Boothbay to Rockland

On Aug 7th, 2012 Published By B.J.

Or “Seals and Puffins and Porpoises, Oh My!”

Our last morning anchored in Linekin Bay was foggy, our first real Maine fog.  We’d had it roll in a little earlier in the week, but never when we wanted to BE somewhere.

Our plan was to catch up with some family in Rockland for the Maine Lobster Festival, while this wasn’t a MUST since we had time to change the location it sounded a lot more appealing than dragging the dingy back through the mud with seven people instead of four.  So in what we hope will be an atypical situation, we found ourselves thinking that it would be really, really good to travel Thursday, in order to have some time to get settled in and get the boat ready for company.

Fog can be tricky, sounds carry strangely and youd can very easily get disoriented and off your course.  You need to keep a sharp lookout for boats, lobster pots, and of course rocks and land.  To help you with this you have electronics, and you make a lot of noise so other boats can hear you.  Our new electronics are superb and performed really well in the thick fog, this post isn’t really about the fog.  Or the lack of wind that had us motoring most of the day.

It’s about the wildlife.

En route to Rockland from Boothbay you can choose to plot a course near a small island called “Eastern Egg Rock”.  By the late 1970’s the Atlantic Puffin had virtually disappeared from North America, mostly as a result of hunting in the last century, and encroachment from a population explosion in Herring and Black Backed Gulls which compete for nesting space and prey on the eggs and young of the much smaller Puffins.  In 1973 Audubon Society teamed up with scientists on Project Puffin, which was an attempt to reintroduce Puffins to several of their original nesting areas around Maine.  Eastern Egg Rock was the first island where this was tried, and it was successful,


Eastern Egg Rock in the fog.

Our route could be plotted to pass right by the island, so why not take a chance at seeing a bird that is still quite rare in North America.  And pretty cute and interesting as well.

As we headed off into the fog though, with visibility rarely exceeding a couple of hundred yards we had our doubts on how worthwhile the diversion would be.  Our spirits were soon lifted though, as we were greeted by seals on our way out of Booth Bay, and later by a pod of porpoises.

In spite of the poor visibility and the need to thread our way through some creepy shoals and narrows in the fog it was well worth it.  On arriving at the island, shortly after it loomed out of the fog at us we were greeted by a Puffin swimming not ten feet from our cockpit!  He was our closest sighting, but we saw others through the binoculars swimming and flying with with distinctive rapid wing movement.

Sadly I compensated in the wrong direction with my camera and didn’t get great photos, but the children got some decent ones with their more fool proof devices!

Harbor Porpoise

We did get a bit of sailing in on the way when the wind finally filled in, but the currents were so poor that we decided it wasn’t worth the slow progress and gave it up.  While sailing though we did get a glimpse of what appeared to be an Ocean Sunfish of some size.  Although we could not see the beautiful Owl Head Light as we passed it this time for the fog w did get a final sendoff from another pod of porpoises just outside of Rockland Harbor.

Posted in Fog, porpoises, puffins, Seals | 5 Comments

Linekin Bay / Boothbay Harbor

On Aug 7th, 2012 Published By B.J.
Sunset on Linken Bay

Boothbay Harbor is one of the more well known tourist destinations in mid-coast Maine, it would have been a shame to pass it by on our way from Casco Bay to Penonscot Bay.  So we set our next stop to Boothay Harbor.

The sail over from near the Cheabeauge Islands was easy and fun, right until we turned more North and the wind went behind us and got light.  And the rolling started.  So to spare the sails and the boat from banging we motored the last couple of hours in.  We still saw a few pods of harbor porpoises!

Boothbay Harbor itself is fairly strict with anchoring.  It is only permitted in one small area of the harbor.  However nearby Linekin Bay is a short walk from the harbor and is much more open to anchoring.  As it turns out it is also quiet, beautiful, and has a couple of pairs of ospreys to keep you entertained.

One downside to the Linekin anchorage is the lack of a dinghy landing.  The cruising guide says “just pull the dinghy in at the town park” or some such nonsense…without regard to the twelve foot tides.  We really tried to work around the tide thing, and the dinghy DID end up pretty much were we expected it too.  It was just the water that ended up a lot further away than we expected.

