Mile 2234-2300: Portsmouth to Boston

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Portsmouth to Boston Current Location: Portsmouth NH Date: September 3 to September 8 Mile:  2234-2300 Locate: Ramble On Locate: Finnish Line 2.0 Google Photo Albums: Portsmouth (NH), Gloucester (MS), Marblehead (MS), Boston (MS)

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Portsmouth NH (Wentworth by the Sea Marina)

We had about 40 nm to go today, so we got ourselves organized for an 8am departure. That would put us in Portsmouth in good time to get settled and enjoy a bit of the afternoon. Days are not as long any more and we really don't want to be entering these harbours that tend to have strong currents in the dying hours of sunlight trying to avoid the lobster pots!

Coast Guard base

In order to keep good time we motor-sailed the whole way --though much of the time the engine was not working too hard. This is just as well because I am still trying to identify the cause of my elevated engine temperatures. To our relief, today everything behaved. Although the engine was a little hot at times while leaving the harbour against a breeze, once we were motor sailing, the temps were right on target.

Very large, decommissioned
Naval Prison

Lobster pots are still everywhere but we were teased by a thinning once we were further offshore. Our fanciful thinking that maybe, just maybe, there will be fewer of them the further south we go, was quickly dashed as we approached Portsmouth harbour. The pots just got smaller and more frequent! The sun was causing lots of high contrast reflections on the waves which made it challenging to see these pots until you were right near them.

Crumbling wall of fort Constitution

Unlike earlier in the trip, we're no longer alone. Off of the coast of Gaspe and NB, we really were the only recreational boats around. Here there is regular recreational traffic in all directions!

In the afternoon, we passed a boat heading north towing a small Boston-whaler-style dinghy with motor. Nothing particular of note about this but we had watched the boat approach for quite a while. At some later point, when it was more or less abeam of us, and further offshore, I noticed that the dinghy was a couple of hundred yards behind and I could still see the tow line trailing from the sailboat. I did a quick AIS check to see if I could determine the boats name, but found nothing there and there was no name or marking on the side.

This is "Wentworth by the Sea" ...

With little left to do, I called on VHF 16

Dinghy retrieval!

"Sailboat with the blue bimini, this is Ramble On" ... a pretty useless call as there would have been a hundred boats in range that matched that description. I was going to follow that up with call of "Boat with the blue bimini that USED to be towing a dinghy with a motor ..." but at that moment, the boat hove to, and then eventually furled it's jib to head back and retrieve their dinghy. I got a quick "thanks Ramble On" call back. I guess the radio call was enough to get him to notice.

William Wipple's house (a signer of the Declaration of
Independence) with the chestnut tree he planted
in 1776 (from a seed from Philidelphia)

Wentworth by the Sea is where we have moorings for the evening. The current running by the gas dock was swift, not like we had in Chicoutimi, but enough to make it a little tricky to come along side. They have a free "self serve" pump out machine here.  Nice idea!

Once we finished pumping out, we motored to our slip. The current was almost non-existent once there. This marina is almost entirely comprised of double-finger dockage (each slip has a dock on either side, they refer to them as "single-loaded"). This place was designed for very large motor yachts (and there were many at the docks. I guess these guys prefer not to share slips?

We partook in a nice spaghetti dinner and some potent Cesar salad (vampires beware!) and then off to bed we went.

Nuclear Sub undergoing repairs

The second day here we had plans to explore Portsmouth a little, provision, and then find a place in town for dinner. Included in our dockage fees is access to a couple of courtesy cars, which we wanted to make use of. They typically allow the cars to be signed out for two hours at a time. We wanted to take a harbour cruise, do some groceries, and then later head into town for dinner. With some polite conversation with the office staff, Linda signed out the car in the morning. As luck would have it we were the only ones interested in a car that day so we had use of it the entire day!

We decided to do a condensed historic tour of the area via a tour boat. (I know, I know, didn't we just step off our own boats?!). Keep in mind, because of the Piscataqua River, the currents around Portsmouth harbour are quite strong, so the harbour cruise turned out to be a good plan. We got to sit and absorb the sights, and our boat captain, who was doing the talking as well, was well versed in the historic details of this very historic town. It turned out to be the best way to see the area as it is basically a collection of islands interconnected by bridges of various sizes. This is one of the historic US Navy Yards which date back to the 1700's and is now the nuclear sub base. There were two subs visible and two more deeper in drydock that we couldn't see. This yard in on an island of it's own and patrolled by well armed police vessels.

Finnish Line & Ramble On tucked in among
mostly  powerboats

There are a few forts in the area, some of which have origins back in the late 1700's. The harbour entrance has a handful of nice lighthouses as well. Later in the day, on our way to dinner, we again took advantage of the loaner car to putter around the historic neighbourhoods of the town. The shore-side roads are narrow and wind along haphazardly. The houses are lined with many 1700's houses, and a few dating from the 1600's This area of the town was very picturesque and looked like how it might have 200 plus years ago.

The Navy yard is well protected.
Notice the armaments on the bow

In between our outings today, Linda and I cleaned the boat and did some boat/engine maintenance. Linda dug deep into the refrigerator and did a full cleaning. This is a big task given that neither of us can really reach the bottom of the fridge without getting a shoulder and some of our torso through the opening of the fridge. It cracks me up every time I see her head first in the fridge with her legs waving in the air.

