Fire in the sky

Morning

I like mornings! Perhaps because I've become or always was a morning person. I like being woken up by the sun shining in my eyes and get things done early. Not that I've thought about work for the past few days, but at work it's similar: I like to get in early and get some things done for me before everyone else shows up.

Leo was the first person to be actively awake today. His energy is very different from Peter's energy. Both of them want to talk almost all the time. Mostly to adults, but frequently they talk to one another too. Peter was reading last night until he heard me going to bed, so he was no candidate for early waking up. Ultimately Leo ended up running around the boat and the stomping on top of our cabin woke Peter up. It's hard to hide on a small boat!

The main project for today was to mark the anchor chain, so that we would know how much to let out depending on the depth and the state of the bottom. That required finding spray paint, which I believed I bought for the previous chain where I could not see the marks. While I was taking stuff out of the lazarette (storage compartment in the cockpit), Mark helped me throw away the garbage. Alice said she'll help if she has specific instructions, but otherwise will stay out of this mess.

All of a sudden I see my son! And he's inquiring what sort of breakfast all will want. He made bacon and sunny side eggs to everyone's delight. Wow!

The paint was discovered somewhere in the depth of the lazarette along with rugs that were so smelly and old that they seemed perfect as liners for the paint job, to make sure we don't stain the concrete of the dock.

Having fulfilled his "duty", Peter retreated to the salon and continued to read the book that he started the night before. No request for help could get him out of the cabin. Leo and Mark lowered the chain to me and I arranged it in about 20 foot segments on the dock.

This made it possible to paint the ends one one side in bulk. The hope is that the paint will stick for at least this season (seems reasonable since we only have 2 weeks left), and hopefully for next season too. Or longer.

A couple of layers of paint later, the paint job was done and we switched to clean up while waiting for the paint to dry. After all, the wind was picking up and we had some sailing to do!

Casco Bay

My plan was to have an easy first day for Leo, since last year on one occasion he did feel sea sick. This coincided with my desire to explore the bay which is dotted with lots of islands - the backyard of Portland, so to say.

We headed out of Maine Yacht Center, ensured that everything was stowed reliably, and once safely out of the channel proceeded to unroll the mainsail. At the very end, with maybe a couple of feet to go, the sail got stuck at the top. To the best of my ability to judge what happened, the friction in the car along the boom was too high, so as we were trying to roll the sail out we were applying too much pressure on the leech of the sail, pulling it down, as opposed to pulling it out. We rolled the sail partly in so that it was partly furled, but at least uniformly. Apparently, someone will have to go up the mast...

Sailing between the islands was challenging: there were rocks and lobster pots to look out for. On the other hand, we could set a straight course to go deep into Casco Bay and we were able to stay on the same tack for a long time. Besides birds, we saw quite a few seals. Some swimming, some sticking their noses out of the water to check out what was going above the water.

At the northernmost part of the bay I saw that water temperature was 22.3C. Neither Alice nor Mark enjoy cold water, so it seemed that we absolutely had to stop for a swim. Amazingly, there was a little island creating a wind shelter and a few boats were already at anchor. This is not the Carribean, but hey, it was way warmer than the water on Monhegan! All of us jumped in!

While we were drying up, I applied some lubricant on the track of the boom car, and the mainsail magically unrolled in all its glory! Great Nobody needs to go up the mast!

The sail south turned out to be more exciting than anticipated. The density of lobster pots was incredible at times. Peter continued reading, but the other 4 crew members were on constant alert and tried to devise avoidance strategies. To make the matters more complicated, we were going upwind, which means that we had to maintain speed in order to have maneuverability. Not entirely relaxing, but definitely a great sail!

Jewell island

When Peter and I had lunch with Pam and Doug form MITA, they recommended that we go ashore on Jewell island, which used to be a US army or navy outpost during WW2. There are towers to climb to get a great view of Casco Bay, there is a forest to walk, and it's generally fun. So, that was our destination. After all, we have an almost 9 and almost 10 year-olds aboard.

Dropping the anchor the second time was much easier. After all, the chain was marked! Plus, we arrived just before 5, and the locals took off leaving some gaps in the middle of the relatively narrow cove. I asked Mark and Leo to pay out 85 feet and the anchor set almost instantly.

All 5 of us went on the island walk, and right away Peter discovered that it was allowed to make fires in fire pits. "Papa, we must come back and grill sausages on the fire! Please!" How can one say no?

We walked around and climbed up one of the towers before coming back to the rocky beach where we left the dinghy. The dinghy was now 10 meters away from the water since we arrived on a falling tide!

Fire

As Alice and I were on the way to Salty Ginger, she said that she'd rather have some peace and quiet while Mark and I make a fire with the kids. No problem. Everyone needs space while voyaging on a boat.

