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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 Please do NOT publish any part of the article or apply any part of it to any non-personal use without the express written concent of the author.
On arrival in Rockland, Maine, we took up a mooring and called the brother of a friend from our sailing club in Ft. Lauderdale. The brother, Mark, lives here with his wife, Maura, and two boys. Sure, they'd love to see us. Mark and the boys met us at the dock and took us to their home for dinner.
Mark works for a marine architect in the area, so with his connections we were able to come to the dock as guests for the next two days.
The first day we spent aboard doing boat chores and had Mark, Maura and the boys aboard Volant for dinner. As they were leaving in the morning for a quick vacation to Nova Scotia, they were interested in our experiences during our visit. They also offered us the use of their car while they were gone. We accepted as we still wanted to go up to Searsport to see the Penobscot Marine Museum.
So the second day was spent being tourists. We first drove up to Searsport and spent a wonderful few hours touring the museum. It's really well done, including some demonstrations of square-rigged sail handling. Kit and I were the only people at the demonstration that morning, so we were treated to a private audience by the Director of Education for the museum. Definitely a treat!
On the way back we drove to the top of Mt. Battie. We couldn't see as many places from there as we would have liked, as there were fog patches scattered throughout Penobscot Bay. Yet the fog brings an etherealness to the landscape as wispy fingers reach out to touch the next spot but never quite make it.
The town of Camden was next. There we visited Mark's office, getting an idea as to how yachts are designed. The town itself was one of these touristy places where every fourth shop was some sort of ethnic restaurant and those remaining were mostly galleries, antique shops or tee-shirt emporiums. One walk through the downtown area was enough for us. It was pretty, but not our cup of tea.
Wednesday was a very full day. In the morning we went to Mark and Maura's house to post our most recent logs to the web site as pre-arranged with them. Returning their car to the marina where they'd pick it up on their return from Nova Scotia, we walked to the Farnsworth Library and Art Museum. The Farnsworth is known for its collection of work by the Wyeth family. Their current focus was on work by John McCoy, the brother-in-law of Andrew Wyeth. It was very well done, but almost too much to absorb during our short visit.
It was well after lunch before we could get under way. So we selected nearby Tenant's Harbor as a staging place for the night. It was a beautiful evening in an almost totally land-locked harbor and very few boats anchored nearby.
Early Thursday morning we were on our way. At first we motored as the wind was so light. The lobster buoys were so thick in some areas that we couldn't chance sailing even if the wind were cooperating. But by early afternoon we were far enough out of the fields of lobster buoys that we could sail if we wanted, and the wind began to cooperate. So we set the jib and main, shutting down the iron stays'l. The wind was mostly just forward of the beam under ten knots. The seas were flat. Otto von Stearer, our erstwhile autopilot, took over steering chores. All we had to do was to keep watch... enjoy... appreciate... and relaaaaax... and dodge the occasional lobster buoy.
Our destination was Jewel Island. Jewel has a small but well protected harbor. The weather prognosticators were calling for a weather front to pass through in a day or maybe two, bringing upwards of twenty-five knot winds as it passes. So a secure anchorage sounded pretty enticing to us. As we approached Jewel Island the winds increased, gusting as high as fifteen knots and shifting slightly. The wind shifts coincided with our need to change course, so there was very little sail adjusting required. But the frequency of lobster buoys was increasing as well, so we had to increase our vigilance. So much for relaxing...
Barely a mile from the island, we fired up the iron stays'l and secured the jib and main. Motoring into the anchorage, we saw we weren't the first there. But there was room and the anchor set on the first try.
Nor were we the last to enter the anchorage. It was Thursday evening. We were only ten miles from Portland. Some folks probably were taking Friday off, stretching the three-day Labor Day weekend into four days, running to their boats right after work and high-tailing it outta town to a nearby anchorage. And Casco Bay has plenty of those. By sunset there were nearly a dozen boats.
The anchorage was as pretty and well protected as advertised. Our neighbors were quiet, keeping mostly to themselves and keeping their stereos low. The moon rose and we went out on deck to watch... and wondered at how we're so blessed to live the life we have.
Just for grins we checked our cell phone. Wow! We were back in digital cell range. We could do email directly from the boat, post to our web site and talk to our family and friends. Suddenly we were back in civilization although we could not see sight nor sound of any habitation except for the boats in the little harbor.
After making a million calls or so to family and friends, I stayed up late pulling in all the email that's been collecting over the past six to seven weeks.
On Friday we spent some time in a planning session, focusing on the next several weeks. We needed to do this so that we could alert our friends between here and the Chesapeake Bay that we might be coming and give them a time frame of about when to expect us. Then we made some of those calls.
Later that day Kit wasn't feeling in top form so we mostly just hunkered down and waited for the weather front. I read while she rested.
Today was mostly spent inside the boat as the front finally passed through. I did some computer work while Kit read and rested some more. By the evening she was back up to par and ready to rock 'n' roll.
So now we are ready to say farewell to Maine. We'll leave tomorrow morning at first light for Portsmouth, New Hampshire. By this time next week we should be in Boston and in the following week in New York City.
So it's an early night tonight... after I update the web site and check email, that is.
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