20 of 20 in 2020

         We’ve reached our goal!  Tonight is the 20th new-to-us anchorage in our cruising career of the Maine Coast.  I told Dan today we could thank COVID-19 for this special summer - we’ve spent all but seven nights aboard the Willie Dawes since mid June.  (Tommie has spent even more than that aboard, as we haven’t upset her by bringing her home for just one night here and there.)  This summer we’ve watched osprey fledge and seals hunt fish, hiked trails in Isle au Haut a couple of times, enjoyed the occasional dinghy visit with cruising friends, spent hours on various beaches collected interesting rocks, sea glass, and driftwood.  And we’ve found grand new places to spend the night. 

Some of our favorites have been deep into Winter Harbor, Vinalhaven, Orono Island looking into Mackerel Cove, the Barred Islands, and the extreme East of Seal Bay on the other side of the island from the place where most people anchor.  Tonight we are up in the Western arm of Gouldsboro Bay.  It’s Labor Day Weekend.  We’ve been avoiding towns and picnic beaches, staying off shore.  Hoping to see whales, but apparently they don’t wish to be seen.  (We’ve spotted exactly one minke this summer.) Porpoises, birds, seals, and ocean sunfish, yes.  But only the one whale.  We’re headed down East for one last trip:  to Roque Island, for sure.  We’ll see if we want to venture beyond that.  Canada never did open the border and they are pretty strict about enforcing it.  Maine has done a great job keeping the spread down, but there are too many people both in this state in from other states who just aren’t willing to put the health of other people in their consideration.  The US as a whole has done a very poor job of controlling the spread and impact of COVID-19. So we have spent our time avoiding towns and tourists and looking for peaceful little places to spend our time.

Thus this summer has given us a chance to rejoice in the little things that we’d probably never notice otherwise - a cool breeze on a hot day, incredible sunsets and moon rises, how fish swim together joyfully in a circle and then burst out of the water just for the fun of it, seals sleeping in the water with their noses up in the air, the noise great blue herons make when they take off flying.  We recognize how lucky we are to have had this opportunity to cruise and this area to cruise in.  We’ll be out here til the cold pushes us back ashore.  If we’re lucky,  that will be a few more weeks.

Moonrise over Deer Isle

A large school of fish leaping.

Gouldsboro Sunset

Chasing Post Offices and Cell Phone Coverage

       One of the things about our living aboard this summer is that I would be working from the boat.  This is a pretty good deal for me and for the most part it goes fairly smoothly.  I can set up my ‘office’ right after breakfast - laying out laptop, printer, and assorted related paperwork and paraphernalia - and put in some quality time.  I’m the business manager/bookkeeper/personal assistant for a local musician who is himself a boater.  He has been extremely supportive, even during those check-in phone calls that are a bit broken up because the boat is swinging at anchor and I forget to move with it to keep in line with the nearest cell tower.  Sometimes he’s on his boat, which means both of us spend a few frustrating minutes repeating what the other has said, listening to our own voices echo in the ether as we turn this way and that trying to find the optimal speaking area.  Neither of us keep to any kind of office routine - we haven’t done that since March when COVID-19 forced us apart - so there will be quick phone calls at times convenient to both of us - early morning sometimes, after supper other times - and we make an attempt to have a regular phone-in time set aside twice a week.  

Which means Dan and I have to be anchored somewhere with fairly reliable cell service at least twice a week, more often if I need to use my phone as a hot spot to have internet for my laptop.  The availability and quality of cell service is now part of the daily cruising log, along with weather conditions, departure and arrival times, and the depth and placement of the anchor.  We know, for instance, cell service in Pulpit Harbor is marginal at best, and that it’s a full four bars in the St. George River.  Because my job entails retail sales, we are also tied to the USPS.  I’ll say to Dan over breakfast as we loosely plan the day’s options, that today I’ll need good cell coverage, or that I will need to get to a post office.  He’ll give a thoughtful nod and check the weather and then suggest a destination.  So far the weather has cooperated with our needs.

