Penobscot Bay and Mt. Desert

Written lying Northeast Harbor, Mt. Desert Is.

It's been a week since the last post and this one is probably not going out today as Internet service is really weak to non-existant.

Geology geeks will note the subtle curves of this formation.

Anyway, we have put on some miles and are now at the mid-point in our journey.  We will go into Bar Harbor later this week and leave the boat for a week to attend to family and business.

The tides are now over 11 feet but soon they will be 20 and 30.

Merchant Island...our private anchorage.

By far the most secluded cove so far was the one on Merchant Island which is uninhabited.  There is a tiny cove that at low tide is no more than 125 yards across.  Our anchor found a sweet spot and we stayed two wonderful nights.  Beaches and granite gave Bella a lot of space and I later realized nobody had previously reported on this cove to ACTIVECAPTAIN" which is like the ZAGAT of boating.  Gave it four stars as there was no Starbucks.

We treated ourselves to a slip for one night in Southwest Harbor and it was well worth it for the boat really needed to be cleaned up and so did the crew.  This is the home of many old and successful boat builders and as such the joint is loaded with floating eye-candy.  A Hinckley here and a Hinckley there.  We fueled, watered, laundered and shopped.  Then we dashed up Somes Sound which is a very favorite place for us.  It is not unlike a fjord about 6 miles long with the heights of Mt Desert Island on both sides and depths over 300 feet.

Somesville street scene and a granite flower box.

The Somesville Museum and memorial bridge.

Did I mention Somesville.  So sweet.  I have no clue how few people live here, but those that do have some wonderful 18^th and 19^th century homes, gardens and landscapes.  We tried to capture them here.  The pics here are of the Furniture Gallery (a cabinet for $60k, a pool table for $25k and so on. ) So while this place is isolated it is obviously well populated with deep pockets and the gallery gave us some insight to the culture as did the Arcadia Repertory down the road.  This is rural folks, and yet not.  The homes on the shores of the Sound are McMansions of the first order.  

Need a bench for the hallway?  $17,000!  We considered but it was sold.

Then we moved on to Northeast Harbor on Mt Desert and our last stop will be at the Woodenboat School where we have always had a great time.

When we return from the break we will turn east and leave most communication and settled shoreline behind.   There is very little until the Canadian line.  We must fuel for the leg in both directions as there is no fuel available along the way up or back.  I've crunched the numbers many times.

The blog just passed a milestone in that there have been 1,023 pageviews.  So my sister is doing her job of hitting the link 50 times a day.  

Thanks for tuning in.

 

Dinghy Follies II

Written lying Pulpit Harbor, North Haven Is.

It's raining today for the first time in over two weeks, but this harbor is definitely the place to be for sitting it out.  The harbor is virtually landlocked and among the must-see places in Maine.  We are surrounded by Friendship Sloops and other very kewl yachts.

Exemplary Friendship Sloop "BAY LADY" 

Anyway...Regular readers here will recall our being busted for dinghy infractions in Glosta.  We have done it again.  There we were in Boothbay Harbor.  Gorgeous day, and we had been in town doing errands.  We returned and were settling into the wine hour with Hob Nob and Clois duBois.  A dinghy with a salty looking guy pulls up and asks where our dinghy is.  This is my first alert that it might not be tied to CODA.  Sure enough it has floated away and this guy knows where it is.  He offers to take me to it which I humbly accept.  It is now tied to the public pier and being guarded by two Coasties.  He drops me off and high-tails it before this gets more dicey.  The coasties want to know if anyone was in it.  I said yes there had been two infants and their mother....NOT.  But after I assured them it is a willful boat that is prone to attracting the fuzz they rolled their eyes and left me to my dubious devices.  By now there is a small audience for this entertainment.  People in a restaurant, people in boats, and tourists who all obviously thought this was just great fun.  See the silly old man and his wayward dinghy!!!!!  I expressed to all that I was happy to have made their day and left as fast as I could; to applause actually from one boat.  My children are now rolling THEIR eyes.

Our dinghy trials were competing with these entertainers for gawking.

We went on to Long Cove, and then Rockland for a music festival before mooring here yesterday.  Thought we would leave today, but it just feels ok to stay another day.  Met a couple, Jim and Cynthia, from Annapolis on board NEVERLAND (Crealock 34 cutter) who are doing about the same thing we are and had a great evening with them last night.   Might this be our buddy boat?  Stay tuned.

The Cabot family boatshop and railway.  Yes those Cabots.

Islands are a big deal up here.  One of the more popular names for islands is TWO BUSH.  Now none of them have any bushes so I guess this is a very old name and that the bushes were extant at some point back in the 1800s and likely died off for lack of proper pruning.  Island names (nobody knows how many islands there are in Maine) are either utterly unoriginal (LONG, LOVE, LITTLE, AND LOBSTER being rampant) or totally inscrutable as in NIGH DUCK, PATTISHALL, and KNUGGLE.  It affords imaginations great opportunity to define them.  I particularly liked working with pattishall.

