Maine to Chesapeake

There was a good wind and sea to blow us into Penobscot Bay on our arrival from Nova Scotia

The weather settled down after our arrival in Penobscot Bay from Nova Scotia. We stayed a few days in Rockland, which is the largest city in the area with a busy commercial port. Most of the commercial activity revolves around the Lobster industry as this is the main distribution center for shipping the live lobsters and the Herring boats who supply the bait for the lobster boats are also based in Rockland, along with the main Coast Guard station. There is also a large seaweed processing plant; extracts from the seaweed are used as a stabilizer in a number of food products. 

There are lots of "Wind Jammers" in Maine, this on is a day tripper for tourists

Camden

There's a lovely river running through Camden

Hey Pete, who's your mate???

Camden, a quaint popular tourist town with a picturesque river and waterfall that cascades into the harbour. Its home to a large fleet of Windjammers, or Schooners, that take tourists out on day trips or week long trips exploring Penobscot Bay and its surroundings. We had a couple of days in Camden while Pete attended to some urgent plumbing issues on board. Our next port of call was Pulpit Harbour, on the island of North Haven. This is a great sheltered anchorage, protected from all winds. Here we met up with our friends from Deltaville on their 75ft Catamaran which has a 35ft beam and a center board, dodging the lobster buoys was proving very stressful, they had already hooked up on 3 buoys. Needless to say they were not really enjoying Maine ….

From Pulpit Harbour we made our way to Belfast where our Kiwi friends Mike and Marilyn joined us for a week. So far since our arrival in Maine the weather had been very mixed with some sunny days and some rainy days, however once Mike and Marilyn arrived the weather turned great. Rather than spend too much time in Belfast we decided to get out and explore the myriad of inlets, bays and tree covered islands in Penobscot Bay.

This "Wind Jammer" takes out tourists for week long voyages to explore the area and experience sailing as it was in the old days. Most of these Wind Jammers don't have motors and rely on pusher boats to maneuver them when they are not sailing. They also cook on a wood fired stove, so no mod-cons here, it's back to basics. Oh, and compulsory swimming as there are no showers on board.

Dinner on board Cats Meow with Mike, LaVonne, Don, Pete and Marilyn

Lots of lovely old homes in Castine, this one has been converted to a Bed and Breakfast

We cruised over to Smith Cove and spent a day exploring nearby Castine which was first established by the British in1629, after which the French and the English had many a battle to control the town. During this time there were 16 fortifications built on the peninsular which have all but disappeared. Castine was finally ceded to the United States in 1783, but went through more turmoil in the American Revolution and was the last British post to be surrendered in 1815. Today the town is a mixture of beautiful old homes in architectural styles. It is also the home for the Maine Maritime School, so is filled with budding young sailors who come to learn marine trades from Captain to engineer. We met up again with our friends from Deltaville and had a couple of fun nights playing cards with them.

New Haven was once a big fishing town but now days there are more summer holiday homes on the island

Anyone for lobster???

There are lots of picturesque bush clad islands in Maine



Bucks Harbour in the fog



The team go hunting for muscles

Mike did a great job of avoiding the lobster buoys

The lobster buoys are EVERY WHERE!!!!!!

We headed to Bucks Harbour next, this is a popular and crowded spot, but we did manage to find a suitable anchorage near an American couple who have been living in New Zealand for the past 10 years, so we had a lot to talk about over sun downers. We also managed to buy some lobsters from a local fisherman for a great price (4 lobsters for $20). We awoke the next morning to thick fog, but by the time we had breakfast it was starting to lift so we set off to explore the islands. We stopped briefly as we left the bay for the boys to try a little Cod fishing but nothing was doing so we carried on to North Haven. We encountered several more patches of fog along the way, as well as the usual dose of lobster buoys, but Mike did a great job on the helm with the help Marilyn and myself as buoy spotters. We had a brief stop to go ashore at New Haven town before continuing on the short distance to Perry Creek in the neighboring island of Vinalhaven. Here we were able to gather some muscles, a small variety, and Pete cooked up some tasty muscle fritters for dinner. Just before dark Marilyn had commented how she had seen a nearby boat come to an abrupt stop, however we didn’t think too much of it until we heard a “MAYDAY” call, it turned out the boat had parked up on a rock and the tide was going out. Pete and Mike went to the rescue and pulled the mast over which allowed the keel to lift and the boat was freed from the rock – all in a days work eh boys…..