I spent some time cleaning and checking the wiring to my instruments, particularly the autopilot. It was misbehaving yesterday and the rudder reference transducer was erroneously telling the autopilot that the rudder was WAY over to starboard. Yesterday, this glitch caused the autopilot to make a hard left turn that had us jumping to disengage it. After checking, and applying some di-electric grease to all the instrument connections, the problem seems to be gone. We'll have to see how things behave tomorrow. We have relied heavily on this piece of equipment and want to keep it happy! I also spent some time identifying some "spots" on the engine to strategically check the temperature. Doing this methodically should help reveal where my engine temperature issues are coming from.

We have been monitoring the weather very closely these past few days. With hurricane Dorian working its way up the eastern seaboard, we need to figure out how to avoid its effect. W need to be sure we're somewhere secure when the remnants pass by. At this point it will be in this area on Friday or Saturday, but it's travelling very slowly, and we have to check for updates multiple times per day to stay on top of things. There will certainly be a few days where we will not be sailing. By the time it gets to this area the winds will be nowhere near hurricane strength, but they could be very strong and the seas will get large and uncomfortable.

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Gloucester

Boston skyline in the distance

Schooner rendezvous participants departing

Very pleasant day, though no sailing involved.  The apparent wind was close to zero for the whole day, but it was sunny and warm, and the swell wasn't too bad.   We crossed a bay (not sure the name of) between Portsmouth and Cape Ann.  During the crossing, we got progressively further from shore and the lobster pots diminished to zero. Yay!!!! Unfortunately, this wasn't permanent. Booooo :-(   They returned again once we got closer to shore on the other side of the bay. We also saw a few large fishing trawlers reeling in their nets.

Dual identical lighthouses

The highlight of the day (for me) was the dual lighthouses on Thatcher Island.  This pair of lighthouses was originally built in 1771 and one of only a limited number of lighthouse pairs on the east coast.  They were rebuilt of stone in 1859 and they both stand 124' tall.  Only one of them still operates now and the other has a dim "token" light to make it look pretty.  (more details here)

After rounding Thatcher Island, is was only another hour to head westerly into the outer harbour of Gloucester.   Once inside, we could see this was a mixed port with lots of fishing still going in here.   There were a few mooring fields, and we had a ball reserved for the night.   Our attempts to locate our mooring balls was surely a comedy show for the woman on the other end of the radio.   We had to ask about 4 times where these mooring were to be found.   Her directions were not very helpful for newbies in such a busy harbour, and we spent a good 30 minutes poking about the mooring field until we found the two balls with the correct numbers on them.

Harbour had quite a number of
these rusty beasts

Fishing boats have gone by and dumped their unused chum into the harbour as they pass before taking their slip for the night.  (very stinky).  There is a fishing processing factory nearby that rumbles all night long and spews the aroma of deep fried seafood (less stinky).  During the later afternoon the mooring field was a bit rolly due to the traffic, but in the evening, traffic mostly stopped and we just had one grumpy seagull swimming around the boat making very weird sounds. Linda thinks he was grumpy because we had no chum to offer.

Bob, Chris M and I dinghied over to the public landing to look around the town a bit and grab some dinner.  Linda caught up on some napping back at the boat. There was a maritime history center but it wasn't too active at the moment, but there are some 100-year-old (or older) wooden fishing schooners up on the ways, in hopes of being restored. And a few other schooners moored nearby.

Spectacular reproduction of Columbia

Of particular note was "Columbia".  The original Columbia was built to compete against the Bluenose, but could never beat her!  The original Columbia was lost off Nova Scotia in the 1920's.

This Columbia was a very new reproduction.  Her hull was not built of wood, but perhaps aluminum, and had a deep blue/black shine that was immaculate.  Her rigging was traditional, though I'm sure hiding inside those beautiful wooden turning block were lots of ball bearings!   She is a private boat and must have cost a fortune to build.   I imagine that below looks nothing like the working fishing schooner is was modeled after, but rather finely finished and built for comfort.

The weather looks to provide us with two windows which should allow us to head to Marblehead tomorrow, and then Boston the following day.

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Marblehead

View looking SW.
This is only half the harbour

Passage from Gloucester to Marblehead was short and relatively straight forward.  We had to dodge some shoals and some islands, but it was close to a straight shot between the two harbours.  Finnish Line sailed most of the way and we decided to motor and do some more engine temperature testing. 

Today there was a 12-15kt breeze on the head and some sloppy waves and swells.  This allows testing under a bit more load.  The results were good, and the temperatures were as expected.   Next tests will be at higher RPMs to see where overheating creeps in or possibly that the issue has been resolved.

The other half of the harbourscape

Marblehead harbour is truly a sight to see for any sailor.   It is one GIANT mooring field with boats packed as tightly as you could imagine in all directions.   There are a handful of fancy yacht clubs here, and they sport large, large immaculate clubhouses.  They all run tender services to get you back and forth to their club, or, as it turns out, anywhere in the harbour!

When we arrived, we were instructed to go near their "floats" (which means their floating docks at their clubhouse) and the tender will guide us to our mooring ball.  Very civilized. We had a hard time finding our mooring ball in Gloucester and there were hundreds more in this harbour (about 2000).  Without assistance, you could spend weeks searching for a mooring ball here! We and Finnish Line found our respective moorings, but they were quite far apart. Even sporting Canadian flags we still have a hard time figuring out where each of our boats are.

