Tenants Harbor, Potts Harbor

Friday - Tenants Harbor, Maine

Today's forecast for sailing was promising. There were even small craft warnings... gusts to 25 MPH. None of it happened. After a few wisps of air along the northern end of Egemogin Reach, the sky solidified into a solid gray mass hovering with no intent and the wind died. We motored from 11 am until nearly 7 pm when we pulled into Tenants Harbor just ahead of a fog bank. We did spend the day moving with the tide though which runs at several knots through some of these channels.

As we were about 5 days ago, we are again stuck under a stalled cold front. The forecast now says it will clear early in the AM and tomorrow will be very windy.

We ate tonight at the Cod End, a waterfront fried fish place right on the water. One of those places where you can dinghy over and the food is served right on the dock. I made friends with a dog, a small Belgian poof, or a fluff or a flossy or something. Little Oscar was frightened by his 'parents' smashing their lobster's shells with big rocks on the picnic table. He backed up into my lap. I scratched his ear. He was grateful.

It was on this very dock that on the evening of Sept 11, 2001. I learned about what had happened that morning in New York and DC. This evening I saw the woman I'd spoken to about Afghanistan that evening when I'd said, "We've got to got over there and got those guys in Afghanistan."

She'd looked at me and asked, "How are you going to do that?"


Saturday - Potts Harbor, Maine

When we left the harbor this morning, a short time after Oscar and his parents, it seemed at first the wind forecast had again been without merit. But we were soon flying along on a crisp sparkling day with the water boiling under London's hull. If you could have taken all of today's wind and divided it between yesterday and today, we would have had two good sailing days rather than one dead and one wild one. By 10 am we had a reef in the main and were altering our course to be more offshore and off the wind for easier sailing. At noon we had passed the mouth of the St John's river and then the island of Seguin a little after two.



Peter F. at the tiller off Seguin.


Heading up to beat into Potts Harbor for the night slowed our progress as the tide was racing out. But we had the anchor down a little after 6pm. We had hoped to eat at the Dolphin restaurant, but the groups of people waiting on the pier and along the shore, were the sign of a long wait. We ate the frozen beef stew Peter F had found in Tenants Harbor.

During the day we came upon one of those big birds we take to be Northern Gannets resting on the water. We also saw the flopping black fin of an Ocean Sunfish, several porpoises and seals, and one bald eagle.

Wooden Boat

Thursday, Wooden Boat, Brooklin, Maine

Today began in the fog at Northeast Harbor, on Mt Desert. The previous evening we'd had a spectacular dinner in the village at a tavern on main street. Both of our meals were so good, we soon forgot there had been no hot water for our long sought hot showers. It takes an effort to keep clean on the boat. I do have a sun shower, which uses solar energy to heat 5 gallons of water on a sunny day. In the past I hung the shower from a halyard and bathed atop the cabin in a bathing suit, but recently I hang the shower from the boom over the cockpit and sit in the bottom of the cockpit, naked, while underway and well out at sea. I then wash as if in the tub at home. Peter Fifield snapped some pictures of me doing this the other day while we made our way into Burnt Coat. He is planning to download his pictures onto my laptop when we find a USB cable. I think those shots may disappear in the process.

The moorings in Northeast harbor are still only $20 a night. In Maine we have found when we wanted to moor the price has been between $15 and $20 -- much less than we often encounter in Southern New England. But there has been a lack of showers.

Northeast harbor was packed with boats and busy with craft coming and going from the slips and moorings, many dinghies loaded with people and their dogs, all going to and from shore. The dinghy dock must have had 150-200 inflatable or hard shell dinghies tied up, often two and three deep. Avoid the interior corners. We saw one red faced man tossing and shoving dinghies out of his way as he struggled to push his way out .

Despite all the busyness, the harbor seems to run efficiently, a place where a radio call to the harbormaster will be answered. You see them about in their boats or ashore in the office on the waterfront. We heard a rumor over at Friendship, Long Island that the harbormasters here had just ejected Steve Forbes's yacht -- for excessive generator noise.

Rental buoys are marked with numbers assigned by boat length. I learned the mooring fee collection agents are all school teachers this year. It was she who told us about the new place to eat in town.

There is always some uncertainly in entering a new harbor in your boat. Will the place be friendly to a visiting sailboat or too busy with fishing or other commercial activity to help? Bringing a sailboat into water where there is limited manueverability can be a challenge, and means pulling in the jib and lowering the main sail and getting the engine on. London is small and easy to handle, but like all full keeled boats, can be unpredictable when powering in reverse. For this reason I have been using reverse in manuervers this trip as much as possible. Which way will she go?