I brought some sausages, the marinated fish (which Mark and I now identified as herring), some drinks, a couple of knives, an axe and a bucket. By the time I arrived kids had some kindling wood and shortly, even if not without emotions, we had a fire going.

It felt that we wer all alone, a sailboat in the background of the setting sun, when a guy comes up and says "What are you doing chopping wood here? Who are you?"

The island keeper Charlie, heard us working with the axe and hurried across the bay to see what was going on. He said that the previous week some guys were trying to bring down growing trees, so he got really worried. Seeing that we were doing all according to "normal" protocol, he relaxed and started asking what we have done and where we come from. When we told him that we already brought a bucket of water to put the fire out when we'll be done, he said that nobody does that. "You are like one out of a hundred."

He was quite surprised that I met Pam and Doug 2 days earlier. My takeaway that many people who drop anchor may not even suspect of MITA's existence. And the story of sailors who come from NYC and Zurich made him rather intrigued. 

In turn, he told us that we missed a bunker with its underground passages, so we might come back to explore those.

The sunset was lovely, covering the sky in a variety of red hues. The colors wer changing so quickly that Mark kept taking picture after picture.

Having put out the fire in the pit we got into the dinghy to get back abord. Peter reminded me that we needed dessert and it had to be plantains flambe. "I want to make them," said he. Ultimately, Peter settled for helping. He cut the plantains and observed me cooking them in butter.

The final step involves sprinkling some sugar, pouring rum on top and lighting the rum with a match. I had some reservations about having an open fire on the boat, but I figured if it's all planned, we'll figure it out. The flames shot out a lot higher than I expected, even though the rum as 35 percent. A scent of something burning was in the air, but the flames were out quickly as all the alcohol burnt.

As I was going down the stairs, helping Alice to bring the plates down, I noticed that our mosquito net has holes. Weird, I thought, why would it get so worn out in a matter of a day... Wait! Those are burn holes! Ooops. I guess no more anything flambe aboard!

You can’t always get what you want

 Running errands

Just like in Camden, Maine Yacht Center has a courtesy car that the transient boaters can use. It’s dangerous to get used to such niceties! What if one is not available at the next civilised place? Not that we’re not civilised at anchor…

I woke up at 6:30 and let Peter to continue to sleep while I was having coffee in the cockpit enjoying a partly cloudy windless morning. The solar panels were starting to catch the sun and seemed to be outputting current into the batteries. Great! That’s exactly what I need!

When Peter woke up, it was time to start thinking about projects. The car will not be available till 9, so we could start cleaning the boat. Peter hooked up the hose while I was moving cushions and pillows out of the potential water spray. There was some “explosion” of water when he turned the water on again. Turned out, that explosion forced the spray hose attachment to fly off, and the only thing it could be useful for was to water lawns or spray overheated kids. Ok, we need a hose attachment.

Ok, Peter, we’re ready to go. Wait! Why are the batteries not being charged? There’s plenty of sun! Clean up contacts, check voltage on each solar panel, all ok. Check voltage together, all ok. Check voltage at the input to the controller. Zero. Repeat. Ok, we have current going into the batteries. And then no. Great. The batteries are not happy already. What am I supposed to do?

First things first, we decided we’ll eat at a nearby diner. Peter got a stack of pancakes, enough to feed 3 Peters. I ordered an omelette which was half the size of omelettes that Frank made to feed the 5 of us. Coffee was as American as it gets. Well, it wasn’t tasteless, but we make better coffee aboard. In fact, we have a manual grinder, so almost always the coffee is ground fresh. Details are important sometimes. Plus, it’s an excellent opportunity to wake up: first grind the coffee, so you’re sufficiently awake to actually drink it!

Hardware store, where we intended to buy a stainless steel spacer/bushing, i.e. a long cylinder, had almost exactly what we need: the cylinder had the right outer diameter, but had a larger inner diameter. Ironically, that’s the first time I appreciated having imperial and metric bolts in the same place: 1/4 inch bolt was just a bit wider than M6 and fit the new bushings perfectly. We bought 4 of those, just in case they go overboard again. Besides the bolts and bushings we got a new pair of scissors (I drowned a pair while cleaning fish), a new hose attachment and some fishing stuff.

When I came to the cashier, there was only one line, but a woman quickly showed up and said that she’ll take the next person there. The woman in front of me seemed to have only a couple of items, so I followed her. Turned out that she also had a plant, and the cashier decided to help the customer to bring the plan to the car. I was standing there watching the other line move forward, thinking “man, my items would be getting scanned by now”. Then this grey-haired woman comes back and starts scanning my stuff. When she was practically done, she notices that the computer was in a wrong regime and didn’t scan anything. “I’m so sorry. You are are so patient!” What is it with Mainers and patience? Once she was done scanning the things, she asked me if I had a rewards account with them, which I of course didn’t. “Oh, you have been so patient. Let me give you a 10% discount. Good luck with sailing and fishing!” I understand that $10 discount is probably not a big thing to this store. Nor is it to me. But it’s weirdly nice.