The main inflatable RIB (or “Rigid Inflatable Boat”) weighs about 160 lbs or so, the engine weighs another 70 lbs.  Add in a six gallon fuel tank (mostly full…say 40 lbs), and a bit of gear and you get a pretty heavy boat.   Maybe, on a smooth flat surface wearing our shoes the four of us could pick it up and move it a few feet at a time…if it had decent places for handles.  In ankle deep mud, barefoot, on a bottom covered with rocks, shells, and crabs…not so much chance of moving it the seventy-five feet or so that it takes to get the boat afloat again at dead low tide.

Fortunately for us, we noticed that a four foot piece of 3″ PVC pipe had also been left stranded in the mud.  Quickly we put this to use as a roller under the boat which let us roll it down the beach one boat length at a time.  From there it was a question of just walking the boat out into enough water to float it with four of us on board, then rowing it out a couple of hundred more yards until it was deep enough to put down the engine…

Boothbay Harbor itself is a nice little town although the tourist influence is pretty clear.  We’d only planned a short stay, but it’s pretty clear that you could spend a lot of time in the area exploring the various parks, nature trails, breweries, shops and restaurants.

For us though, being anchored in a place like Linekin Bay is what it’s all about.

Posted in Maine | 3 Comments

Portland, Peaks Island and Beyond

On Aug 6th, 2012 Published By B.J.
Peaks Island

Landfall in Maine was on Peaks Island, one of the many islands immediately in the vicinity of Portland harbor and served by an extensive ferry system between Portland and the islands.  Since anchoring in Portland is nearly impossible we decided that we’d be better off anchoring at Peaks Island and taking a ferry into Portland for a day to see the city.

Anchoring at Peaks is easy; getting ashore without a little “civil disobedience” – not so much.

Many boating destinations have town or city docks where they allow transient boaters to tie up dinghies.  In some cases some marinas have also wisely made dinghy docks available to transient boaters that aren’t actually renting a slip or mooring from them.  I say “Wisely” because visiting boaters frequently end up buying ice, supplies, fuel, etc. at the marina – and if the marina has adjacent restaurants and businesses within an easy walk they benefit as well.  A friendly reception for ALL boaters leaves you with a good impression of the port, and a penchant for patronizing the places associated with it.

Not so on Peaks, unfortunately.  When we visited the Peaks Island Marina (apparently the only marina on the island) we were told in no uncertain terms that we could not use their dinghy dock.  However they would allow us to tie up our dinghy for the bargain price of $10/hour – which if you aren’t used to marinas is ludicrous for a 10′ rubber boat; we don’t really take up much space and can be tucked out of the way.  At the $2.50/foot they charge for dockage I could have put my dinghy in a slip for the night for less.  Needless to say, Peaks Island Marina did not then, nor never will, receive a nickel of my money or a positive recommendation from me.

The town docks, not much better.  One was an “Emergency Dock” with a “Five Minute Limit” and “No Unattended Vessels.”  The other was a “30 Minute Limit” with the same “No Unattended Vessels” stricture.  So let me get this straight…if I want to pull up in my dinghy to go into town with the family and drop $100+ on dinner, I need to 1) leave someone in the boat and 2) get back from dinner in 30 minutes or less.  Given there is no MacDonald’s on the island this didn’t seem practical.

With our original plan (and reason to come to Peaks Island) to take a ferry in for the day to Portland, the idea of doing this in 30 minutes or less OR paying $10/hour to the bandits at Peaks Island Marina needed to take some drastic action to come off.  Hence the civil disobedience.  We tried very hard to find a figure of authority on the island to ask about the dinghy parking; as a part of Portland they are under the jurisdiction of the City and the City’s Harbor Master.  Hmm…no one on site apparently.  No one on land we talked to even had a clue about what the actual person in authority of the waterfront was.

