Maine Cruise 2008
Friday, August 15 - Thursday, August 28

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During the afternoon, a French catamaran came into the small southern bowl, in between the rocks, and anchored to let its passengers go for a swim.

We hadn't been to McGlathery since our honeymoon charter back in 2000.  It's a nice place.  I went ashore and hiked through the paths for a while, but found the interior of the island--like most of these islands--to be uninspiring, densely forested, and buggy.  Eventually, I returned to the shore and hiked around the rocks and beaches.

Late in the afternoon, we watched a fog bank roll slowly up nearby Jericho Bay, eventually obliterating our view of all the islands; interestingly, it remained clear and sunny where we were, despite our proximity to the fog on both sides.

The seagulls here were very tame, and a few tried to be my buddy as we had cocktails.  I ignored them.

The mosquitoes were as bad as we'd ever seen them, heading towards the boat in an arrow-shaped mass immediately as the sun began to set.  We could literally see the bugs as they approached from some distance away, and later they carpeted the underside of the dodger and awning and the screens.

The fog hung around most of the day, though there were bright breaks in the overcast above.  During the afternoon, the fog dissipated somewhat, but we elected to remain where we were even though that hadn't been our plan--a decision I was later to regret, mostly because I knew better.

The forecast was for a strong cold front to pass overhead late in the day and during the night, bringing with it strong northwesterlies.  The anchorage at McGlathery is protected from all directions but those with a northerly component.

During the afternoon, a pretty, varnished International 600 yawl anchored nearby.  I knew they didn't set their anchor well, partly because they didn't, and partly because I watched them anchor, and as the husband, at the controls in the cockpit, backed down, his wife, on the foredeck, had failed to cleat off the anchor rode, so all they did was pull out more rode.  All was hunky-dory till just as the sun went down, when it began to clear, and then suddenly, the wind shifted and picked up from the northwest, as predicted.

In preparation for the possibilities, earlier I'd removed the cockpit table and awning, just in case.  We were fine as the wind changed, but the yawl ended up immediately to windward--and was soon dragging rapidly down on us.  Making matters more interesting was the flaming charcoal grill off his stern pulpit, which ended up inches from us as we prepared to fend off.  Fortunately, the skipper managed to start his engine and move clear before any issues, though I actually had to push his stern pulpit away seconds before.

Why don't people set their anchors?  Set the thing.  Strong reverse.  You won't hurt anything.  You HAVE TO do this.  Period.

Anyway, all's well that ends well, but because we were fairly exposed, we decided to move further in the harbor, more into the protection of the western shore.  Another boat that'd come in and anchored outside of us had weighed anchor as soon as the wind changed and headed to a nearby area with better protection; we should have done this, but after the other two boats departed we had the place to ourselves, and I thought he protection would be adequate--that is, safe--if we moved. 

We reset the anchor without too much trouble, though it was windy and hard to communicate.  Night fell rapidly, and while we were relatively protected, there were still waves and wind.  I was a bit uncomfortable since even though I had confidence in the ground tackle, and conditions weren't terrible, we were on a lee shore, so we maintained an anchor watch through the night.  I dozed between 2230 and 0030 while Heidi stayed awake, reading.  By then, the wind had diminished some, and the tide had gone out, increasing our protection thanks to the ledges that extended off the island.  It was a beautiful, clear night, and we enjoyed the stars and Milky Way on deck for a while.

The lighter wind was short-lived, and just as I thought we could go to bed normally, it picked up again.  So I got up and read for a couple hours, checking on deck every so often.  Later, the wind reduced once more, and I slept fitfully until 0600, when the wind roared back to life.

Beautiful morning, but very windy.  Not wanting to extend our stay in the unprotected anchorage, we raised anchor and motored to nearby Hell's Half Acre, where I knew the protection would be good.  We arrived and anchored by 0800, in a delightful lee, and passed an uneventful day.

Yet another gorgeous day!  A pleasant north wind (of course from the direction we hoped to head) allowed us to sail nicely through most of Deer Isle Thorofare.  Once back in east Penobscot Bay, however, the wind became light and fluky, and, coupled with a strong outgoing tide, made sailing towards our destination a fruitless exercise, despite all my hopes to the contrary.  We motored up the bay against a very strong current, making good only about 3.8 knots, extending the pain.  There was wind, but it was quite light and right on the nose.  This trip annoyed me because it would have been so pleasant had we been going the other way.  Of course, if we'd been heading south this day, the wind would have managed to be its normal southerly direction.

Anyway, we decided to head to the eastern cove at Pickering Island, where Heidi had never been.  We were nearly out of food, water, and had only a pathetic chunk of ice remaining.  It was time to be at the end of the cruise, but we knew one more night would be fun.

It turned out to be one of the nicest evenings of the cruise:  perfect weather and light wind.  We had the cove all to ourselves.

We motored the 4.62 miles in a near calm back to our mooring at Buck's.  It was yet another perfect day.

I loaded all the trash, laundry, and jerry jugs into the Fatty Knees, filling it to capacity, and then towed it over to the public landing with the inflatable "commuter" dinghy that I use in harbor.  I left the FK and Heidi at the landing, as I wanted to bring the hard dinghy home, and then returned the inflatable to Buck's Harbor Marine, picked up the truck, and loaded the dink for home.

It was a great cruise:  uneventful, and we didn't really go much of anywhere, but it was entirely relaxing, full of great weather, and just what the doctor ordered.

Glissando, Pearson  Triton #381
www.triton381.com 

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