Challenging

Every so often, a summer becomes challenging and 2021 proved one of these. Cold, fog, hurricanes, tropical storms, mechanical and health breakdowns, well you get the idea. At the end of three months, both Carrie Rose and us needed a refit. A beautiful Midwest fall helped to accomplish this. Now it is Carrie Rose's turn!   

 

But that is not the whole story. We explored physical and psychological limits, experienced camaraderie, benefited from technical skill, and found comfort in small town America and secluded anchorages. 

 

Our travelling companions on Sir Tugley Blue rescued us from an unknown fate in the obscure waters of Downeast Maine. The North Atlantic was benevolent that day, and that came down to the experience we have collectively gained by travelling thousands of miles. Careful planning and an aversion to risk are the lessons learned.

 

Of course, 2020 was a year off from cruising and travel in general. As sanity began to reappear, and with the help of the vaccine, we felt free to cautiously travel. So did two couples, one from Chicago and one from Maryland who visited us along the way. It was wonderful to break bread with them in such a faraway place, for Maine is unique in that.

 

Maine is as distant from Chicago as Miami is, but the similarity ends there. To travel south is to invite congestion. Not so on our trek northeast where the world quiets down. Though summer is busy in Maine, with a little forethought and with the benefit of a floating home, seclusion can be found.

 

Seal Cove Bay and Perry’s Creek on Vinalhaven, McGlathery Island between Deer Island Thorofare and Merchant Row, Roque and Swan’s Islands which are on opposites ends of our chosen cruising grounds but share wildness. The odd exposed anchorages of Barred and Pickering Island in East Penobscot Bay. All these contributed to the adventure that cruising in Maine is.

 

We have come a long way from Montrose harbor in Chicago. The tumultuous Great Lakes have been traversed. Canada’s legacy canals were negotiated lock by lock. The St. Lawrence River propelled us east to Lake Champlain and from there the Hudson River to NYC and then ICW to the Chesapeake. And through bays, rivers, waterways, and canals adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean we travelled north, sometime protected, sometimes in the open coastal waters of the North Atlantic to Maine. 

 

Along the way we have missed as much as we have seen and so there is much more to explore, and isn’t that what life is all about. Every day, especially when we think we are settled, brings changes that we have to confront and adapt to. So, Charlotte and I hope for our family and friends to continue to strive and prosper despite the challenges.

 

Happy Holidays!

 

Charlotte & Dean  

Pilothouse Door Update

Here are before and after photos of Carrie Rose's pilothouse doors. The refinishing project went smoothly but took quite a bit of time. If I was charging by the hour it would have been expensive. The main lesson learned is patience. It is one step at a time with days needed between each step to let things dry. Next year it will be the aft salon's doors chance to shine.

While I am uploading photos, here is a 2019 Google Map satellite picture showing Atlantic Boat where we keep Carrie Rose. Herrick Bay is below and the rest of the boatyard is above. This is a good vantage point to compare the size difference between the Nordic Tug Sir Tugley Blue at 37' and Carrie Rose at 32'. That's our white Honda Accord Coupe to give a sense of size. It is also a lesson in displacement; a 37 is much bigger than a 32! 

Autumn in Chicagoland

A few pictures to highlight Chicagoland's wild and not so wild landscapes. 

47th Street Lakefront

Illinois River north of Dresden Lock and Dam

Water Lilies and Cormorants 

Transporting Sand to Build Chicago On One Side

The I&M Canal On the Other

Anderson Japanese Garden's Chashitsu,

Strolling Pond,

Turtle Island Bridge,

Garden of Reflection's Boat,

And Hills Beyond

Chicago Botanical Garden's Japanese Garden

Ryerson Conservation Area &

Barn

 

Teak!

The Chesapeake did Carrie Rose's woodwork in. Though we enjoyed our time there and had great service from the marina, there was one problematic experience. The boat was stored outside and was to be covered but due to a project of welding several broke and bent stanchions, the cover was left partially open. 

It was a brutal winter on Maryland's Eastern shore, which was then followed by a hot and humid spring. By the time we got there the boat was covered, inside and out, with black mold. The teak's varnish had broken down and the grain was filled with black mold.

The next year we headed for Maine. On the way there, in Cape May to be exact, I took the doors off and tried to remedy the situation. It was a halfhearted attempt, which in the long run did more harm than good. This spring I began to rehab them but realized it was close to impossible while also preparing to launch the boat.