We tried to find a spot to anchor at Carver Harbour, but it was full of local fishing boats and no room for Sali



But we found this idyllic spot instead, tucked around behind an island



This all girls crew come out to check on their pots and collect the visiting lobsters

The islands are mostly inhabited by lobster fisher men, but are also popular getaway spots and many people have built their summer holiday houses/mansions on the islands.


We decided that Carvers Harbour at the other end of Vinalhaven would be an interesting place to visit as it’s a busy fishing port and also the site of a disused granite quarry. The course leading up to the port proved challenging with the usual lobster buoys that encroached into the narrow channel, along with fishing boats going in all directions and a ferry looming up on our stern. I must point out that the big boats, like the ferries, have powerful motors that allow the propellers to chop through the lines on the lobster buoys should they become entangled, and the fishing boats have baskets over their propellers, so neither have to worry too much about the buoys. However we don’t have that luxury and if we got tangled in a boy line it would mean someone would have to go for a swim to cut the tangled lines, therefore we have to pick our way carefully through the buoys.

Upon our arrival at Carvers Harbour we discovered the harbour was riddled with moorings for the fishing fleet and everywhere outside the harbour was filled with lobster pots. Hence we had to flag our visit to Carvers Harbour and found a lovely sheltered spot between the nearby islands of Cedar and Laireys where we enjoyed a lovely sunset and peaceful night, the water was like a mill pond.

The girls and their skipper drop off their lobster catch at Rockland and pick up a new supply of Herring bait

It's a busy time of year fa steady stream of boats arriving at the dock to unload their catch

Mike and Marilyn’s time with us was coming to an end, so it was time to make our way back to Rockland where they were to catch their bus to Boston, but not before we visited the infamous Walmart.




We dropped Mike and Marilyn ashore on 24th August we headed back to smith Cove where we were going to hide out as hurricane Irene was on her way north. There were several other boats there including our friends from Deltaville. The weather was beautiful over the next 3 days and we spent the time preparing Saliander for the big blow. We took the head sail off, wound the sheets (that’s ropes for you non boaties) around the stay sail, wrapped some ropes around the main sail on the boom and removed the bimini and any other items on the deck that could possibly blow away. Over those 3 days the bay started filling up with boats with the same idea, there were around 60 boats, including a dozen or so super yachts and 3 Australian multi hulls. Can you believe it, we’ve hardly seen any other foreign boats up here and all of a sudden we’re surrounded by Aussies!!!



On 25th August we had a nice day in Castine at the Farmers Market and visiting the Historical House. The wind picked up in the afternoon and we had a few heavy showers. A neighboring boat dragged anchor, luckily Pete noticed and was able to alert them as the boat threatened to drag over our anchor. We were rather relieved when they moved further away from us before resetting their anchor. Other boats were putting out 2 and sometimes 3 anchors, this was a bit concerning also as they would have difficulty getting them up if the boat got into trouble etc. 26th August we celebrated Pete’s birthday with a lovely dinner on board Cats Meow, Don and LaVonne also had birthdays coming up within the next 2 weeks so it turned out to be a joint celebration. We had a mixture of weather including fog and sunshine. Any way Sunday finally arrived, “d” day for Irene. We had been vigilantly watching the weather reports as Irene rolled her way up the coast reeking havoc and destruction along her path. The winds slowly built during the day as did the suspense, it was overcast and raining. Pete had hurt his back so I stayed up on anchor watch. Irene got downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hit New York and thankfully the forecasters were right in predicting Irene would hit New England and take an inland route. We had average winds of 35knots which peaked at around 45knots in the gusts, so it was no worse than other storms we have weathered and the only boats that dragged anchor were a couple of the super yachts anchored in the outer harbour. The wind started subsiding by 2 am and I was able to go to bed. The next day the winds died away completely by noon and it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day – so what was that all about???