Next (accidental) stop: marine store which is a 100 meters down the road. But of course one has to drive. Otherwise someone might think that the car broke down. I picked up heavy duty needles (the only item I haven’t been able to find aboard), a back up water pump (hope to never need it). Then close to the register I see a solar panel. About the same size as mine, rated to 110 Watts. I want it. There is a charge controller. Maybe it’ll work better, so get that too. The guy at the register asked me to get the panel in the box. Ok, I get the box and hang the display panel back on the wall per his request.

We run to get groceries, all is well. We get to the boat, put things into the fridge and I am thinking that since we have the panel, might as well see if it’ll work better than my old panels. THE BOX IS EMPTY! I call the place, talk to the manager, she says to come back, her name is Rene. I run to the office, luckily the courtesy car is still there. Arrive to Hamilton Marine to find out that my display panel has been sold! The only thing that they have is a 50W panel, and I’m not sure I want to have it at the risk of not needing it later and essentially creating more electronic waste. At least I got my money back.

Portland walk

By this time, Peter and I were getting hungry for lunch, so it was clear we should go to the city. Otherwise we would not get back before Alice, Mark and Leo arrive. As luck would have it, a Lyft car arrived pretty much at the same time as we reached the parking lot. The guy dropped us off in the Old Port, and we went looking for food.

Sushi! (Not that we didn’t have sashimi 3 days in a row last week, but sure.) There is a Japanese restaurant right there. Oh, they have Japanese food, but no sushi. The waiter pointed us to a nearby restaurant that has sushi. Fed and happy we walked in search of a bookstore and then ice cream. We found both. Peter now has 4 more books in the Wings of Fire series that Pasha introduced him to.

Then we walk into a souvenir clothing store where Peter sees stuffed animals. He sees a huge black dog on the top shelf. “Peter, that’ll sink the boat.”

He retorts with “Papa, the boat can hold 8 people, so surely the dog won’t sink her.” After a bunch of back and forth and a consultation with Irina, despite the protest “He is lonely and needs an owner”, we walked out with a seal and a polar bear. Peter in the saddest mood I’ve seen him since I did not allow him to get a stuffed animal in Camden.

The sad mood wore off after a while and we lay on the grass near the East End beach while waiting for our car to get back. It was kind of ironic, because we could practically see our boat, and yet crossing the water to the other side requires an 8 minute drive.

Next crew arrives

Mark let us know that we had 45 minutes before they arrive, so we set to work. A few more items stowed away, deck washed, floors and bathrooms washed. Just in time!

It’s nice to see friends in new places!

Leo and Peter were running around, playing truth or dare while the adults were settling in and reheating the remainders of Frank’s chilli for dinner. Thank you, Frank!

All of a sudden we see a sailboat towed past us. “Could one of you help us with the lines,” yells the captain of Sea Tow. He got 4 helpers while Alice stayed behind. Turned out that the sailboat’s propeller wrapped around one of the lines of a lobster trap and they couldn’t run the engine to get into the marina.

Shore power

I ran the diesel to recharge the batteries a bit, but that helped only a little bit. The voltage sank very quickly to 12.0 (I want 12.3) and the wind died, so there is no alternative energy available to us till the sun comes up.

Sasha left me an emergency charger. Thank you! We hooked up to the shore power and after making a small indent in the wood leading to the battery compartment we hooked up the batteries to be charged from the provided 120V AC. The setup of sustainable onboard energy still remains rather elusive unless we’re underway. A bit more thinking will be needed for that…

Portland

Sail to Jewell Island

Since Peter was steering pretty much the entire time the day before, yesterday was Pasha’s turn to be at the wheel. In the course of the afternoon the wind was slowly building and sometimes changing direction, mostly in a favourable way.

Occasionally we saw dolphins and sunfish. Once, when Peter and I were in the cabin, Pasha yelled “dolphin”. Both of us rushed up to see if they would be less shy than the dolphins before. Unfortunately, Peter missed a stair and fell down hurting his knee and ankle. And to add insult to the injury, it was a sunfish.

Pasha suggested a book Wings of Fire, and Peter got hooked. First, he came to report that only the epilogue was left to read, and then proudly announced that he read the entire book and discussed it with Pasha. Well done!

The wind kept building, Pasha had steered enough and handed the wheel over to his father. We rolled the code-0, cause it was too much. Even the full genoa was more than the boat could handle comfortably. But at the speed of 7 knots we weren’t complaining! The hydrogenerator charged up the batteries which were being discharged by the fridge and the electronics while we were doing 4 knots.

