Casco Bay to North Haven

While waiting out Irene on North Haven, I thought this would be a good time to bring all up to date on our travel from the Basin in Casco Bay to our present location. A later blog will provide a report on how we managed during this storm.

We spent two nights at the Basin and found it to be a really quiet attractive spot. On the second night there were eleven other boats at anchor, but nobody tried to crowd us. That was in part due to the fact that we had chosen a spot with nearly 30 feet of water at low tide. It seems that people won't anchor with that depth if they can avoid doing so. We had plenty of chain and an electric windless, so it worked for us.

Lobster buoys are everywhere. In some places we've traveled already we've passed through areas where there would be more than 8 buoys floating within a few boat lengths of us. We had good visibility, so working our way through the maize was not difficult, however. There were plenty of traps in the Basin as well. That worked to our advantage when I asked about buying a couple of lobsters from one of the lobstermen. No problem - $10 for the pair. They were delicious, fresh and sweet.

From the Basin, we moved to a nearby resort called Sebasco. For a price they offer moorings to boaters and complete access to the resort. We'd been here several times a number of years ago while we were doing all our sailing in Casco Bay. Once again we enjoyed our stay and met another sailing couple who had recently become full-time liveaboards. They are heading south for the first time, so we could offer a bit of help. They'd done lots of sailing in downeast Maine, so they were helpful to us as well.

On their advice, after two nights we left Casco Bay and sailed up to Port Clyde, a perfect example of a coastal working port with some support for tourists as well. After walking out to the lighthouse which protects the harbor, we enjoyed a great meal in town and then retired to the boat for the night.

The next day we sailed into Penobscot Bay and headed for a well-known anchorage called Pulpit Harbor on the island of North Haven. However upon arrival, we found all the best anchorage areas either full of boats or private moorings. We found this frustrating and sailed back out. It was an interesting harbor, but didn't seem to live up to its reputation. We then sailed around to the Fox Island Thoroughfare, a protected route between North Haven and Vinalhaven. We headed toward Seal Cove about a mile from the docks at North Haven. This turned out to be a beautiful spot. We enjoyed kayaking around some islands while being watched by a seal, and numerous birds. Sandra took lots of photos. We could imagine spending several days kayaking in this area. Our new friends from our Sebasco stay told us of another anchorage not far away that could keep us busy for another several days.

The town of North Haven has only about 300 year round residents, most of whom are working lobstermen or otherwise connected to the water. A few of the summer residents rank among the wealthy elite, however. There is one grocery store and only a two restaurants plus a snack bar. Galleries are more numerous, as the island attracts many artists. In some ways, the community takes you back 50 years. We're told that its important to wave to cars as they go by. Not to do so is just impolite. Everyone appears friendly and helpful. Nobody locks their doors, and many apparently leave their keys in their vehicles. It's that kind of place. Since we had to wait out a storm, we find this to be a really pleasant, beautiful place to do so.

Captain Bob

Carpe Diem

Preparing for Irene

Who would suspect that a sailing summer in Maine should include preparing for a hurricane? Of course, we should know that it is possible. Years ago when we had a boat moored in Casco Bay and still lived in New Hampshire, we had to worry about Hurricane Bob. Two years ago we were back up here and another hurricane threatened us. We left the boat on a mooring in Freeport and went to stay with Sam and her family in New Hampshire. That one never materialized, but it appears that Irene will cause some nasty weather up here even if we don't see hurricane force winds.

So what have we done? Well for starters, we knew there was no place we could go to avoid it. We thought we'd look for a harbor and get a mooring to leave the boat on and then seek out a motel for the night or two of the storm. We chose Rockland as the only harbor nearby that has some protection. We tried calling to reserve a mooring, but nobody would bite. The harbormaster in Rockland says that he's getting all boats off moorings, because the harbor doesn't offer enough protection.

We are currently anchored in a cove of Vinalhaven just south of the town of North Haven. For those unfamiliar with Penobscot Bay, North Haven and Vinalhaven are two fairly large islands next to each other. North Haven has a quaint little village that serves summer residents as well as about 300 who live here year round.

This spot is remote in more ways than one. Where we're anchored we get occasional cell phone access, but most of the time we can't get out. We also get no Internet service. When we went in to North Haven, we found one spot by the dock next to a building where we could use our cell phones reliably. That was it. We also get one commercial TV station that drops out regularly. So getting hurricane information is a bit more difficult than we'd like. We actually got some of it from our daughter Jennifer when we called her. The town has a community center with Wifi, so we'll get this blog out in that manner and also get the latest on the storms path. The inn also has Wifi, so we can keep up to date while we're there.