I tidied them up and once in the water sanded as best as I could - with my new Dewalt Multitool - while hanging off the side of the boat. Two coats of teak oil later they looked as good as they were going to get. Dave, from Sir Tugley Blue, graciously offered to bring them home in his Land Rover. I retrieved a tape measure and realized with careful packing they would fit in the already stuffed Honda. 

And so, they now reside in Talman Avenue's basement. I have made progress. After much research I decided to use Cetol Marine Natural Teak stain and then a final coat of Cetol Marine Gloss. I am experimenting on two small strips of teak that keep the doors from falling off the boat. Many months lay ahead before we will drive northeast again, but I want to get this done so I can start on a couple of other projects.

Carrie Rose provides a never ending series of challenges for personal growth and for the obtaining of skills to see them through. I count on these challenges to keep my neurons firing even if they are dulled by the aromatic hydrocarbons in the above mentioned substances. After all what is life without a bit of risk! 

A Few More Pics

Sea Bay, Vinalhaven, ME

Herrick Bay, ME

Swans Island, ME

Warren State Park, Islesboro, ME

Pulpit Harbor, North Haven, ME

 

De-anchoring

Needless to say, Carrie Rose wakes early. Maine is the opposite of the long summer days in the North Channel on Lake Huron’s Canadian southern shore. There the sun’s glint would last into 10 or 11 PM. Here in Maine a similar glint begins at about 4 AM and by 7:30 PM, all is dark. 

 

I mention this as an aside for my main preoccupation that morning was watching various craft ready themselves to leave Seal Bay on Vinalhaven Island. 

 

The first was a large sleek motor cruiser that resembled a McMansion. It used its crane (two stories up) to raise a large skiff onto the deck. I was temporarily distracted from the process by a swarm of jumping fish, which provided breakfast for various, seals, cormorants, and a pair of low flying osprey. But the clang of metal brought me back to the white blob of a boat and its sinewy captain raising the anchor.

 

The main engine was running and there were streams of water being pumped out of five orifices on the port rear quarter near the waterline. He hosed off the mud from the chain and let the anchor hang just below the water’s surface while exiting the bay. There was nothing untoward or exciting about it, which is the way we hope cruising will be.

 

The next boat to leave was the colorful sailboat. They raised their mainsail and began to manually pull ninety feet of chain onto the deck. The tenacious mud was washed off with bucketful’s of saltwater. No water streamed from its waterline, and the engine was not started until most of the chain was off the bottom some twenty feet below. They silently glided out of the bay Florida bound. 

 

We on Carrie Rose trend closer to the large white boat in terms of noise. Our Cummins 5.9 turbo diesel rumbles as the clanging electric windless raises the anchor. I hose off the mud and weeds from the chain and anchor with a hose directly connected to the bay’s water by a pump in the engine room. The large Bruce anchor sets in its resting place with a sharp cluck! Once in gear, we mosey out of the anchorage at four knots. 

 

At times, there can be a bit more drama. It can be windy and wavy. Another boat could have anchored over our anchor. The anchor itself can be covered with weeds or recalcitrant mud and shellfish. We try to plan for most eventualities, but as in life, there are surprises.

 

Successful anchoring is a relief. There is the satisfaction of accomplishing the goal set out, and the reward of a glass of wine and a fine dinner. De-anchoring – if that is even a word – is anticipatory. The goal is set but needs to be accomplished. There is tension in the air and a wish for a day without complications, and maybe even a glass of wine at days end.

 

Seal Bay – Vinalhaven Island

I had a spell of claustrophobia after we entered Seal Bay. It is a circuitous path into the bay. Of course, I say Vinalhaven like it is one island but islets abound. There is one tricky patch of clear (above, not below) water between David’s Island and a mound of granite called Turning Rock.

Though I know to loop around the rock, a gremlin perched on my shoulder insisted I drive Carrie Rose onto the submerged rocks. Being of sound mind and body (not so sure), I resisted the temptation. 

 

I grew up with stories of saints who also resisted temptation. The good sisters of St. Hilary’s were excellent at creating persistent synaptic connections, and the graphic images in the catechism textbook continue to linger.

 

Even while floating in the bay’s 50 degree water, it was one of the few hot and humid days this summer. I shielded us from the sun as best I could. The afternoon was spent on the stern swatting black flies. For reasons unknown to me, the thought of spending days in this beautiful and well protected anchorage dismayed me.

 

Seal Bay’s only deficit is not having a place to walk. Most of the surrounding islands are either small or private. As far as I knew there were no trails. 

