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You are welcome to apply any part of this article to your own personal use. Please do NOT publish any part of the article or apply any part of it to any non-personal use without the express written concent of the author.
The twenty-hour passage to Portland, Maine, was for the most part uneventful. "Don't NOAA" called for broad-reaching winds into the low twenties for the first part, slightly lighter for the second part. But we only saw occasional gusts as high as the low teens, and DDW (dead down wind) the entire way. We did get in a few hours of sailing in the afternoon, but after that we could barely maintain steerage. This necessitated motorsailing if we wanted to arrive before a week from Tuesday.
As we sailed we watched the water temperature go down, finally reaching the low fifties. Although it was early July, as the sun went down we donned our woollies for warmth and the foullies to keep out the wind. Having not been out of the tropics for the past several years, what little wind there was seemed to have quite a bite to it.
As we approached Cape Elizabeth shortly after sunrise we were welcomed to Maine by her infamous fog. Fog, fog, fog... Thick as a wooly blanket. Visibility was down to about fifty yards, yet we were in bright sunlight. This blanket must have been all of maybe thirty feet thick.
Radar is a wonderful invention. It would be even better if it could show us fiberglass boats. Most of the "lobstah" boats are glass, and none showed up as we wove through the maze of buoys marking their traps. Maybe a dozen or so materialized out of the fog, then disapated just as ethereally. Our only warning was the sound of their engines, as none were using fog signals. While hair-raising, it was not really dangerous. Mostly they were pulling and setting pots, so they weren't moving and we could dodge them easily.
We did have one scare. Without any warning, one yacht came blasting out of the fog. He was going well over ten knots. Maybe he saw us on his radar, but we never saw him. If his course were just a dozen or so yards to his port, he would have run us down and we couldn't have done anything to avoid the collision.
Coming into Portland was relatively easy, the fog notwithstanding. The channel buoys show up on radar and there's plenty of room for everyone, even the lobstermen working their pots in the channel. The fog began to separate into patches as we entered the channel, leaving us mostly with fine visibility.
We picked up a mooring at the Centerboard Yacht Club, very conveniently located and relatively inexpensive. The mooring costs $25 per day, including showers ashore and a free launch service to the clubhouse or to the Portland Waterfront on the other side of the channel.
The cruising guides give Portland five stars. We agree. It's a major commercial and fishing port, creating a wealth of establishments catering to boats of all sizes, from dinghies to ships. And all are conveniently located down at the waterfront. The port, having gone through some dire times in the fifties and sixties, has come through revitalized. The waterfront is now a major tourist destination with many high quality yet reasonably priced restaurants. One eatery is called $3 Deweys, named for the bar girls of a bygone age ("Hey, mister. You like me? $1 lookey. $2 feeley. $3 dewey."). For train buffs there's a narrow-gauge railroad museum with a couple of miles of track and an hourly schedule for rides. And for cold and weary sailors, there's even a hot tub and massage place.
One of the challenges of owning an older boat is that some of the equipment, top-of-the-line when she was built, is from manufactures no longer in business. Obtaining replacement parts and service for such is problematic. Our watermaker is one such critter. Part of our reason for coming to Portland was to find a replacement part for our watermaker. So after cleanup and a short nap we caught a ride from a Centerboard Yacht Club member over to the waterfront. In checking with one of the local boatyards over there we found someone who pointed us to a business in Newport, Rhode Island. We called. Yes, they had access to what we needed through an unnamed California company and the part would be shipped to us at the yacht club in a few days.
Returning to the club, we were met by our friend Michael whom we haven't seen since our Bahamas cruise back in 1993. Unfortunately his wife, Sarah, has been fighting a horrible case of bronchitis and was not up to receiving visitors. Hopefully we'll be able to see her on our return leg. The weather had cleared so we were treated by Michael to a Cook's Tour of local lighthouses, one of his passions. He's even on the Board of Trustees for one of the lights in the harbor.
Tuesday was cool, gray and drizzly. The day was spent being tourists. For the morning we walked the two miles to Michael's light and visited a museum there containing remnants of the last of the wooden clipper ships, the Snow Squall. After a fine lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant we found on our walk, we took the launch over to the Portland waterfront. There we stumbled onto the Train Museum while looking for a chandlery, stepped inside out of the rain and were caught up in the exhibits. Of course we had to take a ride as the tracks run along the waterfront. After visiting the chandlery and dinner in a wonderful Irish restaurant and pub, we warmed our bones in a hot tub and treated ourselves to a massage.
Wednesday was reserved for boat projects. While running boat systems the bilge alarm came on. The problem was traced to a failed fitting on the water heater. It was one of those places reachable only with one hand, and then only after contorting into a most difficult position. Once the errant piece was removed we hustled up the launch for a ride to the waterfront and hunted up the chandlery for a replacement. After lunch the replacement was installed and the bilge was cleaned and dried. [We keep our bilge dry, as Volant is steel and water inside a steel boat is not a good thing.]
After dinner, we turned our attention to planning our passage to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. We had found a Canadian publication in one of the shops on the waterfront that graphically shows the tidal currents in the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy. There's one graph for each hour following high and low water at Saint John, New Brunswick. We laid out our track, then broke it up into one-hour segments. For each segment we'd check the corresponding graph to see what the current would be doing then at that location. As it turns out, by leaving Saturday morning with the ebb tide (first light) we'll be relatively unaffected by the tidal currents until the last half day.
Thursday the sun came out, revealing Portland in her red brick splendor. She's beautiful when she reveals herself. We had an enjoyable morning, catching the launch to the waterfront, walking to the Museum of Art, then doing some grocery shopping before returning to the boat by launch.
The watermaker part arrived in the late afternoon. Good news and bad news... It was the right part, but the wrong size. A quick telephone call to the supplier resolved all. The correct part arrived on Friday morning and was installed forthwith.
In listening to the weather reports as part of our planning, I was struck by Perfect Paul's accent. Perfect Paul is the synthesized voice that's used by NOAA for broadcasting. While understandable, his voice is normally a bit clipped. Up here in Down East Maine, he's been given a local accent. It gives me a chuckle every time he reports in his clipped voice the conditions in "Bah Hahbah" and other locales, dropping his 'R's.
The watermaker part arrived in the late afternoon. Good news and bad news... It was the right part, but the wrong size. A quick telephone call to the supplier resolved all. The correct part arrived on Friday morning and was installed forthwith.
This afternoon we'll top up our tanks. Tonight we'll post to the web site. Tomorrow at first light we leave for Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.
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