There is an AC 12 meter boat here that is available for day sails at $75/person.  Valiant, a "jumbo" 12M (US24) was built in 1970 America's Cup but lost the challenger series to Intrepid.  The boat is still raced regularly and participates in the Marblehead to Halifax race most years.


We have access to the showers, free laundry and other facilities at the club.  That, combined with using the launch as a water taxi made the $45 a steal (Boston will be much more expensive).  By the way, the tender drivers are superb in their pickup and dropoff maneuvers.  Their launches steer using a vertical stick/tiller instead of a wheel.   They can navigate the tight maze of moored boats much quicker with this "stick" than they could with a wheel.

After Bob, Chris M. and I paid our fees, we collected Linda and had the launch drop us off across the harbour (where the town is). The launch driver provided a lunch recommendation-- world-renowned as one of the best sailing bars. So we ended up at Maddie's Sail Loft, a bar with a lot of history.  It's a small pub that's been around for about 72 years.  We had a good meal with large portions of various types of seafood.  After lunch Bob, Chris M and I went off to look at the old town and Linda did similar but with shopping stops.  Not unlike Gloucester and Portsmouth, there were sections of town with small lanes/roads and slightly haphazardly placed houses, dating from the 1700's and later.  Many with little signs that tell you who built them, and when.   Many had a gold Cod fish over their door or on the sign.  Apparently this is a local thing to the area because the cod fishery was really what this area was founded on. The symbols pay tribute to this heritage.

We all caught the launch back to our boats, but Linda continued back to the club to get in a load or two of laundry.  Free machines are rare!

We were treated to a beautiful evening thunder storms complete with spectacular cloud formations and and wonderful sunset--Linda was in seventh heaven!

To top it off, the clubs around here all fire a canon at sunset when they take their flags down for the day. So at 1913 hours, we heard them all fire (though at slightly different times).

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Boston

These guys blow by at 25kts

Boston harbour is a tangle of small islands, shipping channels, airports, water treatment plants and LOTS of traffic.   We could see the Boston skyline from Marblehead, but interestingly, you must set a course for noticeably south of the cityscape.   This is because the barrier islands force you into a dog-leg to approach the harbour. 

Logan airport in located in the bay

leading into Boston

While there was an increase in traffic, it wasn't too bad, and the biggest obstacles were the dredge barges and their accompanying tugs that shuttling around about 4-5 very large barges to and from the dredge site along the main entrance channel.   There was lots of water, and this didn't really cause us much grief.


Arrival day:

We ended up booking a mooring at Charlestown Marina instead of Constitution Marina.   A while back the people at Constitution Marina said there would be no problem getting a slip after labour day, and because at the time we were still unsure of our exact schedule we didn't book.   When we tried again, they said they had no space, and Charlestown did (perhaps the Dorian was resulting in ore people taking refuge in Boston) . Although, not quite as close to downtown, not too bad.   The Charlestown Marina was a high-end place with a good bunch of big mega yachts, as well other regular boats like ours.

Elaborate copper-work on many buildings

The marina was very well built with enormous steel piles and very sturdy looking docks.   If the hurricane does blow hard, we would be protected by some very large wind/wave breaks ... I mean yachts.  We are also nestled deep in the marina, so that will limit exposure too.  It still wasn't clear what impact the hurricane would have, but we were comfortable that this was a good place to hide.

Old Nantucket lightship

Since we had a few days in Boston we had plans to do some sightseeing and enjoy this historic town.  Peter and Wilma will be joining us the day before we depart, to accompany us to NYC.

Bunker Hill memorial bridge

Linda and I grabbed a water taxi to downtown.  It picked us up right at our marina and deposited us downtown, right beside the Tea Party wharf.  Since we had arrived in Boston early enough in the day, we planned to see some sights before meeting up with Bob and Chris M. for dinner.

In our travels, we saw Faneuil Hall and Qunicy Market. The city has placed patterned brick in the sidewalks all through the city as a way to guide you around to all the historically significant places.   It is called the "freedom trail".   While we didn't follow it around specifically, we found it helpful to know you are going the right way.   The trail stitches together many buildings, monuments, and historic places that revolve around the American Revolution.

We spent some time on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, which is a park space that exists where the R.F.K Expressway used to be.   The Greenway includes paths, gardens, art displays, fountains, and much more.  Since it runs right through the city, it is also busy and well used. 

We coordinated with Bob and Chris M. to meet at Regina Pizzeria.   It's a interesting place.  They wouldn't even let us in the door to wait until our whole party was there (we were a little early). This place is renowned and the oldest pizzeria in Boston. As we stood in line waiting for Bob and Chris M. to arrive, a local also waiting in line indicated that this was the shortest line she'd ever seen here. She suggested we shouldn't leave the North End without a visit to Bova's!

Bobby Orr!!!

Once we had all arrived, we were seated quite quickly.   The place was full, and clearly a popular spot.   They were cranking out pizzas for both those in the restaurant and for delivery/take-out as well.   The decor was as you might expect, lots of eating booths, police department badges adorning the wall, a little bit worn and grungy, but the pizza was excellent and worth the reputation.