Before this summer, our cruising was so loosely planned, we barely had destinations in mind.  That used to be a joke on our schooner, when passengers on the Lewis R French would ask  “Where are we going today?”  “I don’t know.”  Dan would reply, “Let’s see where the wind takes us.”  At home, in the schooner office, I would give a vague answer to the same question posed by a potential passenger: “Our cruising grounds are between Bar Harbor and Boothbay Harbor, we don’t really set an itinerary.”  We carried this attitude into our personal cruising.  We would set off in a general direction and make a final decision only at the end of the day.  No hassle, no pressure, no get-there-itis.  This summer we’ve learned to compromise:  heading that way but remember we need a post office or cell phone coverage at some point.  I can get done whatever I need to do, and I’ve met some really nice people in the various one-manned post offices in the various small towns.  I also have to remember to check their schedules when I look up their locations - many small post offices close for one or two hours in the middle of the day - another thing Dan and I have to factor into our schedule as we cruise.  Sometimes the cell service isn’t as great as I’d like or the post office is a bit of hike from the town landing but it’s a small price to pay to be able to spend this summer on the boat.  

Sunsets like these are one of the biggest perks of living aboard.

Sitting out Isaias

We heard about the possibility of a named storm about a week before it actually came up the coast.  Isaias (which, we learned is not pronounced Eye-zay-us, but EEs-uh-ee-as) was first predicted to affect the Florida coastline before possibly coming up this far, but probably would never get enough wind to become a real hurricane.  Then it was predicted to be farther East, causing havoc in the Bahamas before bumping along the Carolina coastline and maybe slide into the Chesapeake.  The model waffled a little to the East, then a little to the West, before staying more to the West, and moving even more Westward.  Would we be affected much? Would the forecasted SW winds gust up to 35 or up to 50?  And would the day after be a NW clearing kind of day?  

All these questions affect a cruiser’s decision on where to anchor and how best to prepare.  Dan is veteran of both this cruising area and the many possibilities of weather outcomes and he chose Smith Cove, up near Castine, to hole up for Isaias.  We headed up there Tuesday morning, and found we were one of nearly forty cruising boats with the same destination.  Luckily Smith Cove is large enough to accommodate at least twice that many, but that doesn’t prevent some of them from adopting the cruiser’s warning stance (aka “bitch wings” - you know, standing in the bow, hands on hips, elbows thrust out at forty-five degree angles) to intimidate that one boat from anchoring too close to theirs.  As we searched for a good spot to anchor - and there was really plenty of room throughout the cove - we saw a handful of wary watchers, and one couple in a dinghy heading to town decided to turn around and come back to inform us where their anchor was (a more polite way of making sure we didn’t get too close to them.)  We get it.  There’s an air of mistrust during such events; with the possibility of heavy winds blowing through an anchorage, no one wants to be close to the boat that drags anchor or the boat with the skipper who is not that skilled or prepared.

Prepared is Dan’s middle name.  We spent the next few hours taking down the bimini and tying it up, removing anything small (or not so small) that could blow or roll around, and laying out a second anchor and rode at the ready.  Then we sat down to enjoy a late afternoon drink and hors d’eovres and watch latecomers arrive.  We were better prepared than most, but all the boats survived the storm just fine because it never lived up to the forecast.  Isaias didn’t start his appearance until nine that evening, with a few heralding gusts, and intermittent rain.  By one am the sky was clear and the moon was shining and the winds had died down considerably.  No one dragged anchor, and no one had more than a dinghy full of water to deal with.  

Morning dawned sunny and breezy.  One by one boats hauled anchor to leave while we put the bimini back up and brought the deck chairs back out.  Everyone waved congenially to other boats as they passed by.  Another named storm under our collective belts, and it could have been much worse.

Alright, this has nothing to do with a storm.  Just some seals hanging out on a ledge.

Birdwatching

        One of our favorite past times while we’re cruising is birdwatching.  Dan has the eye for details and will start listing features before I even spot the bird.  “Look!  Ok, straight bill, black, maybe a little black around the eye, speckled body…”  Soon we’re digging out our numerous references.  Was the tail forked?  What color were the legs again?  Was there a white stripe along the shoulders?  When we’re sure we know what we saw we mark it in one of the books, along with the date.  I’ve learned to recognize many different birds in the past few years, but I haven’t learned how to quickly process details like Dan can.  