The Harbormaster from Rockland suggested we keep our boat right where it was, since this cove offers some good protection. Not satisfied with that, we took the dinghy over to North Haven to check out possible moorings there. The owner of the moorings wasn't encouraging, since he hadn't checked them in a long while. There is an inn on the island, so we thought we'd at least get off the boat during the worst of the storm. They had some last minute cancellations (no surprise there), so we could get a room for the two nights at a mere $200 each. Well, it's only money, and we're about to celebrate our 43^rd anniversary, so we decided to take the room. In preparation, we'll put down a second anchor with lots of anchor rode for both and close up the boat on Saturday. Then we'll have to find a safe place for the dinghy. Our only issue with the dinghy is that it tends to fill up with water from rain and sink low enough that the outboard gets some salt water where it shouldn't. I'll have to take off the outboard and put it on land somewhere safe. At that point, we'll have done all that we can. We'll just trust that it is enough.

We've got more to share about our recent time along the coast, but I'll add that to a future blog, as I also report on how we fared during Irene.

Captain Bob

Carpe Diem

Back on the Water

We're back on the boat now after an extended time with family here in New England. We put the boat on the mooring at Great Island Boatyard nearly two months ago, and we've only spent a few nights on it since that time. All that is now history, and we are beginning our cruising time on the coast of Maine for at least the next couple of weeks. We spent the first two days on the mooring and then moved only a short distance to Snow Island for another night. Most of our daytime was spent getting the boat ready for travel once again.

I've been for a short swim just to get the prop cleaned off after two months of no movement. It was a bit brisk but tolerable. The next cleaning job for me was to tackle to bottom of the dinghy after it sat at the dinghy dock for several weeks motionless – no anti-fouling paint. I dragged the boat up the launch ramp and flipped it over. There was a real forest of soft gelatinous growth all over it. Fortunately this stuff came off with little fuss. I was surprised to find no barnacles as I had in Marathon, but the soft stuff must have weighed at least five pounds.

While I was addressing these issues, Sandra was trying to bring some order to chaos inside after we unloaded all our clothes, sundries, and a huge grocery order to restock the boat once again. Since Jenn's time with us on the boat was over for this trip, some reorganization was required to set the boat up for two instead of three people.

That addressed the physical issues we dealt with as we returned to our home. We also had to adjust to having just each other for company. Over the past 2+ months, we first had Jenn with us for the trip north. Then we stayed with our other daughter Sam and her family which grew by one when our third grandson Ryan was born on July 21^st. This made for lots of exciting times with all three of the boys while we tried to help Sam with the new member of the family.

While this was keeping us busy, we also managed to spend a good deal of time with Sandra's sisters and brother and caring for their mother who ultimately passed away on the 4^th of August – the same day that Ryan was due to come into this world. How fortunate that he chose to come early.

So this was a full, joyous and sad time for us, making the adjustment back to two by ourselves away from family particularly challenging. How fortunate we are to be able to spend this time on the beautiful coast of Maine.

After spending a couple of nights at the marina getting water and some fuel as well as some of the clean-up chores completed, we moved to nearby Snow Island for a night. We're now spending two nights at another great anchorage called the Basin. It really is a pond or small lake that is open to the Bay via a narrow entrance. Once here, you would have no idea that it's not just a small body of fresh water near the coast. An eagle's nest is set on one of the trees on a small island in the Basin, but we've yet to see the eagle. We have kayaked around a bit to collect a little sea lavender along with some pretty quartz rocks and chips of mica that we also found here in prior visits more than 14 years ago.

In our short time here, I've already noticed a difference from our time down south in the winter. Whenever we anchored in the south, it seemed the boats around us were all from other places, mostly on the east coast, but few local boats. Up here in Casco Bay, most of the boats at anchor are local to Maine. Occasionally we see a boat from MA or CT, but that's about it with the exception of two boats, one Annapolis and the other from FL. I half expected to see many southern boats up here to avoid the heat and enjoy the beauty of Maine. Perhaps they have all gone further downeast or have already begun their trek back south. Perhaps I'll see a change as we move to other places here on the coast.