The List – 2011 Edition

On Feb 25th, 2011 Published By B.J.

Every spring it is time to break out “the list” – the lengthy description of the chores, repairs, upgrades and projects to get the “Ship” into “Shape” for the season.  The list is generally extensive and expensive…this year is no exception.  It may be your humble author’s privilege to omit a few perennial items from the list in order to save the inevitable “what, you haven’t gotten around to that YET??” response from the gentle reader.  For example it is quite embarrassing that I’ve been carrying the parts around to upgrade my propane plumbing for the last four years and still haven’t actually done it.

This year is special in some ways, as some long term upgrades we’ve wanted to do are finally queued up.  Some of these are beyond…well not my skill so much as my confidence in said skill.  I’d rather not, for example spend the next five years tracking down leaks in the watermaker; I’d rather have a contractor to blame on this one!

So without any further adieu…the Massive Project List for 2011

Upgrades and Additions:

  • Watermaker.  This is a big one that I am going to a professional on.  We’ve selected the unit – a Spectra Catalina Mk II.  Our existing watermaker is old, cranky, leaky and broken.  Although it made tasty clean water, it required you to run the generator in order to make water.  The Spectra is a 24V DC system which makes 12 gallons/hr while consuming 7.5 amps.  So we can make water off the batteries with a fraction of the power.  Also the new ones are smart, the Spectra has a “self flush” mode which cleans itself periodically even when you aren’t using it – this gets you out of the business of having to “pickle” the membrane if you don’t use it for a week (like the old one…).
  • Wind.  Finally time to add a wind generator to our charging capacity as we continue our quest for renewable energy on board as well as limiting out consumption of diesel.  There are a number of marine wind generators available on the market.  However there are fewer 24V wind generators out there, and the Air Breeze is one of them.  This particular model tends to do well in higher winds, and in fact doesn’t deliver much charging below 10 knots of breeze.  In the teens it matches and starts to outstrip it’s competitors and over 20 knots of sustained breeze it produces more power than we typically use in a day on board.
  • Inverter/Charger.  We’ve had it with our Freedom 25 unit.  It does not reliably charge; there is a 15 Amp breaker on it that constantly shuts off.  If you REALLY baby it you can get it to charge.  And I mean…prop up the bed cushion and board over it to get air circulating, put a small fan in front of the exposed crack, and do not do any other charging and maybe this breaker will stay unpopped long enough to get through the Bulk charge cycle and stay on to charge your battery.  This is really annoying when you are running the generator expressly to charge the batteries.  We are still settling on a model – Xantrex (Freedom) no longer offers a replacement for this odd beast.  Since it is from a Euro powered 24V boat it needs to be 24V on the DC side and 220/50Hz on the A/C side, so once again options are limited.  I’m leaning towards a little more charging capacity since our generator produces 6,000 Watts of power using only 2,500 of it to charge seems a little wasteful.
  • Life raft.  We’ve been without one for a few years and it’s time to rectify that.  We’ve extended our cruising capabilities some and will go further still.  We’re leaning towards a Winslow, but the array of options and extra equipment for any life raft is bewildering at best.  Spending thousands and thousands of dollars on something you hope you never get to use is…aggravating.  Drawing the line on what to get and what not to get for safety and ditch bag gear and where to get it from.   On the other hand if you need it and you don’t have the safety gear it can kill you.
  • Anchor.  Evenstar has two large primary anchors. Unfortunately they are identical 105 pound CQR anchors, a design which is tried and tested and effective in most conditions.  However having two identical anchors on board does not give you any options when you are not in “most” conditions.  There are some weaknesses to the CQR.  The newer Rocna anchor has tested well since it’s introduction in 2004 and we are leaning towards adding one as our primary anchor on the all chain rode and retiring one of the CQR’s.  We have a small (for Evenstar, I think it was a good primary for our last boat) Danforth style “lunch hook” we keep in a locker in theaft of the boat but that is primarily for emergencies where you might need to keep the back of the boat from moving.
  • Sea Anchor.  Different from an “Anchor” anchor, in that a sea anchor is used to slow the boat in nasty conditions when you are in deep water.  Essentially a large, tough parachute like device you toss in the water at the end of a lot of rope and chain.  In seriously bad storm conditions you deploy this thing to slow you down and stabilize the boat.  If we’re hoping to take the boat off shore in conditions where you are more than one day from land you need something like this in case you can not avoid the nastiest weather.
  • Stove.  The old stove has never quite been right.  The control knobs have always been stiff and the plastic knobs popped off on a couple of the controls ages ago.  A small pair of vice-grips should not be required to cook dinner.  Also we’re pretty certain the oven never had a thermostat, though we can’t really tell because the numbers on the dial have never been visible.  This is a direct request from the Fleet Admiral.
  • On board computer.  We have a creaky laptop on board which is getting on in years; the batteries don’t charge the DVD drive doesn’t work, etc. etc.  The plan is to replace it with a “marinized”  permanent desktop that runs on 24V power.  This is a PC in a smaller, special case which will integrate permanently into the boat’s electronics, with a proper LCD monitor (also running on DC power) mounted on a swinging arm at the Nav station.  The swinging arm allows the PC to double as a video player.  We will never have a TV on board, but we do like to watch movies when you are trapped on board by bad weather.
  • Sail.  We’re still going around on this one.  But the two full size headsails that  came with the boat, well they were pretty ugly and blown out when we bought her five years ago.  They have not improved with age.  I’m forgetting how to trim a genoa, since it is not actually possible to trim either of our blown out headsails into anything approaching an efficient shape.  The big choices are between a woven sails like our Hydranet main (which we love) or a laminate sail made from a carbon fiber and Technora blend.   That sounds very high tech and like something I would have put on my last boat for racing, but there are cost and other reasons that it might make sense.