So…if there’s no one to ask about the waterfront…there’s no one to check on the waterfront either.  So as long as we weren’t too egregious about it we could flout the rules a bit, which we did by tying up to the unused back side of the Emergency Dock, where no boat larger than dinghy could fit anyway.

To it’s credit Peaks is a lovely island, with a couple of nice looking restaurants and shops, and a decent grocery store for provisioning.  We just didn’t feel particularly wanted there so we didn’t stick around.

Portland

Portland is just a cool little city.  There are some great restaurants and shops and some fun things to do.  It’s a good place to walk around with a bustling waterfront and some decent marinas.

Some of the highlights/lowlights/meh-lights included:

  • Walking around down town
  • Walking out to Deer 
  • Lunch at the White Cap Cafe
  • Hamilton Marine!  The second (vying for first) best store in the universe!
  • Rain and Damp
  • Portland Yacht Services; we uncharacteristically sprang for a night at a mooring, figuring for about $12 more than taking the ferry from Peaks we could walk in to town from a mooring, do some laundry and get a pumpout and some water.  What a nice group of people there though.
  • Walking to Whole Foods and schlepping all the groceries back by hand because we didn’t have the wit to check a bus schedule, bring any shopping bags, our cart, or any backpacks.  We’ve got to get better at logistics!
  • The ferry ride was pretty cool.
  • Seals, Ospreys and all sorts of birds even though we were near the city
And beyond
Leaving Portland, we decided our last stop on Casco Bay would be Jewell Island, which is a beautiful spot with a tiny little anchorage.  We hoped we’d fit in there, it’s only a few hundred feet across.
We were wrong.
The sail from Portland was great, fresh breezes as we beat away from the marina and past Portland Head Light turned into a nice reach as we headed East for Jewell.  It looked like a cool spot on the charts and in the cruising guides; the approach was beautiful and there looked to be a lot to explore.  The last part as we slipped around the end of the island was mildly terrifying, as it was narrow, rocky and infested with pots and a running current.  Sadly there was large trawler anchored in about the only spot we’d have depth and swing room so we couldn’t stay.
Next we tried nearby Cliff Island.  These areas are infested with lobster pots, and the anchoring is tricky.  We struggled to anchor there and decided we didn’t like the holding (or rather the lack thereof) and the closeness of the rocks and pots.  So we bailed on that anchorage too.  
By this point we were concerned about finding someplace before it got too dark to see the lobster pots.  Nearby Chandler Cove between Great and Little Chebeague Islands seemed the ticket.  We made a quick run over there and anchored on a lee shore in a bit of roll for the night.
A few lessons to be learned here.  Some deep water anchoring techniques we got better at for starters, but the second is one of planning.  Having a fallback harbor plotted and ready to go is an absolute must, just in case your ideal spot isn’t quite there.
Posted in Lobster Pots, Maine, Portland | 1 Comment

Maine Bound

On Jul 29th, 2012 Published By B.J.

We’re in Maine, anchored there between Peaks Island and Little Diamond Island in a quiet spot.  We’re close to Portland – about a 20 minute ferry ride, but without the bustle and noise of being in the city.  There aren’t a lot of anchorages where you can take a dinghy into the main city so we figured to be near someplace we can take a ferry would be more comfortable and cheaper than getting a slip in town.

The trip here was surprisingly uneventful.  All of our weather forecasts pointed to Thursday as the day to leave Mattapoisett, with the winds starting out strong from the Southwest.  The expectation was the winds would continue into the evening then somewhere around midnight or shortly after die off, then shift to light Northerly winds after 2:00 a.m.  With a total trip distance of about 125 nautical miles we plan on about 20-22 hours of travel time, depending on the wind and weather.

Part of this trip is transiting the Cape Cod Canal.  We’ve done this a few times before – it’s not difficult, you just have to time it right.  The Canal can throw some wicked currents in your face if you hit it at the wrong time, and make for a really quick transit if you do it right.   With currents sometimes hitting five knots of speed, a boat that motors at eight knots will have a slow passage with wrong timing.  A slower boat might be able to get through at all, at least not with the time limits imposed by the canal authorities.