We finished the evening by heading just around the corner to the recomended "Bova's Bakery".  It's a crazy place--a 24 hour Italian bakery with a huge variety of cookies and cannolis! An Italian shop that's been operating for about 100 years by the same family.   We picked out a selection of sweets for desert once we were back at the boat. The lemon anise biscotti were a treat!

The "Constitution" at night

The next day the boys went to Bunker Hill to see the monument and small museum.   Turns out the battle of "Bunker Hill", where the Americans repelled the British twice and then failed to repel the 3rd attack (sort of considered a win), was actually fought on Breed's Hill, though Bunker Hill (the adjacent hill) was intended to be the better fortified hill that the Americans were originally intended to defend.

We then followed the Freedom Trail which led us to the Constitution (it was the other way around, but the line on the sidewalk told us we weren't lost).   The ship, though almost entirely unoriginal, is still a spectacular ship that is maintained in pristine condition (it's still a commissioned ship so gets the full Navy attention and resources).   While we were touring the boat there were workers sanding and varnishing woodwork.   Throughout the boats life, it has gone through many major and minor modifications and a handful of full rebuilds.  Changing from rope to chain anchor cable early in the ships life required a major reconfiguration as did many other "technological" upgrades. 

Cheers!

Since we were now close to our marina, we headed back to the boats to clean and scrub things so that new crew wouldn't have to put up with too much dirt and grime!

We also took the opportunity to secure things on deck and lash down anything that might get blown about as hurricane Dorian passed by.  Forecasts now suggested that this might be a non-event, but better safe than sorry. As we went finished dinner and went to bed, the wind did start to pick up. We expected some rain this evening, and
more from 5-9am tomorrow.

Bunker Hill monument

On our third day in Boston, Chris M. departed at 8am and then the remaining three took a hop-on-hop-off trolley to tour the city. Our first stop was lunch at a favourite place of Bob and Tarja's that they discovered on a previous trip to Boston.

The drivers of these trolley buses are real characters. They have the knack of talking continuously while driving and extolling all sorts of facts and trivia along the route. Although, each one had their own unique style of delivery. 

Tea Party reproduction ships

Other stops took us to the Boston Public Garden, "make way for ducklings", "Cheers" and the Trinity Church. At one stop, Bob and I went to the  while Linda found a Trader Joe's.

In our minds, I think we were thinking the Maparium was a museum of charts and maps.  Turned out to be something completely different.   It was actually a large (30' in dia.) stained glass sphere of the world that could could walk inside of made in 1929.   That's cool, but it was housed in the Christian Science building.   The building is certainly a significant piece of architecture, we felt a little weird hanging out in here waiting for our tour.  FYI, the acoustics where as you might expect for a sphere.   People in the same spot on the other side of the walkway sounded like they were whispering in your ear.  Very startling.

The sphere was quite striking and was originally intended to be updated regularly to account for changes in the worlds borders and country names.  But because of the depression, that didn't happen and they decided to leave it as it was build and so country names and boarders are not as they are now.

Now that's a shackle!

Day four involved more prep for incoming crew: more cleaning, laundry, shopping and a booze run.  Peter & Wilma arrived around 7pm and we had some boom boom shrimp and other nibblies waiting for them.

Next Leg:   We are heading to New York City, cutting through the canal that avoids going around the "Arm" of Cape Cod, stopping by Martha's Vineyard, and then working down Long Island Sound.

Mile 2015-2188: The Maine Coast

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The Maine Coast Current Location: Portsmouth NH Date: August 22 to 31 Mile:  2015-2234 Locate: Ramble On Locate: Finnish Line 2.0 Google Photo Albums: Northeast Harbour, Burnt Coat Harbour, Seal Bay, Vinalhaven Island, Castine, Belfast, Camden, Christmas Cove, Snow Island, Portland

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Northwest Harbour

Northwest Harbour is one of 3 harbours on Mount Desert Island.   A while back we had both heard and read that Bar Harbour, while certainly the most renowned on the island, was not the place we should end up.   Northwest and Southeast are both on the south end of the island, and more directly accessible from our approach from Nova Scotia.

Ramble On among the big boys!

As we entered Northwest harbour we found is was quite crowded with a mooring field filling much of the half mile approach to the municipal docks where we would be staying.  This part of the coast, being part of the Bay of Fundy system has particularly high tides.   At times the 60' gang way down to the dock was almost level, and 6 hours later, it felt like 45 degrees!

Ferry boats load/unload passengers at the town wharf

This harbour showed a striking contrast to most of Nova Scotia's southern coastline in that the money involved with yachts and yachting here is a couple orders of magnitude more that anything we've seen.  There are Hinkley yachts everywhere.  It is hard to image the level of detail in woodworking on these particular boats.   The bright-work gleams, and everything is polished. 

Some of the motor boats were attended-to daily for a spritzing of water to rinse off any salt spray that might have occurred overnight ... at the dock!  Other boats had full time staff making themselves busy lest the owner shows up to go for a lunch outing.   Morris Boat Works has an operation in the harbour too.  The end of our dock had two monster (or super, or mega ... not sure how these are defined) yachts. These boats have captains and lots of staff.  We looked like the poor hitchhikers from Canada compared to everything else near us.

While coming into the harbour and once in here, we saw many nice wooden sailboats.   This was somewhat true of many harbours in Nova Scotia, but the difference here is the proportion of such boats is higher here, and the caliber is similarly so.

Sliding the groceries down to the boat!