Repairs & Maintenance

  • Propane system.  Yeah, I will shamefacedly admit to still not having completed this.  It WILL be done, as the stove upgrade is this perfect time to do it anyway.  We will have two 11 lb. propane tanks installed in the propane locker and a solenoid this spring.
  • SSB.  I need to learn how to use it, or have someone come to the boat that does and can tell me if mine works.  Because I can’t heard anything on it.  If it’s broken it needs replacing (move it to the list above!) or fixing.
  • Main bilge pump needs replacing or repair.  Sprays water in the engine room when you run it now.  Bilge water; this ain’t no Evian or Poland spring spraying on my engine.  Yech; not only is it unsafe its nasty.
  • Hatch Lenses.  Our hatches are very crazed (cracked) and in some cases like the V-Berth, leaky.  They will be pulled off the boat and delivered to some guys that will replace the lenses with nice new clear material and replace the seals so the leaks stop.
  • Davits.  Need some love, and new cables.  And a new handle.
  • Pumps – Oil Change and Seawater.  There is, in theory a built in pump for changing the oil on the boat.  I’ve never seen it work; I’d like to.  There is also an emergency bilge/fire pump, also non functional.  This is a sea water pump that can draw from inside (emergency bilge pump) or outside the boat (fire suppression pump).  Also something that should be working and isn’t.
  • Teak.   There are some loose bungs, and I’ve still not forced myself to recaulk all the lazarette and locker covers on the deck.  This may not happen in the Spring, I still feel somewhat traumatized from my last teak adventure.
  • Head valve replacement.  One over enthusiastic guest last year over twisted one of the valves in the forward head.  Sadly, it is the valve that keeps the stuff in the holding tank from back flowing in the water, not the valve to send the bowl contents over board.  If it was the latter the head would still be usable.  Fortunately I have spare valves on hand, as they are special and come from Europe.

There are of course some smaller items as well and a few more bits of equipment to add.  But this is the current moderately comprehensive Master List.

Wish me luck.

Posted in Cool Gear, life raft, maintenance, New sails, projects, pumps | Comments Off on The List – 2011 Edition

Mt. Desert Island

On Feb 18th, 2011 Published By B.J.

Mount Desert Island (MDI) was the ultimate destination for the Great Maine Expedition of 2010.  In our original plan it was our furthest point East in Maine, our turnaround point, the spot from whence we would begin our trek home.

Of course that was before we saw the predictions for Hurricane Earl.  As a result of Earl we ended up spending almost a full week in Northeast Harbor on MDI – which really isn’t a bad thing if you discount the whole “whoops my boat might get destroyed” aspects of it.  Mount Desert Island is a wonderful places and we could have spent a lot more than a week there without getting bored.

View from the Harbormaster’s dock, Northeast Harbor

This post is probably going to calve itself into a few – there is just too much to say about this part of the world.  The towns are charming (if a bit touristy in some places), excellent dining abounds, Arcadia National Park is breathtaking, the water is beautiful, the harbors are loaded with gorgeous boats, and wildlife is everywhere.

We also got lucky – locals were complaining about the “heat wave”.  The whole time we were there until the hurricane came through the weather was to die for – hot sometimes (unusual for Maine) and not a wisp of fog.

Mt. Desert Island has a free bus system courtesy of L.L.Bean which provides excellent access to the major harbors and towns and stopping off points all over Arcadia National Park.  This bus is a crucial part of making all of this work – you can pick it up about thirty feet away from where the above picture was taken and take it anywhere on the island (eventually).  We didn’t actually figure out how good the bus was until we got there – it’s a fairly recent development that our cruising guides didn’t wax especially poetic about.

Unfortunately we didn’t consult our cruising guides enough though, that cost us some wasted time trying to do things like laundry, when we didn’t realize there was a drop off in town instead of going in to Bar Harbor to drop it off instead (and schlepping back when they sent my pants home with the wrong customer).  Each town is different, and each town has a pretty decent set of services.

Some highlights of our week there included….

  • Hiking and walking in the park.  We hiked to the top of Pemetic Mountain among other locations.  
  • Wild blueberries.  Slowed down the hiking a lot but boy were they good.
  • Renting bikes and riding on the Carriage Trails
  • Ben & Bill’s Chocolate Emporium; somehow we overlooked the fact that our favorite ice cream shop in the universe (that alone makes the trip to Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard) has a store in Bar Harbor Maine.
  • Seeing the island from the bus; yes you saw a good deal
  • Seals swimming by the boat
  • Porpoises on the long dinghy ride to Southwest harbor.
  • And endless variety of gorgeous sail boats to look at
  • Visit to the Hinckley yard in SW Harbor, even if we didn’t get to see a boat being built
  • Did I mention Ben & Bill’s?
Actually the summit of Pemetic Montain
Arcadia National Park is crisscrossed with miles and miles of beautiful, well maintained trails.  Their difficulty ranges from really easy short flat walks to steep and sweaty mountainous exertions.  We opted for somewhere near the middle of those.  
One of the walks we did included Pemetic Mountain, with the gorgeous vista panoramic view of the whole island.  It was longer than we expected and we got head faked by half a dozen “peaks” which we thought were the top since we couldn’t see past them.  Someone in our party pointed out that these could NOT be the summit, since there was no sign kindly pointing out that you were in fact there, at the summit.  One of us was right…  
Part of this trail winds around (can I get a synonym for “scenic” or “lovely” here?) Jordan Pond and starts and ends at the Jordan Pond House where you can have lunch overlooking the pond, a large meadow and the “Bubbles” off in the distance.
The Bubbles, as seen from Jordan House
By the time we got back for lunch – all options include one of their famous Popovers which are worth the walk – we were pretty wiped.  As it turns out we made a wrong turn and went to the top of Pemetic backwards…most hikers went the other way on the trail loop because it was easier.  We ended up turning around and heading down the way we came to avoid the steeper downhill but got a longer hike out of it at the end of the day.  Blueberries were all over the place on the way up (and back down) and kept us fortified throughout.
Some of the other walks we took included the Bar Harbor Shore Path, which is a short trek around the outside of Bar Harbor – a nice walk where you can see some of the ocean and the rocks in the intertidal area and some of the outlying islands.  Hiking out of Bar Harbor through the Great Meadow also brought us through some wetlands, although sadly we were never able to spot an actual moose much to my great disappointment.
It was pointed out that spotting a moose is NOT normally something one expects to do while cruising on a sailboat, so perhaps one should be happy enough with the seals, porpoises, ospreys, eagles, ducks, etc. etc.  But I digress.
After the hurricane passed through and we were held over for the weekend we decided to rent some bikes to explore the Carriage Trails.  These are wide gravel roads which criss cross the park, easily suitable for bikes or horses.  They are…steeper…than we expected, but we got through them after some shifting lessons for the younger members of the party with shorter legs.  Because of all the rain there was a lot of runoff, and many of the tiny, almost dry streams from the week before because beautiful babbling waterfalls and streams.  Even though it was all a bit damp it didn’t matter – the added beauty made up for it and the ride was a joy.  With hindsight we should have given thought to getting bikes a lot earlier as there were a lot of places to go and the Island Explorer buses had the capability to move bikes and let you off in different trails.
There is a lot more to cover on MDI – the towns and harbors, our quest for hurricane safety, restaurants and dining – subjects for another post.
Not the summit of Pemetic Mt., but lovely nonetheless
Posted in Maine, Mt. Desert Island | Comments Off on Mt. Desert Island