At 18:30 we pulled into the cove at Jewell Island and to our amazement found 7 more boats in the little protected space.

It was pretty, of course, and besides these boats nothing gave away the presence of a city about 7 miles away as the bird flies.

We dropped the anchor and started with dinner. Then the rain started. Off in the direction of Portland we saw lightning, but it never came close enough for us to feel not at ease.

Cooking

This time around everyone cooked.

Peter was adamant that he wanted fried potatoes with onion. He asked for Frank’s swimming goggles to make sure that the onion doesn’t sting the eyes and the two of them were busy, Frank ensuring that Peter’s fingers do not get cut.

Pasha wanted to learn to fillet the fish to prepare a batch of sashimi. He was convinced that I was a pro, since I was preparing all the other fish. I assured him that I wasn’t, and we watched a YouTube video together, explaining the right way to fillet fish 4 times the size of ours. Lessons learned were sufficient for Pasha to get started. Every now and then I tried to help with advice or cutting.

Anchoring in a tight spot

The biggest issue with staying where we were, was the fact that the winds were forecast to turn from south to west, which would potentially put Salty Ginger’s stern perilously close to rocks. So, on the one hand we were very well protected from the winds left by the thunderstorm, but on the other hand, the forecast was a bit iffy for my taste.

I ended up staying in the cockpit during high tide, just after midnight, ensuring that everything was fine. Then I set an anchor alarm on my phone and went to bed. Nothing exciting happened, and that’s a good thing!

Portland: hello & goodbye

As luck would have it, the forecast for windless morning was only partly right. We left the cove with enough wind to sail, which made all the sailors grin. Much better than motoring the entire way!

Once we were in the lee of Cushing island, the wind stopped and we had no other choice, but to motor. After all, Sasha, Pasha and Frank needed to get on the way and drive to Philadelphia through NYC.

Sunny, warm and beautiful was Portland’s welcome.

At Maine Yacht Center the dock hands were there to take our lines and help us get the boat tied up. All luggage packed, we walked over to the land and the guys called Uber to get taken to the car rental.

With no one in sight to take a picture, we set up a tripod for the first time. 10-second timer gave me just enough time to run around and position myself next to the crew.

Peter was sad that Pasha was going away. He was very grateful that fate gave him such a great companion for the past week. Till we meet again!

MITA lunch

Pam and Doug from the non-profit invited Peter and I for lunch at the MITA deck. I was a bit dense and only realised this morning that their deck is the second story of the building of the marina where we are staying. Peter and I took a shower to wash off the salt, packed the laundry and walked back to meet Pam and Doug.

It was great to have a chat together. I learned a lot more about how the 34-year old MITA operates. The islands that they manage (and they own none) get cleaned up by the organization and volunteers. This makes it much easier to maintain any one island in a clean state: after all the first step is the hardest. I have to say that I don’t have a point of reference, since we’ve only gone ashore on islands that are known to be ok for that. We’ve never gone ashore onto islands that are private, where the owners do not want to share.

We told them that we saw a dead seal on Burnt island, to which they said that the police want people to report the corpses so that they can disposed of properly, and so that the authorities can try to identify what it was that killed the animal. A couple of years ago some infection caused many seals to die.

We talked about the issues that lobster fishing creates: traps frequently get washed ashore by storms. The cages are essentially worthless if they are bent, but at the same time, per Maine law dating two hundred years, people are not allowed to destroy commercial fishing property. Meaning that potentially, a person who cleans up a beach from traps can be held liable for destruction of property. The law was written when traps were wooden. Today’s traps are made of metal and plastic and take a very long time to disintegrate.

From my perspective, I’m extremely happy that organisations like MITA exist and look after the nature in their own backyard. I love coming to Maine to explore places off the bean path, so I’m happy to continue to support them!

Quiet time

Laundry done, some things got cleaned up and made better on the boat. For example, cleaning urine stains in one of the toilets. Minor thing, but ultimately an eyesore partly removed. To be completed tomorrow with more vinegar and baking soda!

Our next crew arrives tomorrow evening, so we’ll have an opportunity to do a couple of errands and then explore Portland. Maybe buy another book for Peter…

Island Hopping

Burnt Island

Yesterday’s sunny morning gave a rather appealing appearance to the cold water where we were staying. By the time I was back, Frank had a scrumptious ham and cheese omelette ready. Terns were fishing at the shallow place between the two islands. Peter caught two more fish, but we asked him to let them go since no more fish were taking the lures.

The island has a few trails maintained by MITA and the owners. We were also led to believe that there are raspberries, so we came equipped with a bowl to try to collect some. As we walked through the middle of the island we saw mostly ferns, pine trees and moss, but no raspberry bushes. On the eastern side of the island we hung out on the rocks taking pictures and relaxing, enjoying a wonderful view of the ocean and the nearby islands.