Tonight we tried to moor at Center Harbor in the town of Brooklyn, Maine. We attempted to get both the boatyard and the yacht club on phone and radio with no luck, but spotting a free mooring off the boat yard, with no dinghy attached, grabbed it. I then rowed in and found an employee leaving for the day. He said the boat which belonged on the mooring was away and we would probably be alright for the night. Unfortunately while rowing back to London I was hailed by another sailboat who said the mooring had been promised to them earlier in the day by phone. We dropped that mooring, and not wanting to anchor in the exposed water outside, moved a few miles back up Egemoggin Reach toward the harbor Wooden Boat uses with the intention of anchoring there. Here we found a mooring clearly marked for guests and a launch to welcome us. We were opting for a mooring for the night as another cold front was expected with all its forecast thunder and strong gusts of wind.

Once settled we set off on foot for a pub in the basement of the Brooklin Inn. The walk was a good 1.5 miles, but we had only gone .5 a mile when a man in a pickup truck offered us a lift. We hopped over the tailgate, sat in the truck bed and hung onto the bags of cement on the floor as he sped into town. Later after an excellent and very reasonable dinner at the pub, we found Larry had also finished his dinner at a residence nearby and driven to the Inn to look for us. He whisked us back to Wooden Boat and then used his flashlight to light our way down the gangway to the dinghy dock. Awfully nice guy. Maine has been consistently like that.

The sailing today varied between terrific and then non-existent, when we slid into pockets of calm, dead air. There was thick fog in the morning and I used the chart plotter with its radar overlay to help guide our way out of Northeast Harbor and out through Western Way. By the time we were through Casco Passage and had started up Egemoggin Reach, the tide was running strong against us, so I manuevered to run alone the eastern shore near the Babson Islands and then up a real race, wing-on-wing between Torrey Island and High Head.

After our pickup ride we rowed back out to London on her mooring. I had left the anchor light and a cabin light on so we could find her easier in the dark, and the flashlight I keep stuffed in a cockpit locker again came in handy. The phosphorescnce in the water was spectacular. Swirling constellations of pale green globules in three dimensions. We swung the dingy round a few times just to watch the show.

Weather Fronts

I think you have to be on the prairie or at sea to observe a slow
moving weather front. The approaching cold front with its reported
hail, violent wind and lightning died out last night just the other
side of Booth Bay. We watched the light show, prepared for the worst
and then went to bed. There was a splash of rain. No more.

This morning I was eager to get the boat tied to the dock at the boat
yard so we could get her cleaned up. I'd spotted a hose on the floats
the previous evening. Once tied up Pete scrubbed the waterline and then
foredeck while I wrote on my laptop. Later I flushed and scrubbed the
cockpit and filled the water tank while Pete wandered around the boat
yard taking more pictures. Somehow being among all those pretty boats
made it a necessity to clean mine. We were on our way at ten, with the
first morning breeze from the Southeast.

We sailed today, all day. The day started tacking downwind and with us
still believing the wind would reach its forecast 15 knots with some
gusts to 20. The swells were still out there. Big waves rose abeam and
made new sudden horizons of jagged water on our horizon. Off Pemaquid
Point we watch Gannets dive into the sea from 40 and 50 feet with such
violence the sea surface exploded and sent a plume of salt water high
into the air along the track of their attack. We also saw seals and an
unidentified fin.

But the real interest today was the front stalled overhead. We must
have crossed back and forth through it two or three times today. On one
side the wind would be cool and from the southeast, on the other, warm
and from the north west -- off the land with the scent of pine pitch and
sand. At other times the division obscured and one moment warm 80
degree puffs of air would warm us, a moment later we'd drift into pockets
of cool air, still damp from offshore. The light was a Luminists dream:
glassy and ominous, colors vibrated with new vividness. Islands shook
in the thermal haze. Mirages rode the waves and fell back into the sea.
Islands and sails came and vanished in sea bound fog.

We anchored tonight in Harbor Island in Musongus Bay.

Linekin Bay

Facing an approaching cold front and a strong wave of thunderstorms we stopped early for the night at the Paul E. Luke boatyard. The yard lies along the eastern shore of Linekin bay and is distinguished by a large Travellift and a series of sheds. The float is connected to the land with a covered gangway, much in the style of a New England covered bridge and weathered to a silver gray. It also seems to be used for storing masks and fishing gear.