Desperately Seeking…something.

On Feb 13th, 2011 Published By B.J.

February might well now be my least favorite time of the year.

Reasons?  Obvious to any sailor bound on land by weather that will not end.  It’s freaking miserable outside, the boat is under wraps and it’s too cold to work on it.  Not that you can get down the dock over the inches deep ice and snow that have accumulated…bringing a “buddy” to pull you out of the water is suggested for any such venture.

At the risk of – OK, maybe even with the intentional effect of – sounding whiny, spring can not get here soon enough.  Now past the point in life where skiing is of interest, after a day or two tobogganing with the kids I’ve pretty much had my fill of the snow.

I am hoping that reflecting on the high points of last summer will help snap me out of the dreaded winter doldrums.  When last I posted out here I left you all perched on the edge of making it to Mt. Desert Island in Arcadia National Park. Which was a wonderful cruising destination, although hindsight being 20/20 there are some things we learned to do differently next time.

In the mean time…some teasers.  I don’t think I’ve removed myself from gray winter enough to produce the truly enthusiastic gushing of happy prose this deserves, however we can start down that path with a few breathtaking views.

I promise to return shortly with more detail, as our adventure proceeds forward into the Hinckley infested waters of Mt. Desert Island!


View from up high on the way to Pemetic Mountain

The family heads down from Pemetic Mountain


Posted in Maine, Mt. Desert Island | 1 Comment

The Road to Portland

On Nov 25th, 2010 Published By B.J.

In a departure from my ongoing and belated travelogues from Maine this past summer, I am offering here a “reprint” of an article which I recently wrote for Sailing Anarchy on our new sailing dink.  Finally the reason I’ve been alluding to, but never described, the newest addition to the fleet.

As originally published at SailingAnarchy.com
 
“Here’s a picture of several anarchists fondling one while making smartass and disparaging remarks at the Providence Boat Show last year. The anarchist in the back (who I will not identify unless he chooses to come forward) sorta looks like he’s about to hurl in it, which I think accurately reflects his impression of the boat.

The question you have to ask yourself, is that if you DO get shipwrecked and have to use it to stay alive, do you think you can spend a week at sea with a bag over your head? Because that thing is PAINFULLY fugly. Heavy & ugly; I can not imagine it could get out of it’s own way.

On the plus side, if memory serves from the feel of the deck and hull you SHOULD be able to easily use it as a cutting board to fillet any flying fish that are not too repelled by it’s hideous appearance to fall into the boat.”  – B.J. Porter in Cruising Anarchy, April 6 2008.

Isn’t the internet grand?  All the wonderful stuff you spew out there, captured for posterity to someone can throw it back at your head two years later.
So last June I drove up to Portland, Maine to pick up my very own Portland Pudgy from the factory.  How quickly things change in two years.  This article is a brief overview of my “Road to Damascus” moment, where I went from hating these things to buying one of these things and coming to love it – and what I learned along the way.

The Need

Our family spends a lot of time cruising in the summer, pretty much every weekend we can which is almost all of them.  Right now we’re coastal cruisers, but some day hope to take some time to see the world.  But even today two children now 13 and 10 we are getting to the point where they have more independence and can sometimes go their own way.  A few years back we bought a small sailing dink which they loved but outgrew.  Needless to say I didn’t fit in it either; it was strictly a toy for the kids.  Looking forward though our thought was for a “second car” for the boat, an expedition vehicle that we could use so the kids could take off and explore harbors and beaches or a separate group could leave the boat without stranding everyone else.  Also a backup dinghy in case something happened to the RIB – be it theft, loss, punctured tubes, deflation or mechanical problems nothing says “your vacation sucks” when you can’t get off the boat any more.
Our requirements?  It would need to fit a couple of people while being able to row well, sail reasonably, be impervious to beaching on rocks and sands, stow easily and be manageable by a couple of older kids.  Motoring ability was not a real factor since we expected this to be a wind & muscle powered vehicle.  Cost is certainly a factor, but not the driving one as this is a long term purchase expected to be with us for years.

