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