Lots of huge holiday mansions in Somes Harbour, on Mt Desert



David and Tamsin joined us for lunch on board, a belated birthday celebration for Pete and Tamsin



Lobster Rolls were on the menu

Bar Harbour

Thunder Bolt blow hole in Arcadia Park

You still find horse and carriages on some of the Carriage Ways in the Park

Tamsin and I enjoy a leisurely ride

It was an overcast day but perfect for bike riding as we explored the Park and it's lakes

After putting the boat back together we left the anchorage on 30th August and made our way north to Mt Desert Island. It was another sunny day as we dodged and wove our way around the lobster buoys to our destination; the buoys were thicker than any where else we’d been and a nightmare so we were very relieved to arrive without any entanglements. We anchored in Somes Harbour, a lovely sheltered spot. Pete still had a sore back so we had a quite day and did a walk around the small town of Somesville. We had arranged to meet some friends who were anchored in Bar Harbour for a joint birthday celebration for Pete and Tamsin. Pete’s back was still not good so David and Tamsin brought over some lobster rolls along with a bottle of bubbly and we enjoyed a wonderful afternoon in the sunshine. We were sitting up in the cockpit and some people stopped by in their kayaks. Pete twisted around in his seat to chat with them and during this time his back miraculously came right, we can only assume it was a pinched nerve that was released with the twisting action – yahoo, what a relief….




Now that Pete was feeling better it was time to go exploring the Arcadia National Park which occupies 33,000 acres on Mt Desert Island, with 57 miles of carriage ways for cyclists, hikers and horse-drawn carriages, as well as numerous hiking trails that wind their way around the mountains and lakes that are encompassed in the park. It is the second most popular national park in America with 4 million visitors each year. On the first day we met up with David and Tamsin and did a shortish walk around Eagle Lake on the tree lined carriage ways. The second day we had a wonderful time with David and Tamsin riding our bikes along the carriage trails. There is a great free bus service that loops through the park and will pick you up with your bikes and drop you off at various points around the park. We took the bus from Bar Harbour to Thunderbolt Blow Hole on the coast and rode through the park passing Jordan Lake, Eagle Lake and Duck Pond, to arrive back in Bar Harbour 5 ½ hours later. The temperature is very pleasant here, a little cool mornings and evenings, but not too hot during the day either. We also found time to socialize with a couple of other cruising boats that arrived in Somes Harbour.



We left Somes Harbour on Sunday 4th September and made our way back to Pulpit Harbour on the island of North Haven where we met up with some more of our Newfoundland cruising companions. We had a tour around the island with Maggie, who has a holiday house there, and a pot luck dinner aboard Farring with Ken and Heather and their friends.



We had light drizzling rain as we headed back to Rockland on 6th September to get a few provisions for our voyage south to Cape Cod. Doug and Dale, the Newfoundland Cruise organizers, were back in their home port of Camden so we were able to have a nice dinner with them before leaving Maine.





It was still raining when we left Rockland on 7th September and made our way out of Penobscot Bay. We had good easterly winds for the first 10 hours and were making 8-9 knots. However then a rain squall came through and the wind disappeared leaving us rolling around in a sloppy horrible sea with the sails flogging. Consequently we motor-sailed most of the next 12 hours to Cape Cod Canal, but had a good tail wind to blow us down Buzzards Bay to Woods Hole. We picked up a mooring in the land locked Hadley Harbour to wait out the next hurricane which was on it’s way. Luckily this one stayed out to sea so didn’t affect us and we enjoyed a couple of lovely quiet nights in the anchorage.

Nantucket

Little boutique shops along the docks at Nantucket

along with holiday accommodation

Inlet at Madaket Harbour on Nantucket

Ocean beach at Madaket



This holiday home looks out over the ocean and the inlet



Nantucket is preserving their heritage, all the houses are clad in shingles or white painted weather boards

On 10^th September we enjoyed a great 5 hour sail over to Nantucket Island. In 1700’s Nantucket was established as one of the major whaling ports. Initially the whales were caught just off the coast, however as the population diminished the ships had to keep going further afield to the point where they would go down around Cape Horn and up into the Pacific Ocean, and would be gone for 3-5 years at a time. The island prospered from the whaling and the elaborate colonial, Georgian and Greek revival houses are still standing today along the cobbled streets. It was not easy for the big sailing ships to get into Nantucket harbour, especially with the ever shifting sands, so the ships were taken in on “Camels” (a floating dry dock that was towed in by smaller boats). Eventually New Bedford took over as the whaling ship base and Nantucket went into a recession. It’s revival came about when people started coming over for holidays and building summer homes, some of which are very palatial. Today the island is a popular destination for tourist, who come over on the numerous ferries that arrive throughout the day during the summer months. Cycling is a popular way to see the island and tourists are well catered for with several bike hire shops and great cycle paths that stretch from east to west along the island which has no hills. We enjoyed a lovely ride to the eastern end, with a picnic lunch on the beach at Madaket. We also visited the Whaling Museum which was very interesting and very well done. Here we learnt the true sad story of the Essex whaling ship, the one that the Moby Dick novel was based on.