The Market

There are a LOT of dinghies on the market, and a lot of options.  Fiberglass dinghies, sailing dinghies, nesting dinghies (from kits), wood dinghies, used, new and host of possibilities were out there.  Eventually we ruled most of them out, for example most of the fiberglass or wood dinghies were, frankly, too pretty to be dragged up on a beach.  Dyer makes a beautiful boat but I’d never want to drag it across rocks.  I’ve not the time, space or inclination to build some of the nice looking nesting options.  So boats that you couldn’t kick around got eliminated.  Boats with too big and awkward rigs, too little capacity, insanely expensive price tags and the like all were eliminated.

The Thread

So in light of all this I’d been watching dinks for several years.  I was leaning towards the Walker Bay dinghy with the RID Tubes on it and a sailing rig but I knew my decision was a couple of years off.  It looked like an ungainly agglomeration of functional parts but it appeared to meet most of the requirements though I didn’t love the solution.  I’d seen the Portland Pudgy at the Providence Boat Show and had a chuckle over it before when a thread on the boat was started in the Cruising Anarchy forum.  Frankly on its own it was an easy target to mock as the boat looks ungainly and the marketing materials for it aren’t the slickest.  It is positioned strongly as a life raft which on the surface looks faintly ridiculous.
But eventually the inventor of the boat, David Hulbert, showed up on the thread and made some comments that got me thinking.  There is a lot below the surface of the boat’s design which isn’t obvious.  And David’s a creative and responsive guy, he’s been continually refining the boat based on owner feedback and you can see the improvements and changes.  And he got me thinking more, and when I started to look at it this odd looking little boat I realized that there was that functional beauty to it and that it might work for us.

The Boat

Even though I have one strapped on by bow I still don’t think the Portland Pudgy is a thing of beauty.  It is, well, pudgy looking.  But it DOES have a lot of beauty from a pragmatic standpoint.  When he designed the boat David Hulbert was looking to fill a need that he had and couldn’t fill with what was commercially available.  His goal was a boat that can row, sail, motor and act as a life raft – perhaps not with performance that sets the world on fire but still do it all well enough to satisfy.  He wasn’t looking to build a racing dinghy or a sport boat; I think his goal was something more in line with a sport utility vehicle or a lawn tractor.  Flexibility, safety, functionality and fun were the over arching themes.
One of the appeals of the Pudgy is that it is completely self contained.  All of the gear – sailing rig & blades, oars, exposure canopy, sea anchor and other gear stows inside the boat.  Everything packs away when it is on the boat, there are no rigs jammed into lazarettes and cupboards or oars in inconvenient places.  There are inspection ports you can slide all this folding collapsible gear into – one of my only design suggestions is to add one more port to the other side of the boat so you can put the rig on one side and the oars on the other.  After discussing with the designer their single port choice makes sense if you are buying some of the more advanced options like the life raft kit or the electrical system; that port side area is reserved for those components.
It is also pretty tough to damage.  While we were at the factory one of the workers was installing some hardware onto a hull.  He was pounding it, hard, with a heavy hammer.  The sort of blows that would shatter gelcoat and fiberglass weren’t even leaving mark on the molded plastic hull.  It is a heavy boat, a few pounds heavier than some of the sailing dinks and that is one of its only weaknesses that I’ve seen – but as a boat approved for four people the weight is competitive with other boats with similar capacity. Capacity wise this boat is rated for 557 lbs. of people, motors and gear and it can hold it.  In a USCG test it took 1855 lbs of weight to submerge it to its gunwales. 
There are a lot of nice little well thought out features too – for example it comes with a Ritchie compass installed, a wheel on the keel to help you drag it, and grip handles on the keel to help you right the boat if you manage to capsize it.  One of our favorite features is that the boat is self bailing when empty.  When hurricane Earl near-missed us on our vacation in Maine we had the only hard dink on the dock that wasn’t full of water after the torrential downpour.
One of the big selling points is the Survival Package, which includes an exposure canopy (which adds 430 lbs of floatation), a boarding ladder/fender, an HD Para-anchor, and some other gear which turns the dinghy into a four person “proactive” life raft.  By “proactive” Mr. Hulbert means unlike most life rafts you can sail this boat to safety with the sailing rig installed.  We didn’t go this route; it’s not what we bought the boat for.  Apparently when rigged for rapid deployment is truly does deploy quickly (in tests it took 17 seconds to inflate the exposure canopy with CO2) and it has actually saved someone’s life in the field.

The Company

David Hulbert is the brains behind the boat, its inventor and the head of their small manufacturing operation.  Working from a small industrial building in Portland, the hulls are molded elsewhere in New England then brought to the shop for finishing and installation of the accessories and hardware.  Hulbert explained that initially they had some production problems with the molding process which was one of the largest hurdles they had to overcome.  But now they have a reliable molding process and the boats are coming off the line quickly.  To date almost 500 boats have been sold, one popular customer niche has been the Alaskan fishing fleet – they have proved quite popular as on board life raft/safety boats.  Hulbert says standard procedure for delivery is drop shipment anywhere in the country (or the world).

As for the future, the boat is being continually refined.  It is an evolutionary process that Mr. Hulbert describes, with feedback from customers he’s taken some active steps to make the boat perform better and be more useful.  He has some stiff competition though, and lacking the distribution channel like the Walker Bay has I can imagine it is an uphill battle marketing what appears to be a superior product whose greatest strengths don’t leap out at you the first time you lay eyes on it.

