Heavy weather plans and prep

We have been tracking a nasty front as it marches toward the east coast for a few days and decided to hang out in Newport for it rather than head to Long Island Sound. With that decision made we had to decide—anchor or get a mooring? We started out in the anchorage, but when a boat came and ended up on our bow with very little scope out, we took advantage of a fresh opening elsewhere in the field. With good holding and room all around, we could relax and continue to consider whether we wanted to move or not. 

Well, the forecast has gotten worse, with winds in the 30kt range and gusts in the high 50’s. Another boat came yesterday and ended up about a boat length in front of us with the forecast winds. Not horrible, but not awesome. At least the wind event is mostly during daylight! After chatting with our new neighbors and trading details on our ground tackle, we’ve decided to stay in the anchorage. 

We dropped 30 more feet of chain to give a little more breathing room (and chain does us no good in the locker!), brought the snubbers all the way back to the midship cleats (more cushion for the gusts), charged the batteries, took down the bimini and connector, added some sound dampening to the halyards, wrapped the genoa sheets super tight around the sail, and will clear the cockpit of anything that can take flight after we run into town for a walk. We will be up, ready to power into the wind, fend, cut, whatever if we need to. We see all of our neighbors preparing, too, so we are in good company! Tomorrow morning should be a wild ride!

Three distinctly different nights in Massachusetts

We made it south (a little)! We weighed several options for our return through Massachusetts and finally settled on three stops.

Leading off—Gloucester! This was our first time here and we didn’t give it a ton of time. After picking up a mooring in the inner harbor we headed to town for two important things—beer and history! We got some refreshments at Cape Ann Brewing before heading off on the Harbor Walk. 

The next day was all about timing to get to the Cape Cod Canal with a favorable current. It made for a long day (though not an early start!) of sailing and motoring, whale watching (saw a minke and a fin!), and finally getting shot westbound through the canal with Katreina at the helm. We ended the day on a Massachusetts Maritime Academy mooring at the west end of the canal. This pained me a little as a Maine Maritime grad, but the price was right—free!

Our final night in Mass was an absolute treat. We poked into Hadley Cove by Woods Hole, but as it was a pretty nice weekend it was jam-packed. Not our scene so we continued down Buzzards Bay with fantastic sailing to a spot a friend had recommended off Naushon Island, Kettle Cove. It. Was. AMAZING! It offered us protection from the forecast southerlies, soft white sand, and crystal clear (and not entirely frigid!) water. We had a great time on the beach! Then a surprise “want some black sea bass?” text resulted in a visit from an old friend and three beautiful fish! It rivaled a Bahamas day!

Now we need to get back to crazy weather planning. 50kt winds in the forecast this week!

The end of our Maine cruising (for this year!)

We awoke to an outside temp of 39F the day we left Casco Bay—let’s get south!

At the start of our trip to Maine I never would have guessed that we’d be working to avoid impacts from a tropical weather system here, but it is 2020 and here we are! With unfavorable winds and big (15-20’) swells from Hurricane Teddy in the forecast, we opted to hang in Kittery for a few days. As a military retiree, we can sometimes tie up at base marinas and we lucked out at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. They have a “COVID Island” dock that lacks power or water, but it’s in a protected cove, it’s out of the strong river current, and at $20 a day it’s a steal. We can also walk to a nice commissary (grocery store) and fill water via jerry cans. And the bonus? Two of my MMA classmates have their boat there and rowed over to say hi within minutes of us tying up! We have quite a few friends in the area, but between COVID, weather, restaurant closures, and the fact that we have to get off base to hang out, we are keeping to ourselves for the most part. Walks around base, school work, and provisioning have kept us plenty busy! 

But alas, it’s time to go and we will head to Gloucester in the morning. We had a great time thanks to many friends who helped us and visited along the way, the friendly cruising families we met, and the awesome hospitality of the people of Maine. We will be back!

Hiding out in Casco Bay

For almost the entire last week we have been on the run, hiding from 20-30kt winds every night from alternating directions every day. After an attempt to get a mooring in Freeport (none available all week!), we headed for Great Chebeague Island to duck out of southerlies. As we were setting the hook we were hailed by M/Y Rangeley—they were on a mooring nearby and owned another that they offered up for our use. They are so sweet and even offered to let us use bikes ashore!

