7/31/12-8/1/12

Well, we had yet another trip that was mostly motorsailing.  Even though we saw two dolphins and a seal, I found myself getting annoyed at the whole “Downeast” myth.  We have been going “downeast” (down wind) for weeks and have had only one amazing day of actually sailing downwind in decent breeze.  Chris chose a nice reward at the end, though.  He had found Pulpit Harbor in our guidebook, which is located on the north end of North Haven.  North Haven is one of the large islands in the middle of Penobscot Bay.

Chris rows to the other side of the harbor, the ideal location in which to view the sunset

We pulled into this quiet harbor and I marveled at how many boats there were and yet how very quiet it was.  There were people kayaking, people reading in their cockpits, and people on the shore, but there was a kind of hush that made me think of “Goodnight Moon”.  Chris and the kids kayaked to town and I stayed on the boat to enjoy some meditative time alone in the beauty of our surroundings.

sunset in Pulpit Harbor, ME

We all went swimming at 1800.  Chris dove under the boat to inspect for damage after I ran over a lobster pot during the trip.  He noticed a few scratches on the rudder, but more importantly, he saw that one of our zincs is completely gone and the other is halfway worn out.  Zincs are used as a sacrificial corrosive.  The sea water wants to induce galvanized corrosion of the metal on a boat.  Zinc corrodes more readily than other metals, so rings of zinc are screwed onto the bottom of the boat, especially near the expensive and important propeller.  I’m sure some of my sailor readers will comment here and help explain this better.  All I know is that they need to be replaced soon, which means all the SCUBA gear has to come out…

The next morning, we pulled the anchor to discover tons of mud had attached itself to our 150 feet of anchor chain.  Chris hauled bucket after bucket of water up to rinse the mud as the chain came up.  He was sore the rest of the day.  Wait till you see what our solution to that dilemma is…(and sadly, it isn’t installing a fresh water washdown hose)

I have a thing for “1” green bell buoys.

July 31, 2012

“As the miles bubble under the keel, sailors seem to shed skins one after the other until the scales so necessary for living in crowded cities and towns drop away, leaving just the human creature all but naked under the stars.  For most, once those scales are gone, they never grow back quite as thick and hard as they once were.” -George Day, Sailing in Thin Water

We left Five Islands on July 31^st, the end of our first month at sea.  It was interesting to think about all that we had seen and experienced in one month, and I was a little amazed to think that we were 1/12^th of the way through with our adventure.  We had departed from Haverstraw, New York and sailed down the Hudson River and through the Long Island Sound.  We had met friends and family in Port Washington, Port Jefferson, and Newport.  We had navigated the Cape Cod Canal and cruised to Wellfleet, Marblehead, Gloucester, and Portsmouth.  And we had discovered the Maine Coast, exploring the Southern Coast, Casco Bay, and the Midcoast.

Bryson steers us back to the mainland

We spent the day on Monhegan Island, which was a fitting end to our first month.  We have traveled so far, both physically and psychologically, from busy, suburban New Jersey to the stark, remote outpost of Monhegan Island.  I took a moment to think about the scales I had shed so far.  I feel as if I have discarded that social mask that one puts on when in society.  Out here, it feels okay to be exactly myself.  I haven’t screened my words, acted “diplomatically”, or pasted a smile on my face since we left a month ago.  I am surrounded by wonderful people all day long who have also shed their scales.  It seems as if we are all equally interested in everyone being happy.  What scales would you shed if you could?  How would it affect your life?  Would society fall apart if each of us was a little softer, a little braver, a little less self-conscious?  Or would we be an example of what could be?

napping underway, like a baby

As the day came to a close, we sailed back to the mainland, to begin the adventures of our second month.  We approached Tenant’s Harbor, which is the beginning of the next “section” of the Maine Coast, known as the Penobscot Bay region.  The Penobscot Bay reaches far into the state and is flanked on both sides by small cities, protected harbors, and majestic hills.  In the center are four large islands (Isleboro, North Haven/Vinalhaven, Deer Island, Isle au Haut) and countless smaller islands.

In the next week, we would enjoy the isolation of Pulpit Harbor; the excitement and joy of spending time with friends in Camden; a picture-perfect evening on Vinalhaven for Chris’ birthday; and a jolly good time with our cousin Lisa in Spruce Head.  Sit back and relax, because I’ve got the pictures and a Ship’s Log to prove it all!  At the end, you’ll scarcely believe that we didn’t even scratch the surface of cruising Penobscot Bay.