I mentioned that on the south side of the island the path is going right along the ocean on the rocks. Just as much as Peter wanted to walk on the rocks, Frank did not. We split into 2 groups. We took pictures of the ocean and the spray that the waves were creating, while Frank, Pasha and Sasha did find raspberry bushes, albeit without berries. Peter and I saw 3 eagle-like birds. Peter believes they were bald eagles, but I am not convinced. In any case, the majestic birds with a wingspan of close to a meter and powerful flaps of wings were awe inspiring.

Back aboard it was swimming time again and we also inflated the “jumping pillow” for Peter, cause he wasn’t particularly keen on going in the water. Instead, he climbed upon the pillow with a can of soda and was lazing around. When he got bored of just lying around he got on his knees and shook the inflatable to create waves. I challenged him to do that standing up, which he did, and even agreed to be pulled back towards the boat while standing. With a little jerk Peter’s lower half went flying into the water. “You’ll pay for this!” He yelled.

And sure I did. First he pushed me into the water, which was expected. By the time I was practically dry, Peter and Pasha were fishing off the bow. Peter cast the line and got it caught on the mooring line just below the water. In I go again to get the hook out of the line. Luckily it wasn’t stuck deep at all.

Eastern Egg Rock

Somehow 5 years ago I discovered that there was a colony of puffins at this little rock, a speck of an island rather removed from the mainland. Since Burnt island is only 5 miles away, we had to pay a visit to watch the birds.

Peter was steering the entire time. Not only that, he was talking the entire time. Yes, he was watching his course, and we were helping, but all the talking was sometimes distracting him from the most important task at hand. But we didn’t run aground, nor hit any of the lobster pots. The kid just had so much energy and yet he could focus it into something productive.

I did take the helm from him once we were approaching the island. Now under motor. As the island name suggests, it is a rock that is sticking out of the water and the ledges are quite steep, so the only safe way of navigating was to constantly watch the depth meter and not let it go below 15 feet or so. And the lobster pots were surrounding the island too.

We saw researchers on the island doing whatever they were doing. Other than that, there were no humans to be seen, but lots of different birds zooming by. Gulls, puffins, terns and others that we think we identified using the Birds of Maine book that we now have aboard thanks to Sasha. It’s quite hard to take decent pictures of them. First, they move fast. Second, the boat keeps rolling. Third, we have limited patience. We did a lap and a half around the island and proceeded south to Monhegan.

Monhegan

Peter took over the helm with the same energy that he had before. Both physical and talkative. I frequently wonder why someone needs to say so many words, but when Peter is on a roll, it’s better let it all spill out. Ultimately, when we were on a mooring, we asked him to stay quiet for a while. He then continued to hum with closed lips pointing at things. Nonstop. Ok, please speak, but only the necessary words!

When we got into the harbor, there were only two available moorings. I kind of preferred the one deeper in the harbor. The guys on one of the moored boats assured us that the outside one is definitely a guest mooring. And the harbormaster won’t be back till the morning. We cautiously took the one I preferred. A while later a local boat pulled in and I asked if we were ok to stay here, to which they showed thumbs up, so we stayed put.

Frank had enough of a walk earlier, so he opted to stay on the boat. The rest of us decided to go ashore. Excitement: there are goats on the little Manana island! Let’s try to land there. When we came to the landing which I know I used 5 years ago, there was absolutely no safe way to get out of the water. Slippery rocks covered with seaweed and nothing to hold on to. The other landing is private and has a sign asking people to come ashore elsewhere.

Faced with this problem, our only choice was to go to Monhegan, hoping to ask the locals if it is possible to come ashore. One of the shop owners said that the landing used to be maintained by the Coast Guard, but since the station became abandoned, nobody has been maintaining it, and the ramp got destroyed by a storm. She said that it is possible to come ashore, but it’s dangerous, and even though she’s done it, she would advise against it.

We walked around, found the local library, the school building, a number of art galleries and got up the hill to the lighthouse and the museum. Everything was already closed. In fact, almost all the shops operate 11 or 11:30 to 4 or 4:30, so with our leisurely schedule we had no chance of seeing any of them open.

Back on the boat we found Frank who was grinning like a little kid. While we were walking around, he had half a bucket worth of fish! “You shouldn’t have left me alone for so long!” Right! What are we going to do with all this fish?! “Don’t worry, I’ll clean them. They are great! And there were so many of them! I was pulling up 4 at a time!”

Feasting continued

Contrary to the saying, we had many cooks in the galley and we succeeded in making yet another delicious meal. I’ll have to go on a diet after I get home after this vacation!

First course: fresh sashimi. Special for Peter, some sashimi without skin.

Second course: risotto cooked in fish broth with grilled lamb chops.

Dessert: a perfectly ripe melon that has been shaking in the fruit net in the galley for the past few days.