This is one of those places where on a weekend, calling the office or hailing them on the radio does not seem to get results. So we first grabbed a mooring and I rowed to the floats find someone in the yard. The water at the float was so clear I could make out every peeble on the bottom.


Ashore I found a group sitting under the trees at the top of the bank overlooking the bay. A man with weathered gray hair and a ruddy complexion rose and came across the yard to meet me. Freindliness seems endemic up here. Frank Luke is a friendly man.

"You can stay right there on that mooring. 20,000 lb granite block on those. The ones further out ride smoother. Where'd you come from?"

"Near New Bedford."

"That's a way."

When I gave him the $15 dollars for the mooring, he said.

"Now that money is going from your vacation fund, into my vacation fund. He slipped the bills in his wallet and winked.

After we'd been on the mooring a bit we began to see the boats around us. Several wooden classic in tip top condition including a Herreshoff ketch and a gaff rigged schooner. We watched the many osprey dive and swirl in the air calling to one another with their peculiar chirps.

Today was humid, but out on the water it stayed cool. In the morning as we left New Meadows River the seas built to a good six feet, with a slight breeze out of the South. The motor stayed on all day to keep our speed up, we were eager to round Cape Small and get in on a mooring before the afternoon thunderstorms. Nancy had left in the car at 8:30 for Boston and Pete and I were off the mooring at Cundy's Harbor by 10 am. We passed Seguin Island at 12:30. In at the mooring here about 3pm.

Cundy’s Harbor

There are waves under my mattress. I swear. Like the broad back of a relentless sea serpent, it sways and undulates beneath me.

Four days from Fairhaven, MA to Cundy’s Harbor, Maine. It could have been three but I slacked off after having Cape Elizabeth in sight, and being suddenly ahead of schedule.

The morning after the storm, Biddeford pool looked like this.

The weather man in his local summary said "Yesterday a cold front triggered wicked thunderstorms across New Hampshire and Southern Maine.”













Underway at 9 am I used the channel which led me across the mouth of the Saco River and out onto Saco Bay. The morning sparkled with a nice northeast breeze. I motor-sailed (What a euphanism!)… With the main up I powered into the swell and the breeze until I rounded Cape Elizabeth and turned into Casco Bay where the wind completely died. I could see the agitation on the glassy sea to my south east trying to reach us. Finally after lunch the motor went off and the sails went up. The rest of the afternoon I made my over to the entrance of Broad Sound and into Potts Harbor for the night. Had a great dinner plate at the Dolphin Restaurant ashore - grilled haddock and vegetables, fresh blueberry pie. In the morning a friend came out from Falmouth and met me at 7:30 for breakfast in the same place. I was on my way by nine.

During the night there had been more squally storms, distant thunder and in the very early morning, while it was still dark, much torrential rain. The sky was black to the north east, clearing to the south and west. I was to go north east. There was wind, lots in some places, none in others. When we’d walked out to the meadow on the point beyond the boatyard, the air was rushing down Broad Sound, rushing hell bent for Halfway rock out on the horizon, shaking the bushes on the bank over the water. Yet in the harbor, at the fuel dock it was still. There are currents of air in the sky, swirling up and down, eddies and pool, just like flows of water in the depths of the sea.

After I picked my way along the curvy channel out of Potts, I hoisted only the jib and flew out past Mackeral Cove and the end of Bailey's Island. Among the pines I could make out the houses where my cousins and I stayed when I was a boy. I learned to row out on the ledges and among the rock week round here.

Once inside Baileys and then Orrs islands the wind dropped off a bit and I rolled in the jib so I could hoist a single-reefed main and then let the jib out again. In this way I sailed across the mouth of Quahog Bay among the islets, until near the mouth of the New Meadows River I found myself surfing from one wave top to crash into the next: the jib fat and full, the bow down, the stern quarter up and the rushing of water all around. As I reached spot where I would turn upriver, I broached once and then again. It seemed I was in as much wind as I'd ever been in.

Upriver was a beat, close to the wind and London was sailing like a dinghy. One moment the mast would be vertical and the next, bang, we’d be heeled well over. She likes a lot of wind, expecially like now, when the water is flat. She can really point in conditions like this. I was having so much fun I almost past the entrance to our cove near Sheep Island.