 

Charlotte as usual understood my idiosyncrasies. She suggested that the next morning at high tide we circumnavigate the bay in the dinghy. Morning came slowly as usual. Syphon coffee was made. Due to the organic chemistry lab nature of its preparation, I only make it in a stable anchorage when we are planning to spend the night. 

 

We spilt a homemade farmers market Irish muffin. It was thick and was full of perfectly shaped holes that sucked up the butter and Maine blueberry jam. Time passed, it was hours before the dinghy was lowered into the water and the motor attached. 

 

Down wind was a sturdy double ended cruising sailboat with Tibetan prayer flags flying where yacht club burgees usually do. Its woodwork was painted purple and its name, Star, was proclaimed in glittery cursive script along it stern. I knew I should go there. 

 

A young unattached couple reclined in the cultured cockpit. I introduced myself by exclaiming they had the most colorful boat in Maine. It was revealed that they had sailed from their sultry homeport of Key West, Florida, only to find cold, fog, rain, rocks, and the beauty of Maine. They took comfort when I explained that 2021 was an anomaly, for us at least. 

 

I lamented that Seal Bay lacked one thing, a place to hike. Immediately they piped up saying there is a trail. It is around the two small islets off to our left and marked with a pink ribbon hanging in a tree. Bidding them farewell, we went in search. We hunted and pecked into several rock strewn coves until a more orangey-red than pink ribbon appeared.

 

Huber Trail is a two mile magnifying glass shaped, well worn marshy trail. It was warm but not too warm. It was wet but not too wet. A chatty family’s black pit bull greeted us with a lunge and a growl. While the father restrained it explaining it was safe, the mother whispered that she thought he had trained it not to do that. Then further along the trail we stopped to watch a large woodpecker pounded away at a tree’s bark.

 

The trail’s head was not much further and that is where, along the Around the Island Road, we read the signage for the trail. When we got back to the cove, the tide had raised a few feet and the once beached dinghy was floating. We scrambled aboard, muddy shoes and all. Had a floating lunch of water and half a Cow’s Tail candy bar, and rowed for the first 100 yards, as the water was too shallow to put the engine down.

 

It seemed the fear of confined spaces had left me. The crew of a star and flag strutted sailboat from Key West had cured me. Key West, a destination that leads to many epic voyages . . . how appropriate.              

Last Day Afloat

We were in Herrick Bay, the location of Atlantic Boat Company where Carrie Rose is stored. There is a liberating feeling when on Carrie Rose for the last day. We are firmly attached to #6, which states directly on the mooring ball 50’ and 9000 lbs. 

Fifty feet means the mooring is good for a fifty foot boat because of swinging in the wind and current room, and 9000 lbs. refers to the nine thousand pound block of granite the mooring chain is attached to. These figures reassure me as I looked out the rain speckled pilothouse windows at the approaching thunderstorm.

 

The above was written on 8-31-2021 and I am picking up the narrative on 9-12-2021 while sitting at the bungalow’s kitchen table. We spent two jam packed days preparing CR for the winter, but really, we were readying her for the many projects the boatyard will do. 

 

After twenty years of doing it them myself I decided to relinquish such tasks as changing the oil, and winterizing the engine and water systems. I suppose that is what money is for, so we are sharing the wealth with Maine’s workforce.

 

There are other tasks such as replacing the bellows of the PSS shaft seal and cleaning the main engines heat exchanger that I do not have the brawl or expertise for. The costliest repair this year is replacing the saloon and pilothouse ceiling fabric. Charlotte disliked it from the get go. I managed to fend her off by making numerous but futile repairs for close to twenty years, but this year’s succession of tropical storms and spent hurricanes left no choice but to replace it. 

 

The repair will be a mess necessitating the removal of the pilothouse and saloon contents. I looked around at the interior when we finished and it looked like the beautiful boat we bought in 2003 with the woodwork standing out shipshape. We took an oath never to clutter her up again. 

 

Driving west he mountains dissolved into rolling hills and then to prairie. The traffic increased and there were more people than we have grown use to. It would be a lie to say I wasn’t apprehensive about our homecoming but once through the garden and in the back door it was home sweet home! 

Droplets

 

                                

                                             

Most of the rain this year in Maine has been of the blowing sideways kind or of the raining cats & dogs type. Each droplet is perfectly formed and separate from its neighbors. They make a distinctive sound when hitting Carrie Rose’s roof. In the water, each drop creates its own ring of wavelets that interacts with the other circular wavelets until disappearing into the water’s surface. 