We spent the next few days bouncing around Harpswell. We tried a few new anchorages, had a good time playing on the beach at Stover’s Point, and had to hit up The Dolphin for a day of laundry, showers, great dinner, and those blueberry muffins in the morning! The kids even grabbed the mooring at The Dolphin after casting the 1st Mate ashore to get the laundry going.

Tonight we are on a mooring in Falmouth. Our awesome friends delivered our grill part AND fresh eggs! The past few days it’s been getting down into the 50’s inside the boat at night and we have been running the heater a bit to take the edge off. We hate to admit it, but it’s time to head south. With good weather tomorrow and a tropical system gearing up to impact weather all the way up here, we are going to skip Portland and head for Kittery in the morning. 

It’s a mystery! Where are the flip flops?

The weather in Maine is turning cooler and we are wearing more clothes, so I guess if we had to lose some flip flops, now isn’t the worst time! But where did two pairs of flip flops go?

Two days ago the Captain was getting ready for a dinghy run to Erica’s Seafood in Harpswell to satisfy our lobster craving (and those yummy lemon bars!) and he couldn’t find his flip flops. As I helped look for them, I realized I couldn’t find mine, either.

Ok, this boat is only 39’ long and everything has its place. Flip flops are either in a bucket on deck, the shoe pouch in our cabin, or the dinghy. They’ve been in one of those three places for almost a year. What the heck? Having scoured the boat and our memories, here’s what we’ve got:

- We definitely had flip flops in Rockland. That’s the last place we solidly recall wearing them. 

- The kids’ shoes are still here (in the bucket on deck).

- Nothing else is missing from the dinghy (so not likely that we somehow lost two pairs of shoes out of there in rough seas, but not the loose life jacket or old line we had picked up). 

- They aren’t with the dive gear (thinking maybe in the excitement of cutting the lobster pot line they got put away).

- We don’t recall leaving them on the swim platform (we’ve done this with snorkeling gear and hiking shoes while they dry if it’s calm, but can’t honestly recall drying flip flops there ever!).

So, we really don’t know what happened to them. We may have left them in the dinghy which would have made them easier to “walk” away, but still don’t know how/when that would have happened. We did stay in a cove where another boater had reported someone coming into their boat at night years ago, but we struggle to believe that’s possible.

Whatever happened, there are two pairs of Olu Kai sandals either floating somewhere off the coast of Maine, padding someone else’s feet, or mysteriously tucked away somewhere we haven’t found yet on the boat! So if you happen to see a pair of navy blue women’s or a pair of brown men’s Olu Kai flip flops floating around, let us know! 😂

Last known photo of my flips. ☹️

The road less traveled to Casco Bay

After the exciting swim in Muscongus Bay, the peace and quiet of Linekin Bay was just what we needed. This deep anchorage allows access to Boothbay Harbor without all the craziness and boat traffic of being right in the harbor. We were socked in with fog for two nights, but we took the opportunity to make a provisioning (and thrifting!) run into town. 

As we made our way back to Casco Bay we decided to try a few new places off the beaten path on the eastern edge. First up—The Basin. The entrance to The Basin off the New Meadows River is narrow (not Great Harbour Cay narrow, but still narrow!) and littered with pots that get sucked under as the current rips through, but the reward once inside is worth the white-knuckle navigation. We saw one spot that was only 9’ deep, but then we were in! It was flat calm and we shared the anchorage with one other boat that we’d seen a few other times while in Maine. At night, stirring the water brought it to life with bioluminescence. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, we went ashore for a nice morning hike. This stop was just absolutely lovely.

The Basin

Leaving the Basin we had plenty of options nearby for the prevailing winds. We rounded Rogue Island and headed for Ridley Cove, but finding lots of floats and just not feeling it, we continued up Quahog Bay to Snow Island. Though there is a big marina just north of the island, we found this spot much more picturesque and peaceful, and we dropped the hook east of Little Snow Island. We hadn’t even been here an hour when the Quahog Bay Conservancy pump-out boat came along to see if we needed a pump! This group offers free pump-outs (though happily accepts donations) and has an oyster fishery to help keep Quahog Bay clean. I love their mission and the work they are doing! We are settled in with about a half dozen other boats for a breezy night.