Wine: Menage a Trois, a melange from California grapes.

The night was practically windless, so mosquitoes found us pretty quickly, especially Frank. Pasha and Sasha put on long pants and hung out in the cockpit a while longer, but the other 3 crew members were enjoying dessert in the cabin.

Monhegan hike

Using the map that we procured on our short walk, Peter planned out “a perfect walk”. After the meal the night before, adults were perfectly happy with just coffee. Kids had some cereal with milk and we were off to the island once again.

The walk starts on a dirt road that is sometimes traveled by cars and golf carts. We saw a few people with easels and paints. Some walking, some already standing and drawing. Then the path goes into the woods, gets narrower and rockier. At this point Frank started to slow down to make sure that he always had balance.

We got to a shipwreck of a tug boat and continued along the shore breathing the salty air with aromas of pine trees and other herbs. Spectacular views of rocks under a blue sky and the deep blue sea all the way to the horizon! Birds flying, seals trying to figure out when to come out onto a rock. Nature at its best!

Frank was a bit nervous on some of the crags, so we helped him here and there. After all, he is almost twice my age! Kids ran forward after declaring that walking at the “adult pace” was too boring. Therefore they were the first ones to see raspberries. Not enough to pick, but enough to enjoy the taste.

Once we headed into the woods, back towards the town, Frank could breathe more easily: the path was flatter and soon widened to a gravel road. No more climbing up and down the boulders, but just a comfortable walk down.

We stopped by a cafe to get some lemonade and brownies. While the rest of the crew were waiting for our drinks, I walked to the local brewery. Even though it was half hour before they were officially opening, they agreed to sell me beer since I pleaded that we had to cast off and sail away. We now have IPA, pale ale and wheat ale with tangerine. Not that we are totally running out of beer, but someone should support the local economy!

Direction: Portland

No, we are not yet headed into the city, but my crew needs to be on their way home tomorrow. In the meantime we want to tuck into an anchorage some 10 miles east of Portland.

Before taking off, Sasha and I decided that jumping into the water is a must. How cold can it be anyway? But it was cold! Somehow colder than yesterday. Indeed the onboard thermometer later showed water temperature of 16.7C. The tidal current must be mixing up water and bringing some of the cold water to the surface. Once we were out of the harbour, the temperature went up almost 2 degrees!

It’s sunny, it’s not very windy, which makes it easy to cook aboard and yet make progress towards our destination under sail. Not surprisingly, lunch consisted of fish dishes: fish soup with bok-choy followed by fried fish that Frank marinated yesterday. Chips with freshly made guacamole to accompany the latter. Sasha even turned on the music for a perfect ambiance! (video)

We saw a couple of  dolphins and a sunfish as well as a couple of sailboats on the opposite course. Simple life at sea. At least when the wind is as it is today.

Maine hospitality

This post has few pictures not because we haven't made enough, but rather because the internet has a will of its own in these places.

Sailing!

As we were ready to leave Seal Cove, the seals actually came out. The "seal rock" was underwater due to the tide, but it seemed that the seals used this opportunity to fish. Makes sense: if there is no good place to sunbathe one should at least have fun! Our fun was limited to watching an occasional, I could say "outcast" seal head pop up out of the water. Still curious, but not approaching.

A thunderstorm passed through, drenching us but leaving all the lightning well off to the side, and it seemed that it carried all the wind with it. Therefore as we proceeded east through the channel between Vinalhaven and North Haven we thought we could fly our code-0 and raised it. The further east we went, the more apparent it was that the wind shadow of the island created the sense of false security. It was windy and the wind was from the wrong direction as far as code-0 was concerned.

Eventually we started to bear off, so the wind was not totally in our face. Before then, our colorful sail was flapping and it seemed that it had an hourglass, i.e. a "condition" of a sail when it's twisted in such a way that effectively one has 2 puffy sails tied halfway up the mast. Therefore I thought it'd be safer to unroll code-0 behind the genoa. It actually worked! No hourglass, the sail was limp in the shadow of the genoa. After a couple of minutes trying to fly both sails simultaneously (getting an incredulous look from Sasha in the meantime) I gave up, we rolled up the genoa and went under a slightly larger sail.

It was charmingly foggy. That is, the fog was there to see, but somehow not all around us, so we had no issues seeing where we wanted to sail. We saw a few pretty sailboats, ultimately reduced our sail size and had a straight shot to Camden where we had a booked mooring.

Boat bruises

Pretty much anyone who spent some time aboard a sailing vessel develops some form of bruises. Those may come from an inadvertent connection of the thigh with a winch. Or getting thrown by a wave in a totally unexpected direction. Or trying to do something really quick and then regretting that rash decision.