Interestingly, adjacent to our dock was the very busy public wharf.



Daily we watched fishing boats dock to unload their catch, ferries deliver folks and their gear to cottages/homes on nearby islands, and other boats docked on and off all day long. The gangways to the floating docks include a "slideway" and we eventually saw why.  Various parcel delivery trucks arrived at the wharf and unloaded dozens of packages regularly.  Many of them Amazon and other major online retailers. Staff of the "mailboat" (a local ferry really) would slide them down the "slideway" and another staff would catch them at the bottom and they would then get loaded on the roof top of the boat. From there, I suppose they are delivered to the various islands in the area so everyone can have same day delivery.

Abbe Indigenous Museum

Balance Rock

Since we had a few days here, we had some time to explore. Northwest Harbour is small but very nice. Plenty of interesting shops, a museums and eateries, including a bakery with the biggest, "baddest" homemade doughnuts!

There are free buses on the island (thanks to a annual grant from L.L. Bean). We headed to Bar Harbour to see what we had missed.   It was a pretty town, but very touristy. The harbour was as reported ... not that exciting, so we were happy we didn't go there with the boat. We did explore the town, visited the Abbe Museum and located "Balance Rock".

Small "Pusher" tug delivering antique car

We did a little bit of provisioning and shopping in Northwest Harbour, and because of timing and quality of the laundry machines, we found a laundry service to do 3-4 loads of laundry for us.   Turned out to be the most expensive laundry event of the whole trip--and probably of our lives!

Before we headed off to our next destination we had a few boat repairs and maintenance tasks to knock off.   Still no definitive answer on the exact source of my bow leaks.   When we take big seas from the bow, water makes it down into the V-berth area still.    It was also time for our next oil change.  We're putting in a significant amount of motoring, and the general mantra for Diesel engines is that regular oil changes are the most important thing you can do for the engine.   I found another small seawater leak in the engine area.  This time is was the vacuum breaker for my exhaust elbow.  The part is most definitely kaputt, but some new o-rings and a generous helping of 4200 will keep me in business for the rest of the trip.   Finally, and most importantly, the coffee grinder, with it's defective grinding handle, got some badly attention so more coffee could be ground! Mmmmm, coffee....

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Burnt Coat Harbour (Swans Island)

Burnt Coat fishing village

Our next destination was Burnt Coat Harbour.  We had a nice wander through the nearshore islands for about 15 miles.  The coastline here is stunning.   Many islands, big and small, and even more places to explore, and anchor.   The geography is rough and and rugged.  You could spend a handful of summers just on the Maine coast and probably still not see it all.







Sealife report: we passed many Ocean Sunfish (some of which were huge) and saw a few porpoises too.

Passed by the locals

As advertised, there are lobster pots everywhere, but it was manageable. The fishermen tend to drop pots one after the other in a row, so often we are able to find a "lane" to travel safely. We enjoyed a nice sail under polled out jib.  Sailing through the lobster pots is a little less stressful. While you can still get tangled, you are not that likely to get something tightly knotted around you propeller and shaft.

We entered the harbour through very narrow channel and found ourselves chased and then passed by friendly fishing boats (but not so friendly as to slow down for you) returning from their day on the water. 

This is a fishing town and the buildings and houses are all built along the shore on tall pilings (10' tides around here).   The harbour had a mooring field primarily for the fishing fleet and also lots of shallow areas so we were paying close attention to the charts here.  The wind piped up in the evening so Finnish Line let out a bit more scope.

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Seal Bay (Vinalhaven Island)

Polished rocks everywhere

In Burnt Coat Harbor it was a relatively quiet at night, but in the morning it was breezy and we had the sense that we had dragged a little bit.

The dinghy was down from last night and we were going to head to shore to see what we could get at the Fishermans co-op in Burnt Coat and also see about the pie's at "Tim's" (a place we had read about). As we were about to depart for shore, the wind, which was quite breezy, picked up a little more.

Seal harbour at low tide

A few minutes later, after being below, I came up to notice Bob at his wheel and our dinghy was oddly pinned to our stern. I noticed that the fishing boat moored behind us was a little closer than before, but WAIT, that's not the boat that was behind us last evening, it was now 100' in front of our bow!!

We were dragging .... in a VERY crowded mooring field .... of fishing boats! And we were dragging quite quickly. Boy did we scramble! We detached from Finnish Line and peeled away so they could haul anchor and get clear as well.

At that point we decided to depart for our next destination instead of try to set anchor again and take any more risks. The bottom here does not have good holding.

As we departed harbour (wind was blowing in the low 20 kts), I think I gave Linda a heart attack when I said I've got to hop into the dinghy (while underway) to prepare it for being towed (remove life-jackets and stuff that would blow away, and put motor up).

I think Finnish Line's anchor snagged on a mooring float on it's way up but they cleared that quickly. After a few minutes Finnish Line had the anchor up and were clear of things.  How we dragged 200 feet in such a tight harbour without hitting anything was nothing short of a miracle!!

Cat boats like this are common all through
New England

After motoring clear and getting on course to Seal Bay, we popped out the jib and shut down the noise maker and enjoyed a very nice sail through beautiful islands. Sort of like the 1000 Islands but "inflated". The islands are bigger here, and the distances between are bigger too, but they are rugged and beautiful.

