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!