The Field Test

After a couple of months with this boat on our deck the overwhelming response is that we love it.  We’ve had three kids (ages 13, 13, & 10…not small) in the boat sailing around, our two have gone to beaches and into town on their own, I’ve sailed it and rowed it, my wife has rowed it places – all of us agree that it’s a smart little boat that does what it is supposed to and does it pretty well.  It tows well and we’ve even hauled it behind our RIB to get more people to the dock in a single trip.  We store it lashed on the foredeck and hoist it on board with a block and tackle – some use the halyard but we found the extra purchase made the process a lot easier.  To launch it we literally just toss it overboard, it is self bailing after all and isn’t going anywhere no matter how much water you get in it.
Will it set your pants on fire under sail?  No – from what I could tell I was tacking it through about 110 degrees…and this is not a planing hull!  Of course I’m not sure I tack my Laser at better angles that that so it could be a comment on my sailing ability as well.  But it moves along well enough to suit, and it is fun to sail.  We clocked it over four knots in a good breeze which isn’t bad in a 7’-8’ long boat.  It is very stable – in 20 knots of breeze with all sail on it’s not at all tippy.  And it’s a very dry boat; one trip across Block Island’s New Harbor in 15+ knots of breeze the people sailing the Pudgy were much drier than those of us pounding into the chop on the RIB.
As a sailboat the Pudgy has been substantially improved since its initial release.  The company recently re-engineered the sailing setup to add a larger sail that can be better trimmed, a longer telescoping boom, and longer leeboards to reduce sideslip.  The rig can be easily reefed and breaks down to stow in a small bag that fits in one of the watertight compartments.  Although the rig would benefit from the addition of a vang (and that does pose some engineering problems which Hulbert is working on) we had the opportunity to sail the boat directly against the original configuration when we came across another Pudgy in Maine with the 1.0 version rig – and the new setup is a marked improvement.
There are a few areas where it could be improved, such as the addition of a vang.  While I understand the need for the non skid flooring it is pretty painful to sit on with bare skin, you need a towel, floatation cushion or something on the bottom of the boat if you are going to spend some time in it wearing only shorts.  An easy way to remove the seat (it flips back and forth for two rowing positions but is in the way when you are a big guy like me sailing), and a second access port on the port side of the transom would be nice (all the long gear gets stored on one side of the boat, which makes it list one way when the rig and oars are inside).  According to Hulbert the exposure canopy, CO2 cylinders, para-anchor and other survival gear store in the port side which makes the boat float level again.  But all in all the field test is a complete success, we love the boat and are very pleased with the way it works for us.
Quite a swing from my original take on this little boat!
Related Media:
Video of the Portland Pudgy under sail, with the original and new rigs.

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Next Stop – Mount Desert Island

On Nov 22nd, 2010 Published By B.J.

After several days of relative isolation in Pulpit and Seal Bay, we made the call to move directly to the Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island.   We considered doing some meandering on the way with a couple of stops in between, but instead opted to push through in one quick trip, and maybe meander on the way back towards our jumping off point for home.

The Pot Infested Waters of Jericho Bay

It was an easy and pleasant trip through lobster pot infested waters.  This picture really doesn’t do them justice, and at one point we figured that the sheer number of pots in a certain no-wake zone in the Deer Island Thorofare were done more out of a perverse desire to passively enforce the speed limit rather than to actually catch lobsters.  How could there be that many lobsters right in one spot?  I have no idea how a catamaran could possibly navigate that particular stretch of water.

The trip involved crossing Jericho Bay and slipping through a couple of “thoroughfares” which are not nearly as congested as they sound.  Except the lobster pots of course.

Deer Island Thoroughfare Light

The sailing that day was light and mostly down wind, we tried to sail as much as possible through the worst of the lobster pot minefields but eventually we ran out of air.  The reason for this is simple, not only is the sailing usually more fun and fuel efficient, but far more importantly nothing under the boat is moving.  If I’ve going to run over a lobster pot I’d rather do it without wrapping any ropes around my propeller.  So if we are sailing at least the propeller isn’t spinning up trying to suck pots into it. 

Bass Harbor Light

Maine has a number of scenic lighthouses, nestled among all the other ruggedly beautiful features of the coast.  Sailing there is just one beautiful sight like this after another, alternating rocky shores, empty islands, fishing villages and lighthouses.

Our original plan – almost until we got to the turning point for it – was to initially visit Southwest Harbor on Mt. Desert Island, then move to Northeast Harbor a couple of days later.  They are quite close to each other and easily reachable by fast dinghy, however as we later found out they are quite different in character and facilities though both nice in their own ways.  As we approached it seemed that based on our cruising guides moorings in Northeast harbor were more readily available and less confusing so we opted at the last moment to head for Northeast.

At this point we were blissfully unaware that Hurricane Earl was working it’s way out of the Caribbean and how that would affect our plans, however when we arrived in lovely Northeast Harbor we quickly found out that we had a new wrinkle in our vacation plans…

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Seal Bay

On Nov 11th, 2010 Published By B.J.

Two days of peace, (mostly) quiet, and solitude.  With seals.  Lots of seals.

Just coming in to the harbor you could see them popping up to look at you when you went by.  At low tide many of the rocks and small islands had regular residents.  Needless to say the kids were thrilled and on constant lookout for them.  When we first came into the harbor the tide was high and you couldn’t see all the favorite basking and sleeping spots that are exposed at low tide.  So we saw seal heads popping up and seals swimming, but we didn’t really get a good feel for just how seal infested these waters are.  It wasn’t until we took a dinghy tour closer to sunset that we discovered the truth.

 Our favorite Maine Cruising Guide suggests that you enter new harbors at low tide.  The reason is straight forward – with the relatively large tidal swings (10-12 feet in most of Maine) at low tide most of the hazards are exposed.  A glance at the chart for Seal Bay (see below) shows you that yes indeed, there are many hazards that are covered at high tide.  However for us the timing didn’t work, so we carefully plotted an approach into the instruments and in truth it made picking our way through here seem more like a video game than scary navigation.

But there are definitely some spots that make you shake your head when you see them at low tide, like the ridge just South of Davids Island that is completely hidden at high tide and you will see in a picture below quite clearly at low.  But it’s a great spot for the seals, and we discovered in the evening that when the water drops the seals come out to rest.  In particular there was one rock that was a local favorite, and after our first evening there I set an alarm to get up at low tide the next morning and head out with the camera.  It was well worth getting up for, and this particular spot was pretty clearly Seal Central when the tide was out.  This rock can not even be seen at high tide.