The entire way was a continuum of fishing floats. Non-stop ... so sailing, aside from the slightly reduced visibility of having the sail out, provides some piece of mind.  We are getting used to this now, and our time in N.B. helped with that, and our luck continued and we didn't run over any this day.

Though, no matter how vigilant you are, there are occasional floats that exist just below the surface and there is no way to see them. Fingers crossed that we miss all the ones of that type.

Seal Bay is located in Vinalhaven Island. The entrance would be easy to miss, but once inside, the bay is very protected, and the shoreline is beautiful smoothed granite. Care is needed here as there are lots of rocks (all well marked on the charts), but the tides here are 8-10' so things look very different every 6 hours.

The bay is very winding, and Finnish Line went in deep to find both good protection and 10-15' depth. There are a few private mooring balls here, and a few houses on shore, but otherwise it's quiet and secluded. Very nice!!

Later, after we finally put in for the night after a tasty dinner, stepping out on deck we were treated to a spectacular night sky. No moon and almost zero light pollution. Chris M., observed the milky-way with some questioning, perhaps less familiar to those from areas of bigger cities.

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Castine

We decided to stop at Castine for a night before heading to Belfast. They are close together and tomorrow's passage to Belfast will only be a couple of hours.

Training boat

Today, as with the last few days, the weather is beginning to feel like fall. Evenings are cooler and daytime is not always t-shirt and shorts weather. The water is never very warm, maybe 15C, so once the sun is gone, the temperatures cools quickly.

In any case, it was sunny, and the winds were light (but on the nose the whole way).

Our route followed a winding path through beautiful islands and, like everywhere else in Maine, we spent all our concentration on avoid lobster floats. Interestingly enough, they eased up as we approached Castine. Don't know why, and I suppose the obvious answer is that if there were lobsters or crabs to be found, there would be traps.

Big training boat

Castine is a pretty town that has a mooring field of recreational boats from 20' to 40', and is home to the Maine Maritime Academy. Thus, there is a large ship in the harbour as well as a nicely maintained fishing schooner (not dissimilar to the Bluenose), as well as other boats used by the cadets.

Historical plaques abound!

We found the town not at all busy. There are a couple of restaurants and 2 small convenience store, and some art, book and bakery shops.

Linda and I decided to take a motorized golf cart tour of the town (seats 6 people). Our guide pointed out the various historical houses from the 1700's and the history and stories behind many other buildings. There are remnants of a fort here and the local historical society has placed about 100 plaques around the town to highlight places or houses of historical note. Definitely worth a visit here.

Since we had taken a mooring back at the CYC, we decided to simplify things and eat on shore at a nearby pub. 

We enjoyed some local beer, and some good pub pizza. Stuffed to the gills, we made our way back to the club, and dinghied back to our boats to digest and relax.


Of note is during one of my midnight "expressions" off the back of the boat, I was quite surprised by the twinkle of bio-luminescence. Disturbing the water resulted in tiny little flashes of light. The moon was not yet up, so that made it possible to see this phenomenon. I recalled back to earlier in the day when I saw, and didn't pay much heed to, night-time kayak tours that are only offered on new moon nights. The bio-luminescence only occurs in this area fed by the Bagaduce River. It has something to do with the confluence of the freshwater river and the salty Atlantic ocean that creates special conditions in this one area. Very cool!

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Belfast 

Our next destination is Belfast, which is  short sail of about 2 hours across Penobscot Bay almost directly WNW from Castine.

We passed a tug boat and barge that were doing circles? Not sure what they were up to but perhaps they were part of the marine Academy and doing some training.

Both Bob and I are still testing our engines for high engine temperatures.  We did little bit of motor sailing, but then the wind died and we motored the rest of the way into Belfast. We found a slip at city Wharf/Docks in and among some pretty big motor boats. There was a mooring field here as well, but not as crowded as other places.

No longer a bank,
but the alarm is still there

The town is nice, but not as quaint and historic as Castine.   The woman at the local Museum provided overview of the town history and indicated that Belfast came to more prominence after separating from Castine (which was the local seat of government at the time) and then became the county seat (of the adjoining county).

Decorative slate shingles

The downtown has a modest intersection of two streets that contains most of it's mid/late 1800's buildings. Some quite nice and well preserved.

The museum was like a scrap book of local interest. Belfast was on the receiving end of one of the first radio broadcasts, a local boy grew up to be a high altitude skydiver of some note, lots of ship building here in the past. The railway helped keep the town alive once the days of sail faded away.

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Camden 

Had a great sail today. We had to slow down a little bit (from motoring speed) to avoid being early. The Camden harbour master asked us not to be there before 2:45.

We saw sunfish today, a good bunch of wooden schooners and other "tall"'ish ships. Turns out there is a windjammer festival in Camden. We also tacked away from a tug pulling a large barge of mechanical equipment.

All these and more had made
a home in my speedo transducer

When we left the harbour (Belfast), my newly cleaned speed transducer we reading all zeros. Argggg... Before we got to putting up sails, and decided to bite the bullet and while underway, voluntarily opened a hole up on the bottom of the boat.