In the wind I missed the mooring on the first pass. On the second I got it with the boat hook but could not lift it. On the third I hauled the mass of heavy orange goo encasing the mooring line up from the sea. The line was so heavily overgrown I could not find the loop and had to settle for tying onto the thin toggle line at first. I used a bread knife and rubber gloves to hack at the mess and cut the crud off the line. Pounds of orange sponge, mud, seaweed, sea squirts, mussels and other stuff went over the side. Little marine centipedes wiggled on deck among the gravel and broken shells. The foredeck was a mess and as I moved around the deck the mess spread like a virus. Muddy footprints down one side. Mud splattered white cabin from cutting and hacking in the wind. Tiny dams of dirt and pieces of vegetation in the spaces between the stanchions and rail from flushing the deck with gallons of seawater.

But from ashore, Nancy waved from the cabin door. In only two trips I handed her my gear, moved out of the boat and into our cabin for the week.

Dragging

When you think about it is seems absurd. A single strand holds us in place. A braided line, some shackles, a length of chain. At the end a device forged from the best steel in some pre-hensile earth gripping shape, and engineered so the metal will dig into the earth and hold.


I last night awoke a few minutes after midnight in another, more violent thunderstorm. In the dark I could hear an ominous dripping. The wind hissed and then rose another octave. Rain drove against the cabin top.

“Oh no,” I groaned.

All I wanted was to stay in my sleeping bag, close my eyes and just make it all go away. My boat tore at her tether, swung and jerked again.

Standing in the gangway I could see in the flashes of lightning the cutter anchored next to me. We were both holding our ground. I began to worry how I would manage if the anchor broke loose. I’d have raise the anchor up, get the engine and electronics up and going, and do it all by myself, before we blew into Stage Island to the lee or the ledge that stretches out to the East. To my horror I saw another boat, a 35 footer which had been anchored well upwind drag between the cutter and London, as if she was steering a careful coarse between us.

There is something unreal about a boat dragging. Its anchor line still extends from the bow as if tied down, and yet the boat slides past, stern first at 2 or 3 knots. This one was dark. Her crew still asleep. Another crack of thunder and a blue flash that seemed to light everything for an instant. Didn’t they see? Stupid with sleep I could not think what to do to help. The squall was furious. If I went after them I would quickly be in trouble.

I grabbed my air horn and gave two blasts, waited and then another longer three. The drifting boat remained dark. I used the radio to call for the harbormaster. When it seemed as if the sailboat should be on the rocks, I saw its anchor light dart forward and then the navaigation lights came one. Incredibly it surged forward. I turned on my deck lights to give them a point a reference and went up on deck to lengthen my own line and watch them navigate by.

I had trouble falling asleep after that. An hour later it was nearly calm, and an hour after that foggy and still. This morning I was awakened by the putter of a diesel and a woman's voice calling: "Thank you, London.”

They circling my boat again.

“Did you sound the alarm? If it hadn’t been for you…”, and she trailed off.

I told them quickly about my own experience being aground not 1/4 mile from here. The loberstermen saved me. I was glad to be able to help someone else, especially so close to where I hit rock.

Not a bad way to begin a day, eh? “Thank you, London.”



Otherwise, just some log notes from yesterday. Motored most of the day in dead calm at 5 knots from Rockport, till the wind came up strong enough so I could maintain my speed. We past Boon Island at 12:30 and briefly got wireless signal. I was off Cape Porpoise by 3:05, sails up a bit later and at Wood Island by 4:30. I came into Biddeford Pool under sail and with no moorings available, set my anchor at 5:15 in 12 and a half feet of water. This was reduced to seven something a few hours later at low.

I took a sun shower by hanging the shower from the boom and sitting in the bottom of the cockpit. When I took my drying swim suit off the life line two moths flew out.
First seal of the trip splashing among lobster traps. A small one off Cape Porpoise.

Bigelow Bight

As I pulled into Rockport's Sandy Bay to anchor a guy yelled over from a boat which came in to anchor right behind me.

“I read your book! I loved it. Especially the part about the… Maybe we can get togther later.”

Jim’s boat is also a Cape Dory 27, with a radar mounted like mine on the pole at the stern. But there the similarities end. His boat has a wheel, cushions in the cockpit and a teak floor in the cabin! My floor is white fiberglass.

Jim and his crew were all from the Tufts Medical School, two professors of Public Health and a recently graduated student. A fine ship with a friendly crew.

