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Summer
Solstice Cruise: June 21 - 24, 2007 |
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Saturday, June
23, 2007
While I enjoyed my morning coffee
before Heidi was awake, I heard some commotion on nearby
Penobscot Island, and presently saw this small deer clamber
down the bank to feed on some trees and other vegetation
near the shore. |
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We planned to simply relax and enjoy today, and what better
way to begin a fine lazy Saturday on the boat than with some
homemade corned beef hash and eggs--a boat favorite. |
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The weather was cool and cloudy, but the clouds didn't
threaten rain or showers, so overall the day was decent, if
hardly perfect. Every so often, some sun would break
through, providing welcome warmth and brightness. I
took care of a few boat chores, including securing the
galley sink drain hose so that it wouldn't kink and prevent
drainage, and read for most of the day. All in all, it
was very relaxing, despite the less-than-perfect weather.
Late in the day, the sun broke
through the clouds as it set, creating some interesting
lighting effects against the generally dark backgrounds of
the clouds. |
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Sunday, June 24, 2007: Seal Bay
(Vinalhaven) - Rockland
Distance Traveled: 20.6 nm |
Rhumb Line Distance: 16.6 nm
With some plans in the
afternoon, we wanted to get a relatively early start so that
we could get back and unload in plenty of time. So at
0820, we weighed anchor and departed. Although the
morning had dawned cloudy, by now the clouds had cleared,
leaving bright sunshine in their wake. NOAA was
promising light westerlies.
We departed the bay entrance
in beautiful conditions, though with a gusty northwest
breeze that at first seemed to be thermally-related off the
steep and varied topography of Vinalhaven. But the
wind remained throughout our traverse of the thorofare, and
also remained steadfastly on our nose, seemingly no matter
which direction we were actually headed at the time.
With the reef still in the main from the other day, we
powered through the thorofare, but set the jib once we
turned the last corner and found steadier breezes. |
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After a time, I determined
that the winds were lightening, so I shook out the reef
after waiting what I thought was a reasonable amount of time
to see that the lighter winds were the trend, not a fluke.
But within 10 minutes, despite all indications, the wind
strengthened, and I decided to tuck the first reef back in.
Northwest turned out to be directly out of Rockland harbor,
but with a long run across the bay I figured it would be no
trouble to take a couple long tacks and sail easily into the
harbor.The wind had
other ideas. Like northwesterlies tend to be, today's
was quite fickle, gusting well into the high 20s at
times--burying our coamings twice--yet stagnating in the low
teens much of the rest of the time, causing inconsistent
sailing progress thanks to the improper sail combinations so
much of the time. The outgoing tide was strong, and
set us well southwards, but the roughly westerly-heading
tack still seemed like it was far favored, since it took us
perpendicular to the current, rather than directly into the
current.
The very strong winds we
experienced halfway across the stretch were an anomaly, and
despite some frustrating moments when the boat just didn't
want to move with the single reef tucked in, we made
acceptable and generally enjoyable progress across.
The day was beautiful and sunny, and it was back to being
shorts and t-shirt weather for me.
As we neared Monroe Island
off Owl's Head, though, things started to work against us.
The roughly northerly tack (port tack) was a disaster, as
the current was still strong and we made poor progress in
the generally light winds in the low teens, with gusts to
around 20. I had some of the jib reefed, then back out
again as the winds continued to vary in strength.
I was tired, and we were ready to get home. It seemed
like we were sailing way out of our way, and the closer we
got to the shore, the worse each tack seemed, as our tacking
angle and the fluky winds seemed to cause each tack to
nearly parallel the shore, bringing us barely closer each
time. Finally, about a mile from the breakwater, I'd
had enough with going nowhere, and fired up the engine to
power in the rest of the way. As we rounded the
breakwater, the strongest winds of the day gusted through,
as high as 31 knots. But by then we were nearly back,
having sailed 3.3 further miles today versus the more direct
sail on Friday on the way out--and on an identical rhumb
line. We arrived at 1300, the winds lightened
(fortunately, since rowing ashore into 30 knots would have
been tiring), and we unloaded the perishables and other
critical gear and headed ashore after a very fun and
relaxing cruise...despite the lack of summer-perfect
weather. |
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