I now have a few marks on my body since I got onto Salty Ginger this season. For example, I hit my pinky toe against something on the deck taking the skin off (much better than the nail). Other encounters are too numerous to report. The regrettable, but in hindsight totally avoidable accident was lifting a lid off in such a way that it steamed my right hand knuckles. I was cooking pasta sauce with the remainder of mussels and I did not have a good lid for the pan in which the mussels were being cooked. The silly way in which I lifted the makeshift lid sent enough steam, so that now some skin peeled off the fingers.

Earlier today I slipped while putting the hydrogenerator into place and hit the side of my leg. Using a can of beer to cool the wound and sipping on the beer simultaneously seemed to take care of that problem.

The point is, sailing is fun, but "things happen".

Engine battery

Lyman & Morse (L&M), the marina that Sasha booked in Camden is pretty nice. The rolling in the middle of the mooring field is a bit extreme, but the facilities and the people are great. In addition, they offer a complementary car which sounded great since we needed a new engine starter battery and they had none in stock.

I called a nearby car parts shop and the guy said that of course they have batteries the size I need, I should just come by. Excellent! I booked a car for the following morning at 8.

At 7:30 a fellow from the marina was doing rounds in our part of the bay. I waved to him and he happily picked me up to take to the dock. I guess one could say it was an opportunistic economy of fuel: he had to go back anyway and I didn't have to hail him.

The man and the woman at the dock desk had me fill out a paper, showing no signs of surprise that my drivers license is Swiss, and then discovered that they had no keys and no car. The guys who took the car the previous evening did not respond the cell phone and the boat was empty. I suppose I'm sufficiently in a vacation mode, since my thoughts were "it's ok, we'll solve this somehow". The people were so profusely apologetic. "This has never happened before. If we can't resolve this soon, we'll drive you to the place to get you a battery. If we're too busy, we'll see if the boss will reimburse you the delivery fee."

The guys who took the car ultimately called back and brought the car back soon enough. I booked the car from 8 to 10, and as I got into the car at 8 o'clock, a canon was fired, officially announcing the morning in the harbor. (I thought something malfunctioned in the car!) An hour and a half later I had a new battery and a lot of food in the trunk of the car. All of it was moved to Salty Giner with the L&M launch and within half hour we were ready to go.

While I was shopping, the crew went ashore to have breakfast and to buy half a dozen books. Including "The Hobbit" and a book titled "A seal named Andre". I guess I'll have to read the latter.

More sailing

By the time we got a fuel and water refilled, the wind picked up as forecast: blowing almost exactly from the direction where we wanted to go. There is a saying "gentlemen don't sail to wind". Either we're not gentlemen or something else went wrong, but we did sail to wind. And we LOVED IT!

The adults were respectfully pushing the helmsman with "could I also have some fun". Kids got a hang of that too and were more blunt: "can I steer?"

What made Sasha and I smile when Peter and Pasha were reading "The Hobbit" out loud, some times in roles, some times to one another.

Ultimately, it was quite a good exercise: the wind came up and down, so we kept reducing sail sizes only to unroll the sails fully. When we thought we were on our final tack to Burnt Island the wind decided to do its thing elsewhere and we had to turn the motor on to make it there on time.

MITA

During our trip in 2017 I discovered an organization called Maine Island Trails Association (mita.org). This non-profits supports a lot of trails on many remote Maine islands and having profited from their work back then, I've been giving them donations every now and then.

As we approached the island, we had second thoughts: the sea was quite rolly, and we were not too keen on getting shaken all over. But once we anchored we discovered that the island was doing a great job of breaking the Gulf of Maine swell and we were in perfectly positioned place to spend the night.

Double surf

I suspect it'll be hard to get to normal diet after this vacation... The normal here is, shall I say, not normal!

As we were approaching the islands, we used the trick to hail a lobster fisherman to get some more crustaceans. We ended up doing 2 loops around his vessel: first to pick up the basket with 5 lobsters and hand over the money, second loop to return the basket after unloading the lobsters into our bucket. "It doesn't get fresher than this!" said the fisherman. Totally! Thanks for taking the time!

In comparison to our yesterday'a dinner, the price of the 5 lobsters was the price of the lobster that Frank ordered. That's how it is: the fisherman gets a great price and we get a great price.

Almost as soon as we settled, Peter was out with the fishing rod and 2 minutes later, which coincided with Pasha daring the Maine waters, Peter had 2 mackerels in a bucket. Then he called it a done deal and went down below. Pasha got curious about this type of fishing and once he was sufficiently warm after the plunge, he took the rod and started yelling.

 -- I have 2!

 -- I have 3! Oh, but one slipped away.

Frank had to join in. "Come on! This is fun!"

Within half hour we got enough fish for at least 2 days (if we plan to eat nothing but fish).

But as soon as the second  batch of lobster was cooked, the school of fish moved on. Tough luck: dinner served right after one stowes the fishing rod away!