This morning we left the comfort of Roque Island to head to the eastern-most point of US waters to see the birds around the US-Canada jointly owned Machias Seal island.  (There are seals there too - usually grey seals, but they weren’t hanging out on the ledges like they were when we were here several years ago.)  The trip took a few hours and the conditions weren’t ideal - SW winds blowing the tops of swells while the tide ran the other way.  Willie Dawes doesn’t like a beam sea and we made sure things were stowed and tied down so they didn’t jump around as we rolled back and forth.  Tommie, who usually hides when the engine is running, came out from her spot to sit miserably on the flying bridge deck, glaring at us as she tried to keep her balance underneath one of the tied-down deck chairs.  She is not normally prone to sea-sickness, but she did have that look about her for awhile during the trip out to Machias Seal.

As we approached the little island, Dan yelled out “Whale!”  I looked up to see only the footprint.  He was hoping it was a right whale; we’ve not seen one yet.  He said it had a distinctively hooked fin.  Whatever it was, it didn’t show itself again and we didn’t see any other such mammals.  Soon we were seeing puffins.  Scores of them flying about in flocks, gathering in groups, or sitting in ones and twos watching us cruise gently by.  We identified a herring gull, a couple of greater shearwaters, common murres, and razorbills in the water as well.  The tiny island was alive with activity:  birds sitting on rocks, on the seaweed, on the roofs of the bird-watching stations, on the lighthouse, and freewheeling through the air.  This is a bird sanctuary, nesting area and observatory, stationed mostly by Canadians.  We didn’t see any people, but we assume they were present.  We circumnavigated the island and took about a hundred pictures.

Back at anchorage at Cross island, with a view of the Naval communications base, we looked at all the pictures.  Due to the rolling of the boat and the constant cruising speed (to keep the rolling to a minimum) and the birds in motion, many of the photos were understandably fuzzy.  But there were a few gems.  All in all, a great birdwatching morning.

Puffin

Greater Shearwater

More puffins...

Common Murres, Razorbills, Puffins, gulls...

Cleaning Up One Bottle at a Time

        We’ve always  been very conscious of the imprint we leave on the places we visit.  As a den leader, I had my scouts walk single file down the road armed with gloves to pick up trash and bags to place it in.  When Dan took schooner passengers ashore for lobster bakes, he reminded them of our roles as stewards of the island.  They often gathered up a trash bag or two of the inevitable flotsam and jetsam as well as whatever previous picnickers had left behind.  Our cruising life has been no different.  In the Bahamas we were appalled at the amount of detritus washed up on those beaches - you can’t name one thing made of plastic that we didn’t find.  We took what we could use but had to leave most of it behind.  We are dismayed to find similar circumstances here in Maine, although here a good 98% of what we find is due to the fishing industry.  Buoys, toggles, line, parts of traps, bait bags… these things are washed ashore after a storm or after the lines are accidentally (or deliberately) cut.  We also find styrofoam coffee cups or just their lids, empty Clorox bottles, empty potato chip bags, and plastic bottles.  LOTS of plastic bottles.  Water, soda, Gatorade - these tend to tuck in amongst the rocks and tree roots, sometimes half-full with whatever they originally contained.  We gather it all up in piles, carry what we can manage, and leave the rest for some other like-minded volunteer to remove. 

On this trip down East we’ve had a Man Over Board drill at least once a day to retrieve a plastic bottles, and once, a plastic bag.  Today, as we entered Moosabec Reach we had three M.O.B.s for bottles.  We added them to the collection of trash we removed from the rocky coastline of Bois Bubert island that we gathered this morning.  Two days into this trip and we’ve nearly reached our garbage-hauling capacity!

Just some of the trash...