The other timing issue is on the arrival.  If at all possible it is best to arrive at a new harbor during daylight.  When you are driving in a new town on roads at night it’s harder to find your way.  This is a hundred times worse on the water, where it is darker, there are no roads and the marks are few and far between.  It is easy to become disoriented and misinterpret the aids to navigation in a harbor you’ve never seen; even a familiar harbor is very different at night.  The most dangerous places for a boat are near land so you don’t want to do this if you can avoid it.

Our plotted course suggested leaving Mattapoisett at a leisurely 10:00 for maximum canal current in our favor and an arrival time after dawn in Portland.  With this in mind we set out.  Before we could leave though we had to sort out one minor problem, in that we had furled out main poorly a few days before and still hadn’t gotten all the folds in the mast sorted.  The main sail wasn’t coming all the way out and had a horrible slow shape.  So we weighed anchor a bit early and sorted this out, finally getting our full main sail back, and leaving a bit before 10:00.

The sail to the canal was fast and easy, and the transit of the canal was fast.  On the Cape Cod Bay side of the canal the wind was a bit lighter but picked up as we left land.  The only unfortunate thing was the direction – a bit more South and a lot less West than predicted which put it nearly behind us.  My least favorite point of sail, because it is SLOW if you try and hold it.  The only way to make the boat go fast is to sail higher up wind, using the better wind angles to make the boat faster.  Sailing slightly off course this way is actually faster because you can make the boat move more distance in the direction you want because you are sailing a lot faster even though you are sailing off course.  Just like going upwind you zig-zag back and forth to stay near your course.

The Southerlies held until after midnight and never moved West, but the wind died close to 2:00 a.m. as expected.  Accompanying this was a lot of rain in a short period.  With no wind and ocean roll we were making no progress and banging up the equipment.  Cloud cover hid the crescent moon, and the night was black as only a moonless night off shore can; at least the fog we’d had earlier in the evening had cleared.  To spare the sails flogging and equipment banging we started up the engine and begain motoring back on our course.

Portland Head Light marks the entrance to Portland

A bit later the wind came back from the North, but stronger than predicted – blowing 15+ knots instead of the 5-7 we’d expected.  During the day, or on a brightly lit evening we’d have put the sails back up and climbed upwind.  On a pitch black night at 3:00 a.m where you can’t see your sail shape without bringing up a flashlight to look…well we decided to just keep motoring.

The dawn brought sight of land shortly after, and we knew we’d hit Portland about the time we’d planned. 

As we approached port, one pleasant surprise was the Coast Guard barque Eagle was dressed and ready for an escort into the harbor. 

Apparently there was a bit of a parade when she entered the harbor, with fire boats firing their water jets in the procession…some of the crew saw it but I was already sound asleep by then.

 
Overall an uneventful and easy trip, the only disappointment was that we didn’t see a single whale when we crossed the Stellwagon Bank.

Posted in Cape Cod Canal, Fog, Maine, Off Shore | 2 Comments

Mattapoissett

On Jul 28th, 2012 Published By B.J.

Yes,  there really is a giant seahorse in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts.  We had no idea either.

We were quite pleased with what a nice stopover Mattapoisett made.  A comfortable harbor with excellent holding, there is also a nice dinghy dock with heads and some restaurants and shops within an easy walk.

And of course, a giant seahorse with an odd little park attached to it.

Without recounting the entire history of this awesome bit of Americana, apparently it used to be an icon for the “Seahorse Gift Shop”, one of many such places that dotted Route 6 on the way to Cape Cod.  The construction of I-195, while a boon to many businesses and people on the Cape was the death knell for many businesses on Route 6, including this one.  After many years of debate after the property was donated to the town, it was decided to restore and preserve the seahorse while making the rest of the property a small park.

It wasn’t our original intent to come to Mattapoissett, we were aiming for Woods Hole on Monday, in order to avoid the Northerly winds that were expected Monday evening.  Cuttyhunk is one of our favorite spots but the normally comfortable anchorage outside the harbor is dreadful when the wind blows from the North.

