searsport to get a new GPS. It was a short motor trip across Penobscot Bay, about 7.5 NM. I was able to use one of the city moorings for a couple of hours which was nice since it saved me the hassle of pulling up 100 feet of chain. Hamilton Marine, the only marine store for a long ways, is about 1.5 miles from the dock so I got a little exercise along with my new GPS. I had been using my old GPS, about 13 years old, since my primary one broke. It has nearly all the functions of the broken one but when I bought it I didn't get the data cable to allow me to connect it to a PC. Since it was so old I didn't expect the cable to be available but they had one in stock. I hooked it up before I left Searsport and it worked just like the dead GPS. It's nice to have a backup the feeds the location data to the PC. I also got a Garmin 545 GPS Chartplotter. It always worried me some being dependent on the PC for my navigation. The 545 has charts for the US coast built in so it can be used standalone without the PC if necessary. The PC is still nice for setting routes and saving tracks but at least I can navigate in the US reasonably safely without the PC. Charts for the Bahamas and most places I am likely to go are available but somewhat pricey.

I came back to Holbrook Harbor to install the new GPS and relax for a while. The wind has picked up to about 15 knots with gusts close to 30 knots so I'll stay here for the night. This is a nice anchorage with great holding in hard mud. If fact it almost held my anchor for good this morning as I was trying to head for Searsport. I pulled in the anchor rode until I was right over the anchor but I couldn't break the anchor loose. Normally, you use the rocking of the boat from the waves to break it loose by snugging up on the chain in the troughs and letting the boat pull the anchor loose when it rises on the waves. It was so calm this morning that there were no waves so I just kept slowly pulling with the windlass and eventually it came loose. It brought up the biggest chunk of mud I have ever seen on it and it was hard like clay. There are thunderstorms predicted for late today so this is a good place to be.

August 27, 2008

I left Holbrook Harbor on the 21st headed for Mackerel Cove on the north side of Swans Island. This is another well protected anchorage with room for lots of boats. From Holbrook, I went south and around the south end of Cape Rosier to the Eggemoggin Reach (that's the Eggemoggin Light to the right), through the reach, past Brooklin Harbor the home of many beautiful wooden boats, past the Wooden Boat School, across Jericho Bay, through Casco Passage to Mackerel Cove. In all, it's about 25 NM. I almost never have good winds for this trip and this was no different and I ended up motor-sailing most of the way.

As I was loafing that evening, I heard a call on the VHF radio to the Coast Guard from a boat that had gone aground on a rock. He gave his position as between two rocks on the west side of Mount Desert Island. Actually he was sitting on top of one of those rocks. When the CG asked for his position, he gave the Lat and Long to the minute or about a mile accuracy. The CG asked for a better position and he said it would take a minute. He came back on the radio and said his GPS was still acquiring satellites. It was very obvious that he wasn't using a GPS and apparently not paying much attention to his navigation. He told the CG that the boat was at an angle of heel of about 35 degrees. I got my chart and looked for the rocks and found them about 5 miles north of where I was. With the binoculars I could see him quite well. I would say his angle of heel was closer to 60 degrees and since the tide was going out, it was increasing rapidly. I could see another boat there with him and it turns out there were two jet skis trying to get him loose by pulling from the top of his mast. They got it off the rocks just as the CG boat showed up to help. They escorted him to his the mooring where he kept his boat to make sure there was no damage. The mooring was a few hundred feet from where he went on the rocks. Amazing how little attention some people pay to where they are going when they get in a boat.

I stayed at Mackerel Cove for a couple of days doing not much of anything. On the 24th, I left for Narraguagus Bay. To get there, you go across Blue Hill Bay, through the narrow and shallow channel in front of the Bass Head light (the picture to the left), past Western Way which leads to Southwest Harbor the home of Hinckley Yachts, past the Cranberry Islands which don't raise any cranberries anymore, across Frenchman Bay which leads to Bar Harbor and the Acadia National Park, past the Schoodic Peninsula which is also part of the Acadia National Park, past Prospect Harbor, past Gouldsboro Bay, past Dyer Bay, past Pigeon Hill Bay and then north to the Narraguagus Bay. I think I passed about 30,000 lobster traps, although I lost count at about 100, and only caught one on the keel. I was sailing just past the Schoodic Peninsula and suddenly found my speed dropped from 4.5 knots to 2 knots. I worked for about a half hour trying to get it off the keel and finally gave up and cut it by tying my sailing knife to my boat hook and reaching off the back of the transom to cut it. The rest of the trip was pretty nice. The fog was coming in behind the islands as I as approaching Trafton Island. I thought I would have to anchor in the fog but as I was dropping the anchor, I had fog on both sides of the anchorage but not over the anchorage. To get to the anchorage, you go around the two little rocks to the left and back toward the island to the right.