Windjammer festival had just ended in Camden

These things are meant to be pulled for cleaning, so they come with a dummy plug that you can pop into the hole while you clean and inspect. The process only lets in about a litre of water. Well, as soon as I extracted the transducer, and put the plug in, the water that spurted in (ends up in a small bilge sub-compartment) contained about 20 1cm long krill. All swimming about, perhaps a little surprised that I had discovered their hiding place (I take that back ... I suspect surprise in not a feeling they are capable of). I looked into the bottom of the transducer and could see the thing was still packed with them. I shook the rest out and decided to soak the transducer in CLR to help remove some other growth that had accumulated. That process resulted in another 15-20 exiting the transducer (to their demise).

Beautifully appointed gaff schooner

After the re-insertion process, we were back in business and reading the expected speeds. What instinct lead these little things to hide out in the smallest of crevices?

Always uphill!

Both Finnish Line and ourselves had a great sail, and with relatively few lobster traps to avoid. In doing a little research, it seems like the lobster fishery has almost completely died south of Cape Cod and I wonder if it will progressively diminish as we sail south in Maine?


As we approached our scheduled arrival time, we dropped sail and started motoring toward the harbour. Camden harbour is protected by Curtis Island which has a proper looking historic lighthouse and keepers house. We could see that this was a crowded harbour, but as we entered the mooring field, we released that this was one of the highest density harbour we'd seen.

Day sail tour boat

Boats at mooring balls, lots of "2 boats at moored docks" (that's a thing around here), as well as a lesser amount of finger docks. There is a big boat yard here, and the harbour has 20 or more 60'+ sailboats. As well, there were lots of smaller wooden schooners and 5-10 larger tall ships as part of their windjammer festival.

Trick door

Getting to our assigned slip was assisted by one of the funniest harbour masters we come across. He was cracking jokes most of the time. He had expected us both to back in (perhaps more used to multi-million dollar motor yachts). Finnish Line ended up hooking around the other side of one of the fingers, and we managed to back in with out any significant embarrassment. (side note: Backing Ramble On into a dock is usually pretty handy as you can step off the open transom onto the dock, but on this trip we have the inflatable dinghy hung on davits at the stern thus precluding this option, so there is little advantage to backing in, though it's good practice.

Megunticook River

Once tied up and secured, we had our afternoon cocktails before doing a short explore around town. Apparently the town had almost entirely burned down sometime in the mid 1800's, but it was re-designed and rebuilt (using brick) and there are a good number of post fire building around giving the town a nice historic feel. The town was vibrant and the wharfs have been mostly redeveloped into restaurants, and shops. The Megunticook River flows under the city. Many of the buildings are built over top of it, and therefore have no basements. There are several sluices to meter the flow, so the buildings do not get flooded. The river flows into the harbour right next to the marina. It's very pretty, roaring falls.

We did a small provisioning and then headed back to the boats before dinner out.

All of this before some rain and wind expected tonight. Tomorrow may be a little wet too, but the winds should have passed as we try to cover about 40nm to get to Christmas Cove

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Christmas Cove 

Last night was one of the few really rainy periods we've had, and fortunately it was at night.  A couple of inches of rain was dumped, mostly late last night. This is partly due to "Erin", the low that skipped up the coast quite a distance out.


We had about 7 hours underway today, so we decided to leave at about 9am so we'd be able to find our next anchorage with a little time left in the day. We're heading to Christmas Cove, so named because Captain John Smith landed here on Christmas day in 1614. or so the story goes.

Today was mostly windless. Finnish Line did put up their main, but the wind faded. The lobster pots came and went today. At times, there were virtually none, and other times it was maybe a 6 out of 10 with the Bar Harbour area being a 10/10.

We experienced a few episodes of sluggish engine performance combined with some overheating. A little worrisome, but hopefully we'll get it sorted out. The pattern is fairly predictable; boat speed slows a little, and engine temps go up a little all while the RPMs don't change.  Feels like something, maybe weeds, caught on the keel or rudder.  During the day, we slowed down a little, stopped and reversed a little, let the motor cool a little, and in the end we just cruised at about 2350 RPM (instead of 2500) and all remained happy.

Privately owned "tower".   About 8-10 stories of
bunk houses apparently?

Once at anchor, strainers got checked, thru-hull got checked, impeller got checked, radiator fluid level got checked. I didn't find a smoking gun, but there was a little air in the radiator fluid and that can cause overheating. 

The harbour here is protected by a couple of islands/shoals (depends on what point in the tide cycle we are at).   Both are marked with daymarks.   I've noted before, but the landscape around here really changes between high and low tides.   Island appear and disappear, shoal areas which you could have passed over easily are now rocky areas that are awash.   It still takes getting used to coming from lake Ontario where things don't change much and when they do, it takes months.


Bob was having similar concerns about his engine temp being a little higher than normal (but not overheating alarm). He has done all the similar checks in the last few days, and today he dove under to inspect but found nothing entangled or obstructing anything.

This may have been the first and only swim by anyone on either boat!

Tree decorated with crab pots?

Dinner tonight was at the "Coveside". They also provide the mooring balls, so they just get added to your dinner bill!

Later in the evening we were treated to a local show of fireworks.  A very nice way to end the evening.

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Snow Island 

One last engine test this morning in order to verify good water flow through the engine. I filled a bucket with a known amount of water (8L) and then removed the cooling water intake hose from the thru-hull and put it in the bucket with the engine running at a given RPM, and timed how long it took to consume the water. IT took about ~20 seconds, which comes to 1400L/h. Apparently that's very good and Yanmar sets a minimum of 700L/h, so it looks like I have no blockages in the cooling water system.