Course 1: whole lobster

Course 2: grilled corn (and possibly salad)

Course 3: grilled mackrels (and salad for those who didn't have it with Course 2).

It doesn't get fresher or tastier than this!

Bioluminescence

By tea time Sasha discovered that disturbing the water causes light flashes to appear on the surface. Pasha was all over that: he kept splashing bucket ater bucket into the dark water and lights would flicker every time.

Sailing vacations like this are not easy, but if one is willing to work for them, the rewards are huge. At least in the eye of the beholder. Thank you, Maine!

Seal cove

Maine scenery

Penobscot Bay is quite deep and is dotted with islands large and small. On a sunny summer day the view is fantastic. The deeper into the bay we went, the more sailboats we saw. Quite a few boats were going in and out of the strait between Vinalhaven and North Haven islands. As forecast, the wind started to pick when we entered the strait, but being so well protected the water was totally flat.

We enjoyed looking at the boats and the houses in North Haven, a typical New England scenery.

No wonder the cove we chose for the stop is called Seal Cove. The moment we dropped an anchor, a curious seal came to check us out and then dove and swam away to a little island where his buddies were lazing in the sun. The island is exposed only at low tide. At high tide there remain no traces of its existence. And the seals go some place else.

After lunch as the wind continued to get stronger, I wanted to let out some more anchor chain to ensure that we don’t drag the anchor in the forecasted blow. However, we had an unpleasant discovery: the engine battery was too weak to start the engine. The tide was still low, so were in no immediate danger, and we had limited time to go ashore to look for mussels.

Frank opted to stay on the boat while Sasha and I took the kids ashore. We saw a little pebble beach which looked good for landing. Turned out that pebbles were covering sea mud, which looked promising as far as our mission was concerned. Within a minute or two Pasha found the first mussel, and the hunt was on. Within half hour we gathered half a bucket of tasty looking molluscs. The trick was to raise the seaweed and look underneath the rocks and in the stinky silky mud.

Once we went away from the little beach we stopped seeing mussels, but found a number of crabs. As far as we can tell, they were mating: there was a bigger red crab sitting on top of a smaller gray-brown crab. The fellow at the top was actively protecting his mate below.

Peter climbed up into the woods and was so happy to play there that he didn’t want to come back. “Maybe someone can stay with me here?” But we had a mission to let the anchor chain out and the tide started rising.

Fixing the boat in exotic places

A saying I heard somewhere states that cruising is an opportunity to fix your boat in various exotic places. Sometimes it definitely feels like this, but so long as not too many things get broken, it’s totally worth it!

The thing about the anchor windlass is that it only works when the engine is on. However, it uses the engine battery as the energy store which is replenished by the running engine. I thought about replacing the battery at the beginning of the season, but Sasha assured me that it was holding charge, and indeed until yesterday it worked without any issues. But the windlass current draw apparently sealed its fate and it now needs to be replaced. Even though it was showing 12.5V, which is normal for a lead acid battery, it couldn’t supply enough current to turn the engine over.

The only thing that we could do was to connect the house batteries together with the engine battery with two parallel wires. After 5 minutes the engine started so we could reanchor with more chain.

Another challenge: how do we measure out the right length? We were in 15 feet of depth at low tide. Add 9 feet for the tide and multiply by 5. With no markings on the chain knowing when to stop is not clear. Looking through the lines that I have aboard, I realised that the halyards I got last year were too short. And they were measured to be 125 feet. Problem solved: attach the line to the anchor and feed it out together with the chain. Stop when no more line can be fed out. The anchor set and was holding steady even as some of the wind gusts were probably at 25 knots. In the well protected cove the boat swung back and forth but remained steady.

Seafood for dinner

All together we cleaned the barnacles from mussels, and after a number of water changes the mollusks looked clean and ready for cooking. Sasha boiled some potatoes to complement the sea-born protein steamed in white wine with onions. Sure, it would have been nice to have parsley, but who’s going to complain?

For the appetiser I filleted the two mackerels that Peter caught in the morning and we had sashimi sprinkled with lime juice and soy sauce.

As soon as Peter took the first mussel, he became disappointed: “I almost broke my tooth!” Indeed, there were little pearls in half of the shells, and some of them fairly large. Peter was the only one of the company who saw the pearls as a reason not to eat the mussels. The four of us easily finished 2 pots and were more than satisfied with life.

Swimming

Let’s face it, Maine is not the ideal destination for swimming. In the cove at Matinicus the water was 17C, so it almost stings the skin. In the Seal Cove it was about 20C, so definitely no excuses not to take a plunge. Well, maybe not for all. At least Frank and the kids abstained. 

The seals don't have any problems with water temperature and continue to pop their heads out as if to see if we are packing so that they can reclaim their cove.