 

The clouds are different: low lying ones intermingled with fog, forest, and mountains, but a distinct cloud layer above radiates fluorescence light below. 

 

The rain cycles through: light and almost ignorable to heavier which has me searching for my rain slicker. The dingy, tied to the starboard side, floats by the pilothouse and I see puddles forming in it. This should help wash some of the salt and grit out of it.

 

It has been a busy day. We slept in after last night’s storm generated by the remnants of hurricane Henri. In the morning, we rowed to the dock to pay for two more days on mooring #6 after realizing that we were too lazy to attempt to move. Then, some how I got the energy to take the sun damaged wee-lassie canoe off the pilothouse roof and put into the water. 

 

It has been years since I did this, so I had to reinvent the wheel about the best way to get it down and into the water, and then more importantly how to get myself into it. To my surprise, the process went smoothly and once I began to paddle, I realized why I love this boat. It is the perfect personal paddle and it made me want to build another one. 

 

Instead of the circumnavigation around the harbor I had planned, I approached several close by boats and hovered chatting about cruising related topics: anchorages, engines, bad fishermen’s behavior, and various other calamities common to the cruising life.

 

All and all it was a frivolous morning and early afternoon . . . just perfect.   

8/19/21 to 8/21/21

Warren Island State Park

Margaret Chase Smith Ferry

Hello From Charlotte

Moon Over Islesboro Island

Sunset At Warren Is. State Park

 

A black center cockpit go fast boat with three 350 HP mercury outboards planted on the stern coasted into Camden inner harbor. It had just begun to rain and the various boat drivers were sorting out their rain gear. The super yacht crews are the best dressed. They are young, fit, and agile. They smile reflectively; it must be quite a job to care for their passengers.

 

The above boat with “Enterprise” painted on its side was followed in by its equally black mother ship with “Enterprise” painted on its stern. Quite a parade of super yachts have come and gone in the six days we hung to Lyman-Morse’s floating dock. To the side of us along the wharf was a classic 120 foot Feadship. Its go fast boat is a 30 something foot Hinckley powerboat, easily three quarters of a million. 

 

There seems to be more of these yachts here this year. Talk is that since Covid closed Europe they have chosen to stay in the USA. Most of the yachts, if not registered in a tax haven country, have a homeport in Florida, which is understandable. I can see them docked on a canal behind equally large homes.

 

People cruise in many types of boats. On Swans Island, one of Maine’s outermost, there was a couple on a tiny 16 foot cutty cabin sail boat. They were one step above camp cruisers. It was cold and rainy and I wanted to invite them into salon the warm up, but failed to.

 

I would say Carrie Rose at 32 feet is a small for the average cruising boat, that is if I ignore the super yacht footage. Most boats in Maine are larger sailboats from the lower New England states. Many look as if they could sail to England without too much trouble. They are the boats I coveted for most of my life. I love to inspect them and dream of voyages of that could have been. 

 

The remnants of tropical storm FRED unleashed torrents of rain on us as we slept. That morning it was cloudy with dense fog out on the West Penobscot Bay. Charlotte and I took our time getting prepared to head for shore. We let the Lyman-Morse launch take us to the dock so we could take a shower. 

 

While I waited for Charlotte to finish, I watch Lyman-Morse launch their sleek new sailboat. The day before I managed to get a tour of it by making a pest of myself asking an authoritative looking man all sorts of questions.

 

Though it looks like fiberglass, it is of wood composite construction like many of the boats I have built. He explained that it was designed to be as simple as possible. From the looks of it, I think they succeeded. 

 

One thing that caught my eye was the wood on the cabin trunk. As I looked at it from some 10 feet below, something did not quite sync. Once on its perfect teak deck, the sides looked like my “wooden” Pergo floor in the kitchen.  When I asked about it he looked sheepish and admitted it was a decal. “Brilliant”, I said, “better than varnish!” He responded, “It can look like anything you want”. Then he mentioned that they were waiting for the carbon fiber mast and I decided not to concern myself with the boat’s price.

 

The clouds cleared and the air warmed. We went back aboard, had an unhurried breakfast, and tidied up. After going through the usual pre cruise checklist, we cruised 10 miles to Warren Island State Park. Other than the Margaret Chase Smith, the Islesboro ferry, we had West Penobscot Bay to ourselves.

 

Carrie Rose has been to Warren many times. On the way in the two guardians of the island told us to pick up the mooring in front of the one boat that was in the cove. The mooring line had just been installed and was bright yellow with no slimy marine growth. It was an honor to be the first to use it.