Today we were heading off to meet Lynn and Bernie, sailing friends of Linda from Ottawa who moved to Maine 20 years ago.

Our sail today had sunny skies and a brisk building breeze. It was on our nose for the most part and was pretty lumpy with some big swells mixed in. We were rewarded when we were able to peel away onto a nice reach for the final approach to our destination and clocked some speeds in the high 8's with full jib and double reefed main. Zoom! No sailing in Maine would be complete without lots of lobster pots, and today didn't disappoint. When were were offshore a little, the floats were a little bigger and often had flags on the sticks providing a bit more visibility. In these conditions, the float fully disappears behind each wave, and often go below the surface of the water. One moment you think you see one, and then next it's gone. Keeping track of the floats is like a lobster-pot version of Mahjong! Trying to dodge these with big quartering seas that tend to take ownership of the steering is extra fun.

There was a bit of motoring involved today, but not for long enough to get into heat issues, but regular temperature checks showed only a modest rise in temperature, so it's hard to know yet if the problem is still there or has been resolved.

Bernie and Lynn organized "Cruisers Cocktail" on nearby Snow Island and invited us to join. We all dinghied over to the island at low tide (10+ feet around here) and somehow make it up to a nice dry picnic spot. Before we could land, Bernie suggested we go back and get our rubber sailing boots, which we did. Grateful for the suggestion, we could happily trudge through the low tide muck and enjoyed drinks and snacks with the fun group.

Bob and Chris M. were having some minor dinghy motor issue and stayed back at anchor. We had some great chats with people who were mostly from the general area. I was able to pick the brains of a couple who had just finished re-doing their own deck, a project that Linda and I are thinking about for some upcoming winter.


Later Lynn and Bernie hosted the four of us aboard for a wonderful dinner later in the evening. They own a nicely appointed J/46, Mystic Rose. Dinner aboard was superb! Fresh corn on the cob was a treat that we haven't had this summer yet, combined with a perfectly BBQ's pork loin made for a wonderful dinner. We all talked sailing stories and adventures while Linda was able to do some catch up with these long time friends.

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Portland

I've lost track of the number of
lighthouses we've seen

The wind forecast for today was for light conditions, but it turned out to be better than advertised but almost on the nose. We ended up motoring, motor-sailing, and then motoring. Both Bob and I were paying close attention to our engine temperatures as we generally stayed a little under speed/power to avoid problems. I took engine temperature reading at regular intervals during the day and found things to be pretty close to where they should have been. The end of the day was against a stiff breeze and currents so I am cautiously optimistic about things.

Many forts guard Portland

The sail from our anchorage near Snow Island to Portland was only 20 miles, but we departed a little late as we had to get organized, pull up the dinghy and wait for Bernie to return from the store with a loaf of "Canadian Bread". That's a thing around here. It really looks just like a regular loaf of bread. Perhaps it is overly polite and apologizes too much. (In reality there is a difference between Canadian and US flour, sorry!)

As noted before, the Maine coastline is VERY busy with small islands, rocks with lighthouses on them, reefs, shoals, guts, and all number of obstacles. To get into the harbour of Portland required some winding through islands and avoiding shoals and fighting all sorts of currents. Tides are still more than 10' around here and sometimes a rock could sink you and at other times you could sail over with impunity. Generally cautious, we avoid those things regardless of the tide.




As we entered the Portland harbour, two things became apparent; 1) this is a very busy place, and 2) this place was well fortified at various points in it's past. It became busier the closer we came to the harbour proper with motor boats zipping in all directions, sailboats scooting in all directions, a large Coast Guard ship, tug boats, ferry boats, tourist boats, floating concert/party boats, pontoon boats.

Clunky old Coast Guard cutter

At the same time, a non-stop sequence of planes passed directly overhead all making this the most chaotic place we've been so far. As for the fortifications, a number of the islands protecting the harbour from seas and swells were also the perfect location to build fortresses. Two islands have large stone batteries that look largely abandoned.  There have been fortifications here since the late 1700's and the current stone forts are from the early 1800's all the way to WWII.   We might have seen 5 separate forts/bastions as we entered.  If one had more time, this would be a place for explore further.


We found our way to DeMillo's wharf/marina/restaurant. Both Finnish Line and Ramble On needed fuel, so we stopped at their fuel dock first. We had a somewhat harsh landing as the attendant appeared to know nothing about boat lines and docking and secured our bow line too soon and too short causing us to swing in pretty hard. Once fueled we then moved to our assigned slip (Finnish Line had to wait until after a fishing boat departed). The slips are centrally located to the downtown, but the downside of such a busy harbour is that there are so many boat wakes that we were rocking and rolling much more than desired.

Pod ride atop cruise ship

We found a Thai place to eat and took a break from east coast seafood for an evening. It was delicious. Portions were smaller but we all went away very satisfied.

Next we depart for Portsmouth NH. We want to make some good progress down the coast because we need to find protection from hurricane Dorian as it's path up the coast is unpredictable, and we have to make it to Boston in time to exchange crew. Being in Boston for some lay days would be ideal.

Crab snacks

Tomorrows plan ... 8am departure for Gloucester, or possible Marblehead depending on weather winds. We want to be in Boston for the weekend to meet up with Peter and Wilma and to drop off Chris M.

That's it for Maine!