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