Verizon is becoming more scarce, but we will ultimately lose it after Bar Harbor so this and one more post are likely to be it for a awhile.  Uploading photos is now a very tricky and long deal.  But your earnest reporter perseveres. 

Well that's enough of my ramblings for this post.  On to Winter Cove in VINALHAVEN IS.

Pics tell the story.

Written while lying Love Cove off the Sheepscott River.  

CODA in Snow Island Anchorage

Snow Island was the home of the late great Dodge Morgan.  Dodge was a hero to many.  He invented the Whisler Radar Dectector in the '70's, then became a newspaper publisher, and then did a solo, non-stop circumnavigation at the age of 58.  His record of 151 days still stands.  In 2010 we had been set to meet him, just three weeks before he died.  This was an entirely peaceful two-night stay with great food, swimming, and dinghy rides.  Somebody has to do it.

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Bella supervises scrubbing of the dinghy bottom.

A terrific squall with winds up to 40 in Biddeford Pool.

Milly captured this in one of our anchorages.

We are presently moored in Love Cove near Boothbay, Me.  and we are really poking along, but just can't pass by these wonderful harbors and coves.  We will go into Boothbay tomorrow to pick up the mail and some odds and ends.  Then push on further downeast.  Weather has been extraordinary, and the crew is very content.  Boat running well.  Intent now is to gunkhole to Bar Harbor by the end of July.  Then take a short break before heading out to the really remote downeast region.  

Portland provisioning stop was the pits.  Brutally hot and errands to run all over town in a very short period of time.  Marina was expensive and not that great.  Anyway we then went out to Great Diamond Island to recover for a day before pushing on to Snow Island and now Love Cove.

Tomorrow on to Boothbay for just one night and out into the Penobscot Bay region where there are so many wonderful places to anchor.

Life out here and the little things

Written while lying in Biddeford Pool, Me. just south of Portland.

This little place is, in Milly's words, bucolic.  I think it is charming, and Bella thinks its great because she got a great run and swim on the low-tide sand bars.   Bella and I just drove the dinghy up on the bar and out we go. Play time.  No pictures, you'll have to work with me on this.The bars are a couple of miles long and just perfect sand.  It is a remote little place and therefore sweet and entirely likable.  Little things that work are important out here.  Cooking peppers on a grill is a little thing, but out here it is special when it works.  

We have always stopped here because it is well protected from the Atlantic and indeed does offer a lot of old village atmosphere.  I doubt there are 500 residents now and less in winter.  It is so special I paid $6 for a baguette that was pedestrian at best.  One cut above wonder bread.  I registered my disappointment the next day with the shop owner who replied that she was surprised as "everyone raves about it".  My feeling is that if you have the audacity to charge $6 for a baguette it should be screaming wow...this bread is out of this world.  You could also question my wisdom in paying the price to begin with.  I do.

An estate on the edge of Biddeford Pool

Tonight we are moored with a few other boats and sitting through some major rain and thunder storms. Milly, in her wisdom, prepared (weeks ago) a classic french cassoulet for us and then froze it in containers for two portions.  So with some snow peas and that charming local bread we had a wonderful dinner during the deluge.  Mil is very good at this.  Our freezer holds many of these treats.  Milly is very good at most things out here.  I am a lucky man.

Little things come into the fore when there is no TV or internet, and just the two of us to entertain each other.  For example today I cleaned the head.  A little thing, but Milly was thrilled.  It is gleaming white and fresh again.    I do this at home also to no applause and often a comment about "its about time", but out here it takes on new import and I am a hero.  I have a special technique, but it is a little secret.

And two days ago I finally cleaned all the port lites.  Now we can actually see out of our stateroom (that's boatese for bedroom).  Before all you could see was old salt caked on the lite.  This is a big deal. Now I will know if the sun is up or not.  I wish I could clean something that tells me what day it is.

I severed my Achilles heel two years ago.  While doing the sand bar thing with Bella, I tried to run.  And for the first time in two years I actually did something resembling running.  Well, more like a jerky jog that looked like a very old man avoiding a cab on 7th Avenue while jaywalking.  So another little thing that is magnified by doing it on a sand bar in Biddeford Pool.

We have just done a lot of study of the Maine Coast up to Campobello and the Canadian border.  It is challenging to choose which harbors to bypass and which to enter.  So many choices....so little time.  Our plan is taking shape and oops....be right back....small gale/squall just blew through....a not so little thing.  Anyway, a few parameters are in place.  We will spend the next couple of weeks gunkholing (I love that word...it means meandering between harbors with no particular destination or serious intent of purpose)  from here to Bar Harbor.  Beyond that, who knows.  Such as weather, crew happiness, and the little things will determine how far downeast we go.