So we set sail on Monday with some fresh breezes to Woods Hole.  Our clearly out of date Cruising Guide indicated a sizable anchorage with good holding.  The reality was quite different, as there was no apparent anchorage anywhere that could be reached with an 8′ draft, nor were there moorings available for a boat our size.  After circling the harbor (with it’s treacherous currents) for a few minutes of indecision after we realized there was no place to stop we reversed our course out of Woods Hole and back to Buzzard’s Bay.  There we broke out the charts and (other) cruising guides and decided Mattapoissett looked comfortable in a Northerly, had some facilities, and was progressing us further towards Maine, not away from it.

The sail over was a blast – close reaching in 15-20 knots, right in Evenstar’s sweet spot for a short but invigorating sail.

As it turns out we were good to leave Cuttyhunk, the wind did shift to the North as some thunderstorms came through.  An impressive light show with some rain to wash off the salt.   After weeks of preparation we are beyond caring though as we are safe in our home in a comfortable anchorage, catching up still on our rest.

Had we stayed longer we could have caught a farmer’s market and some other local activities in the coming days.  This is clearly a nice place for a short stopover, and perfect for what we were looking for.

We passed a restful day in the harbor, while some friends visited and we girded our loins for the upcoming trip to Maine.

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Decompression…

On Jul 25th, 2012 Published By B.J.

Time to relax a bit, it’s amazing the way you can think differently, even a short drive from home.

Our first night out we had a wonderful sail to Dutch Harbor, where we spent the night after a long day’s work.  We opened a bottle of champagne and sat back and just enjoyed being at anchor.

We had word that one of our daughter’s friends was on Cuttyhunk with her family, so we set out there, even though we expected Northerly conditions would come through in a day that would drive us off the island on Tuesday.  But we had another great sail, reaching out to Cutty, while the new Autopilot (more on THAT beast in another post) performed almost flawlessly.

After a fun reunion with friends on Cutty, it was time to look for a place to spend a lay day.  We though of Woods Hole, with it’s quaint New England charm but that was not to be.  No moorings available, and the “anchoring” was consumed by a mooring field years ago.  So it was a screaming reach across to Mattapoisset, where we plan to ride out some Northerlies and weather as we get ready to make the run up to Maine later this week.

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And….We’re Off!

On Jul 24th, 2012 Published By B.J.

After years of preparation, planning and delaying; after months of hard dawn to dusk work…Evenstar has left the dock for good!

Thanks to Betsy Rafferty for the picture!
Evenstar sailing out of Greenwich Bay on our departure!
Thanks to Betsy Rafferty for the photo.

As I type this I am sitting in Mattapoisett Harbor in Massachusets.  Not exotic or far away, but we’re home because home is on the boat.

It turns out the worst and most miserable part of leaving was squaring away the house.  Sixteen years of accumulated memories, and more importantly sixteen years of accumulated crap for lack of a better word.  The mind boggles slightly how we could fill a fifteen yard dumpster so easily after three yard sales, repeated runs to donation centers and pickups by the big sisters, giving things to friends and family, months of selling on Craigslist and Ebay.  And we STILL have way to much on the boat, for now.

Emptying the house, coupled with last minute work on the boat and moving things around meant four weeks in a marina that we didn’t want to spend.  But you need things like a working windlass and boom vang to cruise the boat.  Don’t get me wrong, it was a lovely marina – clean, modern, and neat with excellent facilities.  But marinas and docks just aren’t our bag.

So last Sunday, July 22nd at 4:30 p.m. after one more exhausting day of schlepping, fixing, tossing and organizing we pulled out of the slip and set our sails.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Cocked-up…

On Jun 24th, 2012 Published By B.J.

Or so say our friends across the pond when something is messed up a fair amount.  Bollocksed-up works too, but sadly there is nothing on the boat called a “Seabollocks” because it sounds like there should be.

Getting the boat hauled on schedule and getting the bottom painted all proceeded according to plan.  Part of our work plan includes “service all seacocks” when the boat was out of the water, and this is where we hit a snag.  One of many, but this one you can directly track a week’s or more lost time to.