We love cruising down East.  The anchorages in the islands off Jonesport have great names like Mistake, the Mud Hole, and the Cow Yard.  There are so many places in the Roque Island archipelago to tuck in for the night a cruiser could spend a week here and not travel more than thirty minutes.  Today we are anchored off the crescent beach, a popular place for cruisers to picnic, swim, or just walk.  Tomorrow, if the tide and wind and sea are favorable, we are considering a run out to Machias Seal island, where puffins, razorbills, and grey seals hang out.  We debated back and forth today - yes, go now?  The weather today was sunny and calm - typical July morning - but the Southwest winds started to come in just as we thought we’d take a chance, and after watching the seas build as the building winds blew against the tide, we turned around and headed for Rogue, plucking our last plastic bottle out of the sea before dropping the anchor.  Maybe Machias Seal tomorrow.  No doubt there are other bottles out there waiting for us.

Weather Patterns

        “I’m noticing a pattern here.”  I said to Dan as we unloaded the dinghy for the trip to our home in Camden.  As I’ve mentioned, we touch base every three or four days, and twice since we’ve officially moved onto the boat we’ve spent a night or two at the house as necessity has demanded.

He looked at me with a small smile.  “That the weather turns sunny and hot when we’re in town?”  

It’s true.  Each time we’ve come home - for mail, for errands, for appointments - the sun has dominated and we find ourselves overdressed and somewhat unprepared.  We’ve become acclimated to the chilly wind and damp fog.  Dan has now successfully installed two radars and is patiently tutoring me in how to read the screens.  We’ve yet to have real summer out on the water, but there have been times when the fog lifts and we see the potential of it.

A few days ago we navigated through the Eggemoggin Reach and to Pickering Island and decided to go ashore for a hike.  Everything was wet from the fog or the passing drizzle, but we were game.  Pickering is privately-owned but is part of some conservancy and is criss-crossed with well-marked trails.  We found this to be true until we took a side trail to visit one its many pocket beaches and were unable to get back to the main trail.  We tried bushwhacking a little - surely that trail couldn’t be that far - the island just isn’t that big - and then decided to just circumnavigate the island by following the shoreline until we came back to Dow Cove where our dinghy awaited.  Well.  Gone are the days I can just nimbly hop from rock to rock or scramble easily up and down a slope studded with rotted roots and slick grass.  We picked our way carefully through brambles and across jutting shale, me praying silently “don’t slip, don’t fall, don’t turn an ankle…”  Ah youth - where did you?  Once I climbed like a mountain goat, sure-footed and fearless.  We traversed many small beaches, climbed across treacherously slippery or sharp rocks, doing our best to avoid those smelly patches of rotten seaweed that mark the high tide lines, always thinking once we get around this point, we’ll see the boat.  Even when we did see the Willie Dawes shrouded in fog, we had to round a few more points to come to the beach were our dinghy sat.  We were extremely pleased with our accomplishment once we completed our circumnavigation.  We were damp, a little sore from using some muscles that don’t normally get much exercise, but we’d made it around without mishap.  And we’d made it back to the boat before the thunderstorms rolled through.

        The storms were quite spectacular - lots of thunder and lightening, some heavy rain, and the occasional gust causing rain to make a loud splat against the windshield.  We were safe and snug in the Willie Dawes, and about to play a hand of cribbage when we noticed the sunset breaking through the clouds.  Such glorious colors, shading from gold to orange to red in the West while the storms had their last hurrah; the sun prevailed and gave us a large, full, double rainbow to claim victory over the passing front. 

   

Dan and I took turns oohing and ahing and then he remarked that it would be good weather tomorrow… the day we needed to return home.  

The Simple Life. And Fog.

    Here we are in Cradle Cove again, waiting for the weather to clear a bit before we swap out the scenery for something different.  It’s been mighty foggy these past several days, and wet.  We need the wet on land - things were getting pretty dried out - but it would be nice for a little summer weather.  We turned on the heater yesterday - the Fourth of July - to take the chill out of the air.  Still, no real complaints.  We have time to putter, to play, to sleep, to admire the view when there is one. 