Apparently THE place to chill if you are a seal.

With all of the little nooks, crannies and islands you can see in the chart above there are a lot of places to explore.  The channel between Penobscot and Davids Islands is dry and exposed at low tide, but deep enough to take the dinghy through it at high tide and is a cool little trip.  Hay Island is open for camping.  It is small, and the brush is dense but that is where the kids found a spot to pitch a tent and spend the night.  We anchored between Hay & Penobscot so we were in visual sight from the tent but it was still a cool night on their own and a change from pitching a tent in the back yard.

While here it was a non stop parade of wildlife.  The eagles we saw were too far away to make a decent photo but where sharp through the binoculars.  The ospreys were constantly out hunting.  More varieties of ducks, grebes and other aquatic birds were always swimming and diving around the boat.

As it turns out it my timing was good the morning I went to shoot my seal photos.  The next day as the tide was falling, we saw to our horror that a boat had found it’s way onto the big rock the seals favored.  A number of boaters in the bay took our dinghies out to try and help them but there were pretty firmly on and the tide was falling so fast that there was little that could be done after a very short time.  If you are running aground in fair weather, doing it when the tide is heading out is pretty much the worst time you can do that since you will be stuck through the whole tide cycle.  Even if the boat is OK it is a long and ego bruising wait for the boat to float again.

Fortunately they didn’t seem to hit hard and did not puncture the hull or cause any apparent serious damage.  But I am certain they spent a long night because when this picture was taken there was still and hour or two more tide to go out.  My guess is that some time around 2:00 – 3:00 in the morning the tide came in enough to float them free, because the next morning they were floating and anchored a few hundred yards from the rock and seemed fine.   Although I can not imagine they were well rested.

I wish there was more we could have done to help them, but those tides really move fast up in Maine.  The object lesson – if you MUST come to a new harbor when the tide isn’t low, at least do it when the tide is coming in, not out.

The seals on the other hand seemed a little puzzled by this new occupant of their favorite resting place.  The next morning they were scattered all over the bay and their favorite rock was empty.

Posted in Maine, Seal Bay, Seals, Vinalhaven | 1 Comment

Off the Grid – Pulpit & Seal Bay

On Nov 8th, 2010 Published By B.J.

One of the good/bad things we learned about Maine is that it is really easy to get away.  Away from cell signals (because much of Maine appears to be in the 3% of the country AT&T claims not to cover), away from WiFi (because there isn’t any) and generally out of touch.  It is nice to be away from it all and not to be able to be reached, but sometimes you also miss out on things.  Like hurricanes being birthed in the Caribbean and things like that.

Pulpit Rock

Pulpit Harbor on the island of North Haven is such a place.  It is a beautiful, peaceful and extremely well protected harbor.  The entrance is guarded by Pulpit Rock, which is capped by an Osprey nest that has been continuously occupied for over a century.

There’s not a whole lot there though, which is part of what makes it nice.

Only a couple of hours sailing from Rockland, we saw porpoises and seals en route on the short trip over.  When we arrived the kids immediately lowered the Portlad Pudgy and started exploring the harbor.  Seeing a sister ship to our dinghy AND another Hallberg-Rassy in the harbor was unusual, but we had a pleasant visit from the owners of the other vessel and the kids had a good time sailing with the other dinghy.

Pulpit was only a short stay for us – one night, because there’s not actually a lot reachable there from a dinghy.  It is pretty small and fairly quickly explored; though pretty you can’t dinghy around for hours exploring all the nooks and crannies because there aren’t many!  We opted not to hoof it into the convenience store the cruising guides spoke of and spent a restive evening enjoying the quiet and tranquility.

To the South of North Haven lies the island of Vinalhaven, the name of which has nothing to do with long chain polymers.  It’s actually named after a gentleman named John Vinal.    On the Northeast side of Vinalhaven lies the entrance to Winter Harbor and Seal Bay.  If you take a left on entering you can pick your way among the rocks and channels into Seal Bay.

Sunset on Seal Bay

Seal Bay will get some more detail since we spent two nights and the better part of three days there.  Remote and secluded the bay is home to a variety of wildlife.  In our stay there we saw (as you may guess) loads of seals, osprey, bald eagles, and more more swimming and diving birds than we could keep track of.

The bay has a number of smaller islands and inlets with lots of room for exploring.  Nearby Winter Harbor is reachable by dinghy with a completely different aspect to it’s rugged natural beauty.  High cliffs and boulders instead of tall trees and shaggy shores.

Some of our adventures there included the aforementioned dinghy tours, reaching places at high tide you couldn’t go through at low (ten foot tidal swings will do that) and the reverse – climbing on places covered by the tide.  One of the islands allowed for camping, so the kids took a tent ashore and spent the night on a tiny little island, something they’d dreamed about doing and prepared for of course by actually bringing a tent.  A couple of days of rest and relaxation, sight seeing, relative solitude (except for ONE awful boatload of people that came to the end of nowhere to whoop it up like they were tailgating for an Eagles game) and quiet meals on the boat.

And seals.  Lots and lots of seals.

To Be Continued….

Posted in Maine, Pulpit, Seal Harbor, Seals | 2 Comments

Rainy in Rockland

On Oct 21st, 2010 Published By B.J.

But still a good time.

On making landfall in Maine at Tenant’s Harbor we promptly…went to bed.  Hey, we were up all night.  But we did get up after a few hours and go ashore.  It’s a small place with not a lot in walking distance from the docks but still nice.  We saw our first harbor seal to the delight of all, and saw several of them as we motored around the harbor.  After dinner in “town” (at least I think it was town, sometimes approaching someplace from the water you sort of miss the “town” if you don’t walk far enough)  and some walking about in the misty rain we decided perhaps this was not a long term stopover, especially as it was supposed to rain in another day or so and there wasn’t a lot around to do.