Snow Island

For folks heading to Casco Bay from Boothbay, it’s easy to skip these little spots and end up in Freeport or Portland, but I’m glad we were able to take it slow. From here we are off to hide out from strong winds that are forecast to flip-flip from northerly to southerly almost every day. We also have a part to fix the grill getting shipped to a friend in the area, so we will be working on a meet-up!

"Something's not right...ALL STOP!"

It was bound to happen, I guess...we hit a sinker!

We are heading towards a rendezvous with friends so were we compelled to get underway. With only 3 kts of wind on the nose, we motored (I can hear the sailing purists squawking now!). Two of us were on deck, looking out for pots and watching for lobster boats when we felt a shudder--something wasn't right. Frank immediately stopped the engine and we looked around for a pot. He cranked it up again and it still didn't sound right. After a few seconds, a banged up pot floated away astern of us. Uh oh. It looked like it had been hit before and was likely underwater when we hit it. I grabbed the GoPro to take a quick look--we had line wrapped on the prop. The line looked loose and we grabbed one end that was floating alongside the boat to try to free it by pulling. We put the engine in reverse for a split second to see if that would help, but it was still stuck. SWIM TIME!

The kids came on deck to help with lookout while Frank checked the charts against our drift, I grabbed our heaviest wetsuit out of the bilge and started suiting up. The water wasn't super cold at 65F, but just in case it took a while to cut free I wanted to be warm. I donned a wetsuit, hood (I hate cold!), boots, fins, mask, gloves, and a weight belt, and jumped in with my trusty knife. I'm a decent free diver and polypropylene line is pretty easy to cut so I opted to go without a tank (we have one onboard for emergencies like this!). Thankfully, it was a quick job! One loop of line was hooked on one of the blades of our folding prop, but otherwise it pulled right off. I was done in two dives and didn't even have to cut it!

What went right?

We stopped almost immediately.

We had room to drift, swells weren’t bad, and seas were not rough.

We had the GoPro charged! We were able to quickly get a peek before getting wet.

Even though the gear is tucked away in the bilge, it only took a few minutes to go from diagnosis to the 1st Mate being ready to swim. Always be ready to swim!

The line was loosely wrapped, but hung up on our folding prop. Didn’t even have to cut it!

The kid crew stopped school and became lookouts in a hot minute. One was looking out for sharks because he thought momma looked like a tasty seal!

With a little more wind we would have tried to sail/fold the prop to slide it off, though I'm not sure it would have worked given the one loop around a prop blade. Also, that wetsuit was awesome in the PacNorWest, but it was a little overkill here--it was way more than I needed and made me too buoyant (but I was warm!). What we really want to know is why was there a pot out here without weighted line??? It must have been a really old pot or something.

All is well now--Frank checked the shaft seal when we got underway and everything is as it should be, and the vibration is gone! We made it to Linekin Bay for some well-earned adult beverages!

Southern Muscongus Bay

As we departed Penobscot Bay, our sights were set on a return to Muscongus Bay. Despite the crazy amount of lobster pots we encountered last time we were there, we loved it! And while it was very tempting to revisit the puffin colony and Round Pond, we opted for some new adventures.

First stop—Burnt Island. Based on mixed reviews of the holding here, we weren’t sure a stop here would work. We approached and only saw one small boat on a mooring and after driving around a bit managed to settle into a spot that kept us clear of the many pots. Holding was good, so we headed ashore for a hike. I LOVED it! There is a 2.5-mile trail around the perimeter of the island that takes you through shaded woods and along stunning rocky shores. It was a perfect afternoon. And when we returned to the boat we decided conditions were good enough to stay the night.

Burnt Island

After a night in Maple Juice Cove to avoid some southerlies we headed to Harbor Island in hopes of some more good hiking. This is another spot with mixed holding reviews and it took us about 25 minutes to set to our liking (we back down hard!). I’m glad it set because the fog was rolling in! We decided to head ashore to hike, but we couldn’t even see the beach! We made it, met another boater who pointed us to the trails, and we were off! This island’s trails can take you to cliffs, caves, and fairy gardens. We had a blast goofing off on the rocks and exploring the caves. The fog did not lift while we were ashore—in fact, we couldn’t see the boat as we tried to return! 

Harbor Island

We have decided to stay out for the night. We are tucked in between Hall and Harbor Islands, yet can’t  see either! We’ve lit up the boat as best we can so others can see us and are hoping it clears tomorrow so we can move along.