    We have seen seals herd fish into a circle for a ruthless feeding frenzy. We’ve watched osprey guard their nests and bald eagles chase other birds out of their territory.  We saw a deer delicately pick his way across the shoreline rocks in search of something tasty.  There was one glorious sunsetthe night we spent off Holbrook Island.  We’ve been to the Rockland Farmer’s Market a couple of times - fresh strawberries and snap peas! - and we’ve experimented with meals.  We don’t have refrigeration - by choice - on the Willie Dawes.  The water here is cold enough to be able to keep some things (cheeses eg) usable for awhile in the bilge, but most fresh foods and any leftovers need to be used up within a day or two, so we’ll have chopped greens sauteed into the canned hash and the extra grilled hamburger chopped up into a can of chili.  It’s fun to see all the various meals you can make with a can of chicken.  (1 Can chicken meat, 1 can mangoes, 1 tsp each ginger & turmeric, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, 2 TB lime juice, 1 TB fish sauce, some green onions and cilantro if you have them - cook about twenty minutes in a skillet to get the flavors mingled and serve over rice.  Leftovers chopped up and mixed with an egg or two make dandy rice burgers for tomorrow’s breakfast or lunch - drop large spoonfuls into hot oil and fry up and serve with spicy mustard or soy sauce.)  I daresay we eat better than those seals or that deer, but we’re probably not as much fun to watch.

    Tomorrow we’re back in Camden.  The cat has a vet appointment to update her vaccinations.  Her idea of “outside” is either the screened-in porch at home or the deck here on the boat, but if we do get to Canada by boat this year they might want to see her papers.  (More likely, they’ll want to see something similar for Dan and me.)  So when we do leave this anchorage, we won’t go very far.  We haven’t yet found that fourth new-to-us anchorage.  Maybe this coming week.  If the fog clears.  

Holbrook Island Sunset

20 in 2020

Five years ago we set off on our big cruising vacation which included the Down East Circle, traversing the ICW and spending 5 months in the Bahamas before we came back to Maine.  Last summer we planned to set off in mid-June to cruise the waters off the Southern coast of Newfoundland and the Eastern shore of Nova Scotia before returning home in September.  Instead we welcomed two new daughters-in-law and spent a couple of weeks on a family tour of Vietnam as part of the celebrations.  So this year - 2020 - was the year we were going to go to Newfoundland.  Then along came a novel corona virus.

      COVID-19 has changed many people’s plans this summer: so far there aren’t many boats out cruising, and there aren’t many lobster boats out either, judging by the lack of lobster pot buoys.  Here we are, anchored in the Barred Islands, our third new-to-us anchorage in midcoast Maine, a good start to our revised cruising goal of 20 in 2020.  Actually, this is an ambitious goal, given Dan’s former career as captain/owner of the Maine windjammer Schooner Lewis R. French;  There aren’t that many places he hasn’t anchored but we are determined to find them.  This little picturesque place is between Little Barred and Big Barred Islands, with a tricky entrance navigating the ledges between Little Barred and Escargot.  The cruising guide advises to get here early, but today we have the place to ourselves. 

We have decided to move aboard the Willie Dawes, even if we aren’t able to take on a lengthy adventure like exploring Newfoundland.  Each night finds us in a different place although sometimes it’s the same place as three nights ago…  Dan takes the dinghy out to collect driftwood and we have found new places to walk and hike.  I can work from the boat if we have good cell phone coverage.  Dan can install, adjust, fix, and - one of his favorite words: titrivate - to his heart’s content.  I have been using some daily free time to learn Vietnamese and will be able to tell people that dragons are not animals and there is a dirty glove at the train station should the need ever arise.  Over all, it’s peaceful, we’re away from people most of the time, and aren’t pressured to pay attention to the news.  

Not that the news isn’t important.  Just saying we’re finding it healthier all the way around to pay more attention to the beautiful scenery of coastal Maine than to the sensational and depressing ugliness of politics, selfish behavior, and police brutality.  We check in to see what’s going on, we just aren’t dwelling on it.  We hope Canada opens the border to US visitors by the end of this summer, but we aren’t counting on it.  In the meantime, we’re at # 3 of our 2020 goal and enjoying the quiet.

Barred Islands