After consulting the cruising guides and making our best guess at the weather we figured that Rockland had enough going on for us to weather out the rain.  Heading out on Tuesday morning we decided a trip up the colorfully named “Muscle Ridge Channel” was the best way to go.  That turned out to be a good choice.  Though narrow and twisty in parts eventually it widened enough and the wind cooperated to be able to set some sail.  It is a beautiful and scenic passage, and the view of Owl’s Head Light was spectacular.  Outside of dodging approximately 347,000 lobster pots on the roughly eight mile trip it was uneventful and pleasant.

Rockland gave us our first feel for how much more informal things are in Maine.  We decided to pick up a mooring (unusual for us) because we didn’t like the incoming weather or the anchoring options.  Our first attempts to call for a mooring over VHF failed, and we finally reached Beggar’s Wharf Marina via cell phone.  As it turns out they didn’t have anyone in Rockland that day but I spoke with the owner who gave me directions to an empty mooring and we made payment arrangements.  We never actually met, and I never laid eyes on anyone from Beggar’s Wharf but we managed to hand off everything.  As the name might lead you to believe it’s not a fancy place but there are heads & showers if you need them, and a “lounge” where you can play foosball & pool and surf the web on Clinton-era PC’s that do work.  And their moorings are reasonable and I received a ton of good local information from the gentleman I spoke with.

Rockland has some decent places to eat and some nice museums.  We availed ourselves to a number of these on Wednesday when the rain came down in a vengeance.  We visited the Puffin Project which was interesting (if small), the Farnsworth Art Museum and the Rockland Lighthouse Museum.

I’m not an art guy at all, in fact my appreciation for art is in general only marginally more enlightened than Beavis and Butthead watching music videos (“ooh, nice hanging dead fish…aah, nice fat guy in a ruffled collar” was the gist of my running mental commentary walking through the Louvre).  Generally, it’s not my thing especially paintings.  But the Farnsworth was still a cool place, there’s a lot of local Maine flavor and some nice Wyeth galleries there (I like Wyeth…his paintings look like things and are pretty, which is helpful for the art ignoramus like me who is left cold by the more esoteric stuff).  I especially liked the “studies” from Wyeth where you could see his work in progress from the sketches that became some of the finished works in the gallery.

The Rockland Lighthouse Museum is more my speed.  I actually learned how a Fresnel lens worked which is a cool bit of physics I won’t get into here – suffice it to say ingenious for the time it was invented and what it did.  It’s a fascinating place with a lot of good background on the how’s and why’s of our government navigational systems and I recommend it to any mariner.

We ended the day racing through the rain, arriving soaked to the skin at the Beggar’s Wharf building.  While we waited for the rain to abate (it never did…) we warmed up inside playing foosball and pool by the light of the Christmas strings run all over the building.  It was fun family time – really an unexpected hour of hard laughs and good times with the kids and in many was the highlight of the day.

Posted in Maine, Rockland, Tenant's Harbor | Comments Off on Rainy in Rockland

Getting There is Half the Fun

On Oct 19th, 2010 Published By B.J.

Or maybe “Well That Wasn’t so Bad After All”.

Although I’d taken Evenstar off shore and out of sight of land when she came home from Florida that was done with seven other friends, several of whom had off shore delivery experience.  Back then I didn’t know the boat and how to handle her as well as I do now, but having others around that seem like they know what they are doing is a big confidence builder.  While we were well over 100 miles off shore on that trip we’d not likely go more than 30 miles offshore on this one – but out of sight of land it looks the same wither way.

After throwing around ideas for getting Evenstar to Maine early to maximize our cruising time there we decided that it would be best if we brought her ourselves.  We certainly could use the experience and logistically it was becoming quite difficult to get my act together to have the boat ready to go a week earlier for delivery with everything else that was going on.  The call was made to take her ourselves, stopping in Provincetown on route to break the trip up.

Due to a commitment on the Friday before departure we weren’t able to leave until Saturday morning, which as it turned out worked out better with the Cape Code Canal currents.  Getting to Provincetown was an uneventful, almost dull trip under power.  Light winds either in our face or nonexistent the whole way there.  We’d invited our parents to meet us there for dinner at the Lobster Pot, which in spite of the exterior that screams “Tourist Trap” in huge red neon cooks one of the best bake stuffed lobsters I’ve ever had in a restaurant and I knew my father had to try it.

After a nice brunch with my parents on Sunday they left for home and we headed back to the boat.  Our plan was to leave around 2:00 (1400 in non-lubber time) in order that we arrive at mid morning.  Coming into a completely unfamiliar harbor after a long trip in the dark was not something we had any desire to do.  The winds were picking up throughout the day, and a storm was predicted to come through Provincetown that night so we were happy to leave.

With predicted 15 knot winds from the East that were supposed to turn more Northerly towards morning we hoped to be reaching for most of the trip.  The stay sail was rigged and ready on deck as we headed around the tip of P-Town.  For the non sailing readers – the staysail is a smaller sail that goes inside the large head sail on the front.  It is very useful when heading across the wind, but not too useful heading down wind and can actually be quite a hindrance when trying to sail up wind as it does not let you sail as close to the wind.

As we rounded Provincetown and got on our course for Maine the wind was perfect, an easy 15 knots with some stronger gusts right on the beam of the boat.  With all sails set we took off and were easily able to maintain eight knots of speed or more across the Stellwagon Bank.

We were fortunate to see at least half a dozen Humpback Whales as we were crossing Stellwagon, but they were pretty far off in the distance.  The children were thrilled though and kept a sharp lookout for hours for any sign of whales and dolphins.  Although Humpbacks are known to be curious and friendly this time they just weren’t interested in checking us out.