Cuttyhunk was looking very dry and brown from the salt water spray brought in by Hurricane Irene

At Newport Rhode Island we watched a fleet of "Swan" yachts parading around the harbour before heading off for their days regatta

We had another great sail down toward Newport, Rhode Island on 13th September. We were hard on the wind and Sali responded well, it was a great feeling to get some good sailing winds after all the motoring we’ve done in the past 3 months. We called into Cuttyhunk Harbour for the night and went ashore to stretch our legs. This is a small island on the southern end of the Elizabeth Island chain, which extend about 14 miles of the southwestern end of Cape Cod. It’s a very popular spot for local boaters who head over here in summer months and the 2 large mooring fields are usually full by lunch time in the weekends. However as it’s getting near the end of the season the moorings were mostly empty and the little village was like a ghost town. I noticed all the grass and leaves on the trees were very dry and brown which I thought was from having a dry summer. However the locals tell me it was caused by hurricane Irene, such a shame as they won’t have the lovely autumn colors this year.




The next day we had an early start and another good sail to arrive in Newport by lunch time. We had been running low on water since leaving Maine, so it was great to top up the tanks again and catch up on the washing. We visited the Newport Boat Show where we inspected all the new generation yachts that are now coming into production. We also picked up our new Life Raft that we had ordered last year.

Block Island town

Ocean beach at Block Island, on the Atlantic side

Light house at Block Island

We had our last taste of New England lobster before leaving Newport on Saturday 17^th September, we had intended to go straight to Mystic Seaport, but decided to do a detour to Block Island. We anchored in Great Salt Pond, once a natural salt pond until 1895 when a 15ft channel was cut through to turn it into a great landlocked harbour. This island is also a major holiday destination, especially being so close to New York and in the early 1900’s a number of large holiday inns were built to accommodate the holiday makers. We spent some time ashore riding around the eastern end of the island. Pete also did another rescue in the anchorage one night when we heard a call for help on the radio. It was dark so it took us a few minutes to figure out who was calling, but turned out to be from a boat not too far away from us. An elderly couple and their dog had returned to their yacht in their small dinghy, when the dinghy capsized. The wife managed to get aboard their boat and raise the alarm, the husband was stuck in the water as he had problems with his legs and couldn’t get up their rope ladder, and the dog was standing on the upturned dinghy shivering. The man was fully clothed in jumper cords and shoes, but Pete somehow managed to drag him on board our dinghy, then helped him up onto their yacht. He also rescued the dog and righted the dinghy for them.

Old schooners at Mystic Seaport Museum

An other old sailing ship at the museum

This beautiful old timer was docked at the museum, but is privately owned and not open for display . It is still powered by a coal fired engine

The museum is restoring the Charles W Morgan built in1841 (length 106' beam 28' depth 18'). It's the last surviving whaling ship in America, and during it's 80 career in whaling it made 37 voyages, for 3-5 years at a time and mainly to the Pacific,  where she would find the 50 or so whales needed to fill her holds with barrels of oil.

Mystic River

Light house on Mystic River

We made our way over to Mystic River on 19^th September. This river is full of marinas and mooring buoys, with no room for anchoring. The marina’s charge from $2 – 4.50 per foot which for us is $110 – 250 per night!!! We really wanted to visit Mystic Seaport Museum, so with the aid of a stern anchor we managed to anchor to one side of the channel for a couple of nights, the stern anchor did the job of holding us out of the channel. It was well worth the effort as we thoroughly enjoyed our museum visit. There were several old schooners on the docks which you could walk through, along with the only surviving whaling ship left in America, the Charles W Morgan. The museum has set up a village using buildings salvaged from the whaling days which housed the various businesses required to service the whaling industry eg. riggers and sail makers, rope makers, cooperage (barrel makers), blacksmiths etc, most of which had live demonstrations. There was also exhibit halls and a Planetarium so we had a full days visit.

You see all sorts in New York, including this singing cowboy in Times Square - in his undies!!!!!