Tenant’s Harbor

In Tenant’s Harbor, we obtained a mooring from Cod End Marina.  We learned that the Cod End is the bag at the end of a funnel shaped trawl.  When the Cod End is lifted from the sea, you find out if you have a good catch.  I paddled in on our stand-up paddleboard to pay for the mooring and a gentleman on the pier was very impressed that I did it in regular clothes.  I told him I was getting more confident, but showed him my money, which was safely stored in a Ziploc bag!  The marina, like many others we have seen, is also a restaurant.  They steam up lobsters while you wait and you eat them at picnic tables right on the dock.  The place was hopping when I got there, but I wanted to get back for my swim.

swimming at sunset……

When I got on the boat, I went down below to grab my suit and my knee completely buckled underneath me.  Those of you who are boaters know that you can’t quite walk straight down the stairs of a companionway, but the stairs aren’t quite steep enough to require you to walk down backwards, like one does with a ladder.  So you need to rotate your leg and foot out to the side as you walk down the steps.  The repetitive motion of walking down the steps with this outward rotation has done something super special to my knee, so now I have to be very careful going up and down.  Good thing I only do it about 60 trillion times a day…

…and the moonrise.

I swam anyway and the cold and movement seemed to help a little.  Or maybe I was just too numb to feel it anymore.  I swam while the sun set and the moon rose.  It was so beautiful I could hardly stand it.  I got out of the water in time to enjoy chicken quesadillas for dinner.  Chris and I spend the evening blogging and planning this next leg of our trip.

The most interesting thing that happened in Tenant’s Harbor is that we made a new friend in the oddest of ways.  Bert, who is vacationing in here, saw Patronus sail in from his porch and looked us up online.  He stumbled upon our website and sent us a message welcoming us to his quiet little spot in Maine.  Thanks Bert, and we look forward to having you and your students follow along the rest of the year!

As the innkeeper at Matinicus Island is quoted as saying, “As soon as they ask what there is to do, I know they aren’t going to be happy here.”  We were very happy to be headed for Monhegan Island, a place known to be only slightly more “happening” than Matinicus.  We were looking forward to an afternoon without anything “to do”.

After an easy sail to Monhegan, I timidly hailed the harbormaster to request a mooring.  Monhegan Island is hard core.  They don’t mess around here.  Monhegan is for fishermen, and these days, also artists.  But not so much cruising tourists.  Surprisingly, a man came out in his beat-up old boat to help us secure our mooring.  We also met with a lovely welcome at the prerequisite dockside seafood shanty, where I found the harbormaster.

The mooring we took belongs to a fisherman, explained the harbormaster, but he is out fishing, so we were allowed to use it for a few hours at no charge.  The man in the boat chided us a bit because our mooring lines are not yet spliced correctly, but Chris explained that it is on his list of things to do.  The man offered to do it for us, explaining that they don’t have much to do out there lately.  This is only one example of the many people we have met who are still suffering from the downturned economy up here in Maine.

a fairy village

We traipsed onto the main road and met a couple who lives there in the summer.  They gave us directions to the Fairy Woods, which is on one of the many miles of trails that cover 2/3 of the island.  The Fairy Woods were amazing.  At every step, you could look down and find a little fairy house that someone had built using rocks, acorns, sticks, seaglass, shells, and moss.  Some were simple while others were elaborate villages, with connecting houses, gardens, labrinths, and pathways.  Some hung from trees, some were snuggled in the crevices of a rock, and others were nestled in the curve of a tree trunk.  We got to work on ours and left the woods with three additional homes for the fairies to visit.  We saw a lot of mushrooms, too, so there might be some Smurfs in the vicinity as well…

bryson’s house for Giant Fairies

Porter hauls lumber for Bryson’s “fairy” house.

views of the rocks below us

The rest of our hike was intense and I fell hard on some slippery rocks.  But the view was well worth it.

Reese and Porter at the museum’s touch area.

On the way back, we toured the Ice House Museum, which explained the ice industry on Monhegan going back to the early 1900’s.  We also saw the Monhegan Museum, at the lighthouse, which the guidebook had said was “neat”.  Actually, it was exhaustive, thorough, and HUGE.  We played speed zoo at the end (Jim Carey, Liar Liar) and zoomed through the rest of the exhibits, stopping only to gawk at the wall of photos featuring the current Harbormaster himself, who is a 4^th generation Monhegan Islander!

We managed to finish the museums in time to get to the two shops on the island before they closed.  I bought a cute little dress to jam into my magic locker back on Patronus.  Chris got a Monhegan t-shirt, because you just have to have proof that you got all the way out there.  We grabbed some lunch to go and got back to the boat, because we still needed to sail all the way back to the mainland by nightfall.  As beautiful as Monhegan Island is, it is not the place to stay overnight.  It can be raw, fierce, and dangerous out there.  In fact, when we left at 1700, we noticed the boats in the harbor already starting to buck and roll in the building swells coming into the unprotected harbor.

I am so glad that we got to Monhegan Island.  It’s not necessarily so hard to get to as to claim bragging rights, but it is about a 9.9 on the coolness scale.

munching my Monhegan Lobster Roll as we leave…

exhiliratingly beautiful

Monhegan Lobstermen have a closed summer season. They only fish in the winter and spring.