For the non sailors in the crowd, a “Seacock” is not an aquatic fowl or a nautical profanity, but rather a valve of a specific nature which is attached to a hole in the boat for the set purpose of keeping the ocean out when you don’t want it.  They need to be tough, corrosion resistant and they need to work.  It goes without saying they are rather expensive – this can be assumed by the fact that they are used on boats.

There are times you want the ocean to come in the boat, to do things like cool your engines or refrigerators or get turned into fresh water by the water maker, or times you need a hole back out to the ocean for dumping wastes from sinks, drains, or when off shore the heads (aka “toilets” if they aren’t on a boat) so the seacocks are connected to hoses to get the water and outflows to the right places.  The Seacock is there in case one of the hoses to the above systems breaks so you can quickly stop the leak.

We have something like twenty-two holes in Evenstar that are protected with seacocks.  That’s a lot of holes in the boat.

As we got ready to launch we “Exercised” all the seacocks which is something you are *ahem* supposed to do regularly but of course we’d been remiss on for a while.  Exercising a seacock is a fancy work of rmoving the lever back and forth a bit to open and close it a couple of times.  This prevents buildup from deposits in the ocean or marine life from blocking the seacock in one position.  If you do this regularly it should be a one handed operation that requires minimal effort.  It should not, for example, require the use of a ball-peen hammed to pound on the handle until it starts moving.

After gently persuading a few of the more recalcitrant seacocks with our hammer they all got moving.  Except one.  This of course was not a small seacock under a sink you can reach by opening a cabinet and moving the spare toilet paper out of the way.  Of course this was one of the biggest seacocks in the boat (two inches in diameter) in the most difficult spot to reach (well, some short armed folks on board had trouble with a couple of others, but at least they could SEE those) in the lowest part of the boat that isn’t the bilge.

This particular seacock was resisting all persuasion.  It is located in the far corner of the engine room, behind the engine.  If you lay across the engine and kind of twisted around without quite dislocating your shoulder you could probably get enough grip on it to open it.  If it wanted to move.

According to sources, a two inch three feet below the waterline will allow 136 gallons of water per minute into the boat.  So this is serious business – these things can not fail.  In this case, it was locked open as this particular seacock connects to our cockpit drain and some of the vents in the engine cooling system.  So if that hose breaks…bad things happen.

I will not go into gruesome detail about seacock installation for you here – if you are curious here is a nice overview.   Suffice it to say it is serious business because of the potential for disaster if it is done poorly.  We decided to defer this unplanned project to the marina because I wasn’t about to learn this one on the fly and we had too many other things to do, including some travel.

It took a while for it to get sorted because we unfortunately didn’t find it until we were almost ready to give the all clear to launch and the yard had to get some people on it.  But they did a bangup job and it is now the prettiest, shiniest and best seacock installation on the boat.

Posted in broken things, haulouts, maintenance, projects | Comments Off on Cocked-up…

Milestones…

On Jun 1st, 2012 Published By B.J.

Today as a family we passed a MAJOR milestone in our path to cruising: my wife finished her job.

For 20+ years we’ve been a slave to the beeper and the call schedules, for the last 16 in her private OB/Gyn practice we’ve had call every week and on occasional weekends.  Admittedly it’s been less often as the practice has grown, but she’s not 29 and new in practice any more and rearing to work 48 hours straight, either.

Tomorrow is her first day back as a “civilian”, and we no longer have to listen to that thing going off.

It’s a huge step for her and one that I know will take a while to sink in.  Definitely a bittersweet time after years of training, and years of being at the side of young women as they start families and you help them grow.

So tomorrow morning I can hand our new “Woman of Leisure” what remains of our work list (about 4 1/4 pages…) and we can decided how to full all this new found time!  Or we can start emptying the house…

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Flying High Again

On May 30th, 2012 Published By B.J.

Or as one friend asked me “So are you going to take the training wheels off before you leave on your big trip?”

Today, after the big Memorial Day rush to get everyone IN the water Evenstar came back out.  It’s time to paint the bottom, service the propeller and perform a number of tasks that are on the critical path to getting on our way.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Flying High Again