The breeze held nicely as night fell, and the adults began switching off who was on “watch” although neither of us really left the cockpit.  There is a distinct advantage to sharing an overnight passage with an Obstetrician – unlike me she’s used to being functional all night.  As the night progressed the wind began to build, we reduced some sail and still were flying along averaging eight knots through the moonless night.  Throughout the night the wind did vary in strength, sometimes causing us to shorten sail other times dropping our speed and making us let out more sail area.  One really nice thing about Evenstar’s setup is with a furling main and a furling jib reefing (make the sails smaller) is something really easy to do without leaving the cockpit so you think nothing of it.  The only sail we’d need to leave the cockpit to deal with was the staysail.

As the night wore on we saw very little traffic, a few commercial ships but nothing ever close.  The most interesting was playing ring-around-the-rosy with a fishing boat.  This particular boat visible for miles with it’s bright lights, so much so that we thought for a while it was a private signal buoy we expected to see out in the middle of nowhere.  As we got closer the buoy kept…moving.  Steering a boat straight under sail in the dark on a moonless night with 4-6 foot waves is not as easy as it sounds, and in the dark the autopilot is generally better at it than I am since it doesn’t have to keep looking at the compass.  With no frame of reference it’s easy to get disoriented.  So when you CAN see something like a buoy you get very excited because you can look at it and use it to check your course.

Unless that buoy is actively setting and retrieving nets.

As we got within a couple of miles we began to suspect this wasn’t a buoy so we started taking evasive action.    And he kept turning at, making “crazy Ivan” turns back and forth.  Of course this is normal fishing behavior that I saw on the trip back from Florida, but it doesn’t make it any less disconcerting at 2:00 in the morning!

About 5:00 in the morning the wind finally started to veer North.  It was at this point that the staysail became a problem.  We’d entered into the area where the North Atlantic and the outflow from Penobscot Bay were starting to mix together and turning into a very confused sea state.  With the wind swinging North, for the first time we could no longer hold our course and maintain sail.  The problem was they staysail – with it up you lose some of your “point”, the ability to sail close to the wind efficiently.  So just when we need to point we couldn’t do it so well and we were losing speed.  With an hour and a half or so to go until the sun came up it just didn’t make sense to go out on the foredeck an pull the sail down on the dark, pitching deck.  So we sailed as best we could until the sun came up then ventured up to the spray and foam covered foredeck to douse the staysail and secure it.

The wind still continued to head us (swing the wrong way!), so with about an hour and half left to go we dropped the sails and pointed the boat dead upwind under power.  With all the chop and slop it wasn’t fast, but we were close enough and had sailed 90% of the way.

Then the lobster pots started.  This was our first experience with Maine lobster parts.  We have pots around here, and they’ve always seemed a nuisance.  After two weeks in Maine I have to force myself to remember that we even have pots here in Rhode Island.  Based on the density of lobster pots in the Maine waters one can only conclude that there must be spots where the entire bottom of the ocean is just a crawling and scuttling carpet of lobsters on the march.

Eventually we worked it out, four pairs of eyes make it a lot easier to see them and they are sort of in lines you can thread your way between.  Sort of.

We finally pulled in to Tenant’s Harbor around 9:30 a.m., pretty much as predicted, and picked up a mooring, grabbed some breakfast and settled in for a nice long nap.

Overall – a fun, fast trip  with minimal fuss.

Posted in Cape Cod Canal, Maine, Off Shore, Tenant's Harbor | Comments Off on Getting There is Half the Fun

Finally…the Great Maine Expedition Report is forthcoming

On Oct 18th, 2010 Published By B.J.

It’s not like it’s a month and half late or anything.  OK, maybe it is, we did get back on Labor Day weekend and here it is mid October.

Finally with the kids back from school, the boat back from Maine and the sailing season winding down I’ve finally taken the time to load all the pictures and give this all some thought.  So finally in little dribs and drabs, it’s coming but I’ll start with an over overview then get into some more specifics on each trip and destination in further posts.

The Plan for this trip had been formulating for some time, close to a year since I finally browbeat my wife into taking two solid weeks of vacation off at the end of the summer.  All of this advance planning meant one thing of course – we had very little plan of where we’d actually be going and when.  Sort of a vague “yeah let’s start around here and head that way” approach which we carried almost until the departure time arrived.  Given our lack of experience in Maine and with traveling long distances together as a family this seemed wise.  Of course our initial landfall location changed several times in the last week from Portland to Boothbay Harbor to Tenant’s Harbor to Mt. Desert Island and back and forth.

For our final itinerary we decided to make landfall at Tenant’s Harbor on the West side of Penobscot Bay.  We didn’t want to do this in one long trip from East Greenwich so we opted to make Provincetown the first day then leave the following afternoon or an overnight trip, arriving in Maine well after sunrise.

After Tenant’s we moved to Rockland in anticipation of a day or two of rainy weather, then headed on to Pulpit then Seal Harbor.  Our eventual plan was to work our way to Mt. Desert Island  and spend a few days there, then start working our way back before leaving for the long trip home.  When we arrived in Northeast Harbor we found that we were being stalked by Hurricane Earl which was expected to come up the New England coast the same day we were planning to be sailing down it.  As posted earlier, this led to a longer than expected stay in Northeast Harbor as we opted to weather the storm out there.

As it turned out the storm was a major fizzle and we were perhaps a bit over cautious.  But c’est la vie; we don’t regret the extra time on Mt. Desert Island at all (though perhaps our harbor choices might be different next time…).

With the notable exception of Hurricane Earl and one day of rain in Rockland we had stunning weather, a heat wave for Maine even.  My extensive electronics overhaul served to guarantee us an essentially fog free trip – in fact the only fog we saw was on the evening the hurricane passed through.  The lobster pots were mind blowing in their number but without the fog they weren’t so bad.

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Posted in Maine | Comments Off on Finally…the Great Maine Expedition Report is forthcoming