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.

July 25-30, 2012

Patronus moored off Reed’s Island

We did it!  We managed to time our stops to make it to Boothbay when our friends from Ho-Ho-Kus would be there!  After an easy, leisurely sail to Boothbay Harbor from Five Islands, we encountered a bit of a mooring debacle.  I had reserved a mooring at the Tug Boat Inn the week before, knowing that there aren’t many moorings available in the “Inner Harbor”.  I knew our boat size might pose a problem if we didn’t get one of the few moorings available for boats over 45 feet.  When I hailed the Inn on the VHF, the dockmaster confirmed my mooring number and we went in search for it.  As usual, we motored slowly through the mooring field, looking at the numbers on all of the empty moorings.  After going through the mooring field twice, I hailed the dockmaster again.  He described the location of the mooring to me and we found it.  Except that there was another boat attached to it.  Super.

So I hailed the dockmaster AGAIN.  He apologized and explained that someone had given our mooring away the night before, but that we could pick up any mooring that was labeled “Tug Boat Inn” (other moorings are maintained and rented through other marinas).  We searched, but could not find a suitable mooring that wouldn’t place our boat much too close to other boats, especially if our boat or the other boat started swinging out of line with the fleet.  After about an hour of all this nonsense, the dockmaster miraculously “found” a mooring for us way over to the side, where we had ample room to swing about.

Our mooring secured, we were ready to meet up with the Edelsons, a family from Ho-Ho-Kus who were on their way up from New Jersey to visit their parents.  When they got to the harbor, they walked down to the end of one of the docks and simply had to yell to us to come over in the dinghy (it’s a very small harbor).  Good thing, because we have officially entered the technology-free world: no cell service, no 4G, no email, no internet, no WiFi, no nothin’.  We threw connectivity to the wind and enjoyed dinner at the Lobster Dock restaurant.

Erica gets a Gold Medal in Laundry (hey, it’s tougher than that ribbon twirling thing, right?)

The next day, Vance and Jennifer’s daughter, Kimmie, came to spend the day on the boat with us and Jennifer drove me to the laundromat, where I discovered the Olympic sport of cleaning clothes.  She dropped me off at 0945 and in two hours, I had done 5 enormous loads of laundry (their commercial-sized machines are like three of ours at home.  One load was 3 queen-sized blankets and 5 towels!).  I was drenched in sweat and breathing hard by the time she came to drive me back to the boat.  With the varying wash cycles and dryers that finished at all different times, I never stopped running back and forth through the place for two hours straight.  It was a lot of fun and I wouldn’t mind working in a laundromat doing laundry for the people who drop it off.  It was a great workout, I love folding clothes, and there is something lovely about the warm heat of the dryers and the smell of detergent.

Back at the boat, we found the kids playing, kayaking, and paddle boarding all over the harbor.  They never stopped all day and had a great time exploring the beaches and bridges throughout Boothbay.  That night, Reese went back to the Edelson’s home for a sleepover.

Vance and Chris

On Friday, we took the Edelsons, including Vance’s father, for a ride on Patronus to get her from Boothbay Harbor to East Boothbay.  Mr. Edelson had invited us to his biannual company lobster bake and graciously offered us use of their mooring.  Vance’s parents live on Reed’s Island, which is a 10-acre natural haven.  They have a main house that used to be the Ocean Island Inn and a guest house overlooking the harbor.  It is a magical place, with unparalleled views, nature in the wild, an osprey nest, and a great history to boot.

Vance guided us through the tricky harbor entrance like a pro.  The guidebooks had warned not to attempt this harbor without local knowledge, but here we were, with Local Knowledge himself!  More kayaking and paddling ensued, followed by another great dinner out, ice cream (in the Middle of Nowhere at a place that defies all economic planning, the tenets of supply and demand, and the old adage of Location, Location, Location).  They apparently get by with their friendliness and their great ice cream.  But what more do you need, really?

eating, eating, and more eating…

Saturday’s party at Harry and Jonelle Edelson’s home was met with perfect weather, lots of lobster, and over 150 people who arrived ready to enjoy the day.  We met many lovely people, all of whom do business with Mr. Edelson in some way.  We were particularly taken with Phil and Julie Scanlon, who are the Australian consulates to the U.S.  They lead an incredibly exciting, generous, and ambitious life, while keeping their large family of seven children close.  They agreed to come out to see Patronus and chat for a bit, which we enjoyed immensely.

Yup. That’s the Australian Consulate General on Patronus.

Jen and I with our matching shirts and blueberry cake.

Enjoying the afternoon with the Scanlons

Reese and Kimmie

The weekend at the Edelson’s was lovely in so many ways.  The kids got to play with their Ho-Ho-Kus friends, we got to meet Vance’s parents and enjoy their hospitality, and Jennifer, Vance, Chris, and I got to spend time together enjoying the beauty of this lovely area.  We even got our first 2 hours of television in, getting to see the opening ceremonies for the Olympics!

Jennifer and Peter on Patronus

Porter claims Kimmie is his new “Number One Girlfriend”

Jen and I at dinner

The view from the main house on Reed’s Island