 

It was a quiet day at Warren. We went for a walk along the rocky beach at low tide suitably prepared to fend off ticks and mosquitoes. Later as the sun set, we had as leisurely of a dinner as breakfast had been in Camden. The ferry kept plying the bay until it was time for us to sleep. Super yachts and their go fast boats will miss this idyllic spot . . . too small.

Weather

Curtis Island Revealed

August 14, 2021 is a good example of the types of weather we confront or I should say confronts us in a day. We can mitigate the effects of the weather with planning but not escape it. Weather forecasting has dramatically improved in the decades I have been boating and I am thankful for this. In the past weather radio and a barometer were the only adjuncts to looking out the window. 

 

The radio still exists and provides valuable, if longwinded, information and it is regularly updated. Now weather is mainly app based. And though I hate to say this there is too much information provided in too many formats. Excuse me if I sound like I am complaining. I am not. The more the merrier, bring it on, information is power.

 

Back to 8/14/21, we woke up in the fog. Not a great dense fog, that would happen later, but the usual morning see-through type of fog. The shore was shrouded, as was the open water beyond the lighthouse on the south end of Rockland Harbor’s breakwater. It was not too thick around us but I still had to get a small compass out to figure out which way to dingy to the showers in the dock master shed. 

 

During breakfast dense fog rolled down the hills on the northern end of the harbor. The sun rose, there was a mackerel blue sky above us but we were in a cloud. As noon approached, the sun began to win out over the fog at least on the land and in the harbor. Boats were visible on West Penobscot Bay. We choose to leave. 

 

This is a common occurrence. Fog clears on the land; on the water, it is a different story. I have been taken in by this charade many times. I know what to expect as soon as we leave whatever sanctuary we find ourselves in. The course is carefully plotted, charts are reviewed, radar and AIS are on, the radio is set to Channel 16, only then do we move out into what we hope is ½ mile visibility. Often it is not. 

 

On 8/14 we were lucky. It was a comfortable passage until two miles south of the destination, Camden Harbor. Out the pilothouse windows was only gauzy white. Channel 16 on the radio began to squawk with boats broadcasting their positions and their intentions to move out of Camden’s harbor. I did the same but for the opposite direction.

 

Camden’s harbor requires a careful two-step dance even in perfect visibility. To the south is imposing Curtis Island replete with its own lighthouse . . . never saw it. To the north are a series of broken rocks and islets known as N E Ledge . . . never saw those. Once in the outer harbor there is a channel of sorts that attempts to separate incoming and out going boats from the mooring field and from the large anchored boats that lie to either side. 

 

Unconventional navigational aids once seen helped guide us in as one tourist schooner and other working craft worked their way out of their familiar inner harbor. Carrie Rose slowed to a crawl and suddenly the inner harbor appeared. With a little radio back and forth, we confirmed the location of the float and gradually approached it. Charlotte lassoed the float’s cleat with the mid ships line and we landed. Engine off, fenders out, dock lines secured; we decompressed. Time for lunch!

 

The fog dissipated. The sky was blue except for the thunderheads southwest of Mt. Battie, the mountain off the back of the harbor. There was a reprieve in the weather. The sun shone and a mild breeze set in. I took the time to put the dingy in the water and ready myself to row to the dock house to check in.  It was not to be.

 

Just before departing I looked up and saw deep purple and black clouds which coalesced into a 40 MPH squall that brought with it thunder, lightening, and torrential rain, but thankfully spared us hail. Around us boats of varying sizes raced to safety. Some made it and others did not. 

 

In the time between seeing the menacing clouds and the storm I managed to tighten the dock lines, reattach the dingy to the stern, shut the ports and hatches, so was able to watch the short lived violent storm occur. 

 

If well prepared, there is a sense of appreciation to be allowed to witness the force of nature on a well prepared boat. The rain slowly lessened and in forty minutes the storm had headed NE to ravage its next victims. 

 

Steam drifted amongst Mt. Battie’s crevasses. The sky turned blue, the cool breeze returned, and the life of the harbor took up where it left off before the storm. It became muggy toward dinnertime, no matter. A crescent moon rose as the sun disappeared behind this small city’s crenulated waterfront. The few clouds left turned orange and red 

 August 14 was waning now. Town quieted down and the sound of the waterfall at the far end of the harbor filled in for the lack of traffic noise. Carrie Rose was calmer then she had been for days. Time to sleep.  

Rockland Harbor

Camden Harbor

Squall Line

Scary!

Curtis Island 

Mt. Battie