This is the furthest east I have gone in Maine, two years ago, when we went up to Ray's Point to see the property Sally Shafer owns there. One of the couples from VIERS spends the summer in a cottage on the bay so I was going to stop and see them. I anchored behind Trafton Island and the weather was so bad the next day, Monday, that I stayed there and loafed some more. Tuesday I motored up into Narraguagus Bay to anchor and go ashore. This bay has the highest concentration of lobster traps I have seen anywhere except maybe for Dyer Bay. The tide here is about 12 feet so you need a lot of room to swing since you are anchoring in at least 20 feet of water. It was tough finding a spot where I thought I might have enough room but I finally found one and dropped the anchor. The winds have been light since I left for Maine but picked up to over 15 knots on the day I wanted to anchor. I put out two anchors to try and minimize the swinging, waited a while to make sure the boat was nicely settled and the headed for the Moores' cottage. The seas were running about two feet and it was a rough wet dinghy ride. The bay is so shallow that I was anchored over a mile from shore. I made it ashore and Willie was there waiting to pull me up into the mud. The tide was nearly out so there was pretty wide patch of mud to go through. Actually it wasn't all that bad with a mostly gravel bottom. My dinghy was soon solidly aground and a long ways from the water. We had a nice visit with a trip to Milbridge, about one and a half miles away, a couple of lobsters for lunch, and a walk through the blueberries. When the tide came back in, I got the dinghy afloat and headed back to the boat to see if I was still free of the traps. I wasn't. There was one wrapped around the rudder. The wind had shifted somewhat to the west and the boat had swung over a trap catching the line between the first and second floats. The lobstermen will sometimes use two floats with a line between them that runs horizontally a couple of feet below the surface. It makes it easier for them because they can grab the second float and put the extra line onto the winch to pull the trap up without having to manually lift the trap to start the lifting. Anyhow, it makes it really easy to catch a line on anything below the water. I spent about a half hour getting it off and was finally able to get it off by getting in the dinghy and using the boat hook to push the line off the rudder. I could see that I was going to have trouble there as the wind shifted and the boat swung so I pulled the anchors and headed back to Trafton Island. There were only two lobster traps in that anchorage and I figured I could miss them OK. I had no big problem weaving through the lobster traps and was soon anchored for the night.

The next morning, I headed back to Mackerel Cove with a weather forecast of 5 to 10 knot winds from the northwest. The winds were pretty light most of the way although a few time it picked up to over 15 knots and I was sailing at over 6 knots. I saw a really strange flock of birds on the way back. They were floating and looked like a huge patch of seaweed floating on the surface. In the picture, they are the dark patch in the foreground. They also made a weird sound, almost like a plane. The green hill to the left in the picture is Schoodic Point and the large one in the background is Cadillac Mountain, both part of the Acadia National Park. I got back to Mackerel Cove and anchored by about 3:30 pm and that's where I am now. Tomorrow I will probably go back to Holbrook Harbor and if I get there in time I'll go into Castine to update the web site and check email.

August 28, 2008

I am back at Holbrook Island now after a pretty nice sail up the Eggemoggin Reach. It was the best sail I've had through there yet although I still had to motorsail some to keep up enough speed to avoid the lobster traps. The wind would die and then come back really strong as I moved past the hills along the reach. I'm going to stay here tonight and I'm not sure what I'll do after that. It's getting close to when I need to head back south 'cause it's getting cold up here. I had to start the furnace one night when it got into the 40's. The water here is so cold it doesn't help a lot with keeping the boat warm. Those 85 degree days in St John seem pretty nice now.