“What’s your plan?”

“What’s your plan? Where to next?”

Even in the most normal of cruising times, these weren’t easy questions for us to answer! We despise being locked in by hard commitments if for no other reason than it can force you into poor decisions with regards to weather. But we generally had a plan like, “in this area for another few weeks, then heading towards this other area...Bahamas for a few months in winter...”—you get the point. We have always said that we are just going to follow nice weather! 

Throw in a global pandemic and answering these questions gets a little more complicated. We wanted to head to Canada this summer, but that was a no-go. We want to return to the Bahamas (or further south?), but ever-changing entry and lockdown rules may increase the stress/decrease the fun factor enough to wave off. There is plenty to explore in the U.S., but being somewhere remote sounds kind of nice right now. Oh, and our oldest is seeking a foreign exchange program next year so our time cruising with her may be coming to a quicker end than I had anticipated. Gah!

For the short term, we have made the turn south and have left our beloved Penobscot Bay. We love autumn on the Chesapeake so this wasn’t a super tough decision to make! We are hoping to see friends one last time while we are in Maine, then will perhaps cruise Long Island Sound on our return. Where will we head in November? No clue! But for now, we are happy to be right where we are.

Repairs in Rockland

We hit up Rockland for a fun working port! Hamilton Marine for parts, Hannaford’s for groceries, CGEX to refill the liquor locker, and a cheap mooring with easy trash, laundry, fuel, and water at the Landings Marina—let’s do it! (And of course, yummy food options galore!)

So...the freshwater pump. It’s sounded like it wants to die for some time, running well past when we shut off the faucet. A few interim fixes kept it going, but it was time. Like any good boat project, almost the entire salon was emptied to access the pump. Fortunately we had all the right connectors for the new pump and it went in pretty easily. The result? WHY DID WE WAIT? Holy smokes, this new pump is so quiet! She purrs instead of thundering along the port side. I. Love. It. Frank will rebuild the old one and keep it as a spare.

The pump wasn’t the only awesome boat project! While in town we went ahead and completed the replacement of our genoa. Yes, yes, the new sail has been up for a bit, but yesterday we took the old sail to Sea Bags Maine for recycling. How did that go? We had pre-coordinated via email so we just walked the two blocks up from the marina and dropped it off. They weighed it and offered us a trade—a new bag! We got to pick from a wide variety and went with this cute, functional souvenir to mark our trip to Maine. We love it so much, and already put it to work on the grocery run!

🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞

Lazy days in Penobscot Bay—Islesboro and Vinalhaven

The days on the water and the nights are getting cool, so we are pointing the bow somewhat south. We made a slow pass through Islesboro, visiting Warren Island State Park and hunkering down for two days of strong winds. The park looks awesome for camping, and while the trails were nice, we had to do them twice just to get a good bit of exercise in.

Brrrr!

And we finally made it to Vinalhaven! Perry Creek was an absolute delight with its serene atmosphere, abundant hiking trails, and the sweet man that provides moorings to visiting yachts. All he asks is that we consider a donation to the Vinalhaven Land Trust (considered and done!). The hiking was so good that the dinghy was high and dry when we came back, even though we pushed it way out when we left.

Exploring Perry Creek from the “Roddy” mooring.

Next we spent a few days in Seal Bay. We didn’t see a ton of seals, but the birding, hiking, and dinghy beaching was just as fun here! We also had a brush with famous YouTube sailors (said hello, but continued on our way—I didn’t want to interrupt their enjoyment of this place) and a birthday celebration complete with Maine blueberry pancakes, fresh lobster alfredo (thanks, Lady J!), and Maine chocolate (Bixby) brownies. Such a great day and another awesome stop!

Seal Bay

As we rounded the south side of Vinalhaven we made a quick, rolly stop at Brimstone Island—the smooth, black cobble beach is unlike anything we’ve seen! From there, we headed to Hurricane Island for an afternoon stroll along the many trails there—its a cool, old granite quarry.

Brimstone Island

Hurricane Island

Alas, a failing water pump and empty cupboards are pushing us back to Rockland. But Vinalhaven is solidly on our “must return to” list! School also started this week so we have to play a little less and work a little more going forward, but the kids seem to have jumped right back into it!