On to Portland to provision...then out to the little harbors with all their charm.

Oh, Rockport

The famous "Motif 1" built in 1848 and rebuilt 3 times.

One of the reasons we do this is to discover harbors, waterfront towns and the people who live and work in them.  They are usually quite different from inland cities.  Cape Ann sits out to sea off the Massachusetts coastline and is often bypassed by many cruisers who come up from southern Massachusetts and duck into the Anisquam River at Gloucester to save the time of rounding Cape Ann.  We have done just that in the past, but not this time and boy were we rewarded.

The tide out in the inner harbor at Rockport.

It was an easy choice as it is only a scant 11 nautical miles from Gloucester ands positioned us nicely to turn sharply north for Maine with nothing but blue and deep water in front of us.  So in we went and picked up a float in the tiny, really tiny, harbor.  The greeting was very warm from all and we soon settled in right in front of the Sandy Bay Yacht Club.  We shared the float with two other boats and made their quick aquaintance.  Bella walked and swam more than she has in two weeks so she was very very happy if not also a tired puppy.   

To sum up Rockport we intended to stay one night, but eventually left after 4 wonderful days.  Rockport is almost unique in that it has no bars or package stores.  To get a glass of wine you must order a meal first.  And even that became a norm only 5 years ago.  The result is a town that markets its famous arts and sailing scene to families instead of party crowds (as we do in Newport).  There must be over 15 art galleries, and many upscale and locally owned shops.  Do not miss the cinnamon donuts at Brothers Brew.  

We walked a lot and took in the quaint neighborhoods.  The local lobster fleet is something to behold.  Out at 5am and in at noon with huge harvests that were unloaded about 200 feet from our rear deck.  Hundreds of pounds per boat every day.

Chamber group in rehearsal

If I did not love Newport so much I would choose Rockport.  It's that good.  They have a Performance Center that is to just die for if you love contemporary architecture ($20mm all private money).   The stage sits in front of a massive glass two-story wall that looks out on Sandy Bay.  We took in the rehearsal of a chamber music ensemble and sat directly over the stage.  Great fun hearing the musicians carefully nudge each other to make changes.

These guys wanted to share their equipment with everyone...very kewl.

Those of you who are within a drive of Rockport....go.  We think you will really enjoy it.

After finally throwing off the lines in Rockport we set our course for the Isle of Shoals where we stayed for two nights at anchor in a small basin.  These islands are small ledge outcroppings where maybe 25 people live year round. They are situated about 10 miles offshore across from Portsmouth, NH. The Star Island Center is here.  It is a large old hotel used by many for religious (primarily Unitarians) retreats and conferences.  Very old (1895), and very spartan.  Lights out at 11 and that sort of thing.  But when was the last time you saw 10 teenagers playing cards and loving it.  We heard the whole place come alive at 9pm with a medley of Beatles songs.  No internet, or phones.  There were probably 200 people here this weekend.  All meals served in a huge old dining room.  One seating, no menu, just family style eating.

The Atlantic from the porch of the main building at Star Island

Nice sail and power rigs came in during our stay, but thus far we have yet to meet a "buddy" boat crew.  

We are a happy crew and really relaxed after Rockport.  Bella has adapted well at this point and, although a high-maintenance crew member, she is a joy.  Actually we are her crew.

Next up is Biddeford Pool before we go into Portland for supplies and fuel.  

Busted.....in Glosta

Written while lying Isle of Shoals in Maine

A week ago we pulled into Gloucester, Ma after a lovely day cruise up from Scituate.  "Glosta" is a unique harbor for its diverse waterfront and history.  This is where "The Perfect Storm" was filmed and was the home port of the boats lost in that storm.  It is a rough-edges type of scene and remains a fully working fishing port.  All that Gorton stuff comes from here.  They basically own the town.

After picking up a mooring in the inner harbor we took the dinghy out for a "toot" to check out the scene and to look for the "Rudder" a great local eatery.  And that's when we were stopped by the local Environmental Cops.  Our dinghy is brand new and yours truly had not yet applied our registration numbers on the hulls.  The absence of these numbers tends to attract the attention of these kinds of guys.  So with Bella trying to board THEIR boat we we were cited for the followoing:

No life jackets
No registration numbers on the hull
No bailer
No anchor
No registration card aboard
No Kleenexes
No Deodorant
and so on

All this fuss over a 9 foot boat with a four horse engine.  I could be more embarrassed, but I am not sure how.  We are documented, registered, laden with safety equipment, and both of us are CPR trained, I am a licensed Captain, and then this....Made their day I think.

I did my best "oh gosh, did we do that?" routine, and so we got off wtih a warning ticket.  Of course, it was really Bella that saved our bacon.

More to come soon, but the weather, harbors and cruising has all been very good and mostly problem free.

Dinner at the Rudder was really good and really pricey.  The cops came in while we were there...just kidding.

On to Rockportt....