Yesterday, sailing here, I wished I had a crew. Before setting off I had sent out an email to about a dozen sailing friends, but all the responses I got were for the return trip or the later cruising in Maine segements. I was to have picked up one old friend in Portsmouth, NH today, but his band scheduled a gig and that was the end of that.

Yesterday morning as I passed Plymouth and moved along the coast toward Scituate the wind really began to blow. Fortunately it was all from astern, but I still reefed the main sail so Autoleena could steer. A broad reach is her weakest skill. The rolling swell didn’t help either. With a fluxgate compass and a computer chip for a brain your options are pretty limited, not that Autoleena isn't a wonderful instrument. I could not be out here alone for days on end without her. Autoleena is my auto-tiller and has been like an extra right arm to me for nearly 8 years now.

So while I was struggling to get the boat to sail herself and the forecast was getting more ominous, I remembered just how hard this it. It's scarry sometimes alone out here, living with that last decision: the poor anchorage selection which leaves you tired, the realization you’ve gone too far and it is going to get dark or stormy before you can tie up again. Guess that's why I love it.

This morning I left Rockport a bit after 6 am, probably just about the time Nancy’s alarm is going off at home. Again I had the main up and the kettle on as I raised the anchor. It was calm so I could go below and pour the breakfast tea while we motored. The sea is glass, the sky hazy and humid. Now at 8:30 am I am 8.5 miles NNE of Rockport - steaming at 4.8 knots. I just went over an underwater hill. The depth went from 320 feet to 179 in the space of 1/4 mile. Moving on out now over the deep Scantum Basin.

A small brown bird has landed in the dinghy I am towing. I often see creatures land. Yesterday in all that wind a monarch butterfly managed to settle on the sail. These little passengers are welcome. I try not to disturb them.

Begin The 2007 Maine Cruise Journal

Aug 15, 2007 - Fairhaven, MA.

So many bags. A cooler, a tote with dry food, one small duffel of underwear, t-shirts and even a few white socks. My old and trusty Mac laptop and a PC. Books, bits of string, mineral oil for the depth finder. One entire bag of drink: mostly seltzer and diet coke, but yes, two and one half bottles of red wine. So it is, that the detritus of land follows me afloat.

On the drive across Massachusetts to the marina I was thinking about being on the water. There in the car, racing down the Buzzards Bay watershed, in between cell phone calls, it seemed to me that boating -- was all about floating. The rolling undulations are what we seek and bring us back. The frictionless glide across the surface layer where the mediums of liquid and gas meet. So blue. Always new.

I dropped my mooring pendant at West Island in Buzzards Bay at 1:50pm. The day was gorgeous, the wind out of the north-east. By 4 pm we were nearing Hog Island channel and by 5 entering the Cape Cod canal itself and doing about 4 knots as the last of the ebb current gave way to flood. By the time we were expelled out of the Canal into Cape Cod Bay, London was doing 7.5 knots over the ground. Time 6:40 pm.

The canal and Buzzards Bay were full of schools of blue fish and flocks of terns and gulls. I practically had to kick the birds out of the way to get through. In one case the fish were leaping completely out of the water. Silver fins sparkled in the air.

Once on Cape Cod Bay the immediate problem was to find an anchorage At this end of the canal there are not many choices. I should have opted for the beach off Peaked cliff, but I kept on, and soon encountered larger rollers from the north east. I had left the shelter of the long arm of the Cape and was exposed to the north-east swell. I decided on Manomet. I would just make it, in twilight.

The last time I stayed behind Manomet point the sea was still. Although the breeze was still from the east/south-east it was forecast to come round to the south. This I was sure would settle the waves.

You can pack a lot of stuff in even a small sized sailboat. And when you roll the boat violently from side to side or tip it from bow to stern or do both, the stuff comes loose and bangs around. Imagine rolling 30 degrees one way for 2 seconds and then back for two seconds. Add to that a bow to stern tip and yaw on a three or four second cycle and you have my evening of rattling motion. A few times after a particularily violent roll, I got up and looked out at the night, thought about moving, then made myself contemplate being out there in the dark, on watch again and I crawled back in the bunk and held on. Sometime after midnight I fell asleep. I woke once about 2:30 and the sea was nearly gentle, by morning quite calm.

This morning I put the kettle on for tea and then raised the anchor. Under sail we bobbed out between the Mary Ann rocks and red nun 17. Our course is 2 degrees magnetic which will bring us to land again near Gloucester.

Wind just came up – now making 4.1 knots. Time to sign off. The time is 8 a.m. Broad reach. Off Plymouth.