The "Wall Street Protesters" camping out in a park in Manhattan

A surprise breakfast in Port Washington with Katrina, Larraine, Helen and Max (All Kiwis)

A view of Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan from the East River

21st September we arrived in Port Washington, on the north western end of Long Island. We stopped here for a couple of days last year, it’s a great base for visiting Manhattan which is 50minutes by train, and has a well stocked supermarket with a dinghy dock nearby, along with a Laundromat. A couple of other cruising boats, Lalize, Vulcan Spirit and May Mio, whom we have met previously, were in the anchorage so we had a wonderful get together with everyone coming for dinner on board Saliander. We also took the train to Manhattan to see the 9/11 Memorial, unfortunately we didn’t realize you have to book a time to view the memorial through the internet so we could only see a small portion of it from a nearby foot bridge. However we did see a show on Broadway. We decided on Spiderman which had some fantastic aerial stunts, eg Spiderman swinging out over the audience and landing on the balconies. A Kiwi friend of ours, Larraine, was in New York visiting her daughter, Katrina. Larraine didn’t know we were in town so we arranged for Katrina to bring Larraine down to the dock for a surprise breakfast on board Saliander on 26th September. Larraine was so surprised to see us, she couldn’t get out of the car quick enough, and it was hilarious watching her… We were on a bit of a tight schedule for the day as we had planned to leave and start making our way towards the Chesapeake, so after breakfast we cast off the dock lines. Larraine came with us and enjoyed the scenery as we caught the tide through Hells Gate (going 13knots at times), then down the East River past Manhattan. There were lots of floating logs and debris in the rivers, remnants from hurricane Irene, that we had to dodge (a bit like being back in Maine dodging lobster buoys). We dropped Larraine off near The Battery on the Hudson River side of Manhattan, and then continued on to Sandy Hook where we fuelled up. The fuel here is $3.60 per gallon, a dollar cheaper than anywhere else in New York and New England. We dropped the anchor for the night and prepared for an early departure the next day.

It was still dark when we left Sandy Hook at 5.30am and what started out as clear skies rapidly turned into thick fog. We were cautiously making our way out to Sandy Hook Point when we heard the roar of an engine thundering past our stern. We could not pick it up on the radar; however our AIS (Automated Identification System) showed it to be a ferry going 30knots, no wonder they call them "fast ferries". The experience was rather disconcerting to say the least…… We started out having to motor sail, however by lunchtime we were enjoying a nice comfortable reach down the coast. We’ve had a real famine on catching fish since we’ve been up in Maine and Canada as they don’t seem to have any surface fish; however the drought has now broken as Pete landed 3 fish on our way south, he also lost several others. We pulled into Cape May at 2.30am and dropped anchor for 3 hours sleep. We needed to wait for daylight before heading up the Delaware because it was also filled with dangerous logs and debris from Irene. 5.30am we were on our way again and reached the Delaware entrance just on daylight and just in time for the incoming tide which carried us up the river averaging 8-9 knots - yahoo. We made very good time arriving at the C and D Canal at 1.30pm, just in time for the tide to turn and take us back down the Chesapeake to Annapolis.

Governor's Palace in Williamsburg

The Colonials enjoy some dancing at Williamsburg

The Capitol building at Williamsburg

The crowds gather in the streets for the re-enactments at Williamsburg

General Washington addresses the allied American Army, who have been gathering in Williamsburg. They are eager to engage the British and prepare for their victory at Yorktown which results in the end of the war.

A social gathering with Deltaville friends Bob, Bernard, Joanie, Margaret, Don, Mary, Tim and Mary-Anne.

We spent a two days in Annapolis catching up with friends, Grant, Laura, and their girls Natalie and Claire, along with Robyn and Wolfgang. Robyn and I had a girl’s day out shopping while Pete visited one of his favorite marine shops. The weather gods continued to look after us and we had a great sail down the Chesapeake with 25 knot winds. We had an overnight stop at Easton, up the Tred Avon River, to see friends Gayle and John, then continued on to Deltaville where we got another great welcome from all our friends there.


We drove to Williamsburg for the day and receive a lesson in American history. Williamsburg was the capital of America from 1699 to 1780, Thomas Jefferson was Governor during the later part of this time. The City played an important roll in the American War of Independence from Britain. The original town has been reconstructed and is a popular tourist attraction, with re-enactments of events that took place in 1770’s.

We’ve been doing a lot of socializing with our Deltaville friends and are now busy getting Sali ready to go up on the hardstand before flying home next week for 11 months.