Trafton Island and Schooners at Buck's Harbor

The island’s granite and tree shoreline subdues the NNE wind. Carrie Rose is afloat amongst lobster buoys. They surround, as do scurrying lobster boats, the small cove we anchored in. The anchor was set in 17 feet at near high tide, and this morning, after a spectacular full amber moon rose from Trafton Island’s forest, we floated in less that 7 feet at low tide. Carrie Rose draws 3.5 feet so we were safe from kissing the bottom. 

 

Tide is a creature of geography, wind, and above all else the phases of the moon. Full and new moons herald extremes in the average rise and fall of the tide. 

 

About a mile north of the anchorage is a grouping of moored lobster boats. They radiate out from east to southwest to their fishing grounds. We are the recipients of the wake that issues from their heavily laden vessels. Due to anchoring close to the island’s granite wall Carrie Rose rolls twice. First we roll port to starboard, then settle for a moment, and then on the rebound, starboard to port.

 

Lobster boats awake before the sun rises from the North Atlantic’s horizon. During Maine’s summer that is not long after 4 AM, thus our day begins early. I try to remain in bed but I find I suffer from recriminating dreams and am forced to rise. 

 

I bundle up and go aft to turn on the propane. There is a ritual to this. The knob on the propane tank is turned to OPEN. Next, the ball valve with the blue handle is opened with an audible rush as it sends gas from the tank to the regulator. A half dollar (remember those) size gauge goes from zero to between 100 to 150 PSI in an instant. There are two red handled valves below this. One labeled HEATER, the other STOVE. This morning the former is opened. 

 

We are almost finished so do not abandon me yet. I climb down into the salon where on the starboard back wall hangs our beloved Newport by Dickinson stainless steel cabin heater. With its glass and stainless steel door open, and the gas knob turned to ON, I click the trigger of a long nosed butane lighter.  A blue and yellow flame springs to life. I shut the door and the saloon instantly becomes a comfy abode.

 

Next, I boiled water to fill a thermos. This will provide enough hot water for tea/coffee, and then to wash the breakfast dishes, and occasionally our faces. Life on Carrie Rose is, let’s not say primitive, let’s just say frugal. We maximize our resources.

 

The thing that shortens our off gird sojourns is when the last of the salad is eaten. It seems the absence of green roughage can only be tolerated for a short time. If anchoring for an extended period, dinners become rudimentary. I — who has eaten the same food for decades — even gets bored. Hard tack and salt pork or its veggie equivalent can only hold its appeal for so long.

Buck's  Harbor Schooners

Pictures and Poems

 

Wall to wall buoys in Moosabec Reach with Jonesport in the background.

Trafton Island Sunset

Trafton Island

Trafton Island with Thunderheads

Trafton Island Thunderstorm

Trafton Island Beach (and me) at Low Tide

Classic Downeast Scene

Bar Harbor Thunderstorms

                                                              Herrick Bay's Smoky Sunset

Poems 7/20-22/21

 

/20

 

Sun to darkened sky,

Laundry’s in and hatch closed —

Distant thunder sounds.

 

Black head black tipped orange beak

Turns to preen a mottled body —

Nearer thunder sounds.

 

A common tern preens

Balanced on a mooring ball —

Sky dissolves to black.

 

 

/22

 

Four coupled osprey

Appear above the treetops —

Summer thunderstorm.

 

Amber moon rises 

Amongst Trafton Island pines —

Silent reflection.

 

Moonlight reflecting

On Trafton Island water —

Full moon’s rising tide.

Setback

Each cruising season brings with it setbacks and challenges. There can be numerous reasons: elderly parents; elderly cruisers; mechanical, structural, electrical, plumbing, and cosmetic difficulties; extreme weather events; and on occasion emotional and physical fatigue. That is quite a list and I should have included logistics. 

 

In our last decade on the water, each of the above, if not multiples, has occurred at one time or another. This “Post” Covid cruise is no exception. It appears that storing Carrie Rose in heated storage for two years can create as many problems as using her.

 

Without referring to the log, there have been electrical (generator, inverter/charger, and radio), structural (salon roof leak), mechanical (stuffing box fasteners), propane, and cosmetic (varnish failure). I am going to avoid the weather other than for the rain and fog, and Elsa the tropical storm, not to mention we are still sleeping under a down comforter. 

 

A justifiable question would be, “Why bother?” and I will have to search for a reasonable response. To think back over a fifty year boating career it has been a series of trying events punctuated by enlightened moments. 

 

Each fall, once back in the bungalow, I am surprised at how boring it is. Boring does not capture my meaning; maybe uneventful is a better concept. The life force (whatever that is) is down regulated. It is a feeling in the solar plexus that dissipates on land. I might be mistaking this for what is in reality GERD!

 

Carrie Rose is a familiar venue for setbacks, as are this Atlantic Boat Company’s moorings in Herrick Bay, Maine. Atlantic Boat Company is where Carrie Rose is kept in the winter and where the good people have helped us weather multiple setbacks. Now, there are two, well, really, four. 

 

The top of the list is the misbehaving electrical system. I upgraded it in 2019 and it has been a continual mystery since. It is state of the art with all the incongruity that multiple microprocessors can bring to a highly functional device if it can ever be fine tuned. 

 

I had a hand in installing it and as did several of the boatyard’s long gone electricians. Atlantic Boat Company’s present electrician has an OCD streak that is commendable for someone in his profession. He spent Thursday afternoon working his “little grey cells” to exhaustion only to declare the entire system a jumble.

 

I was prepared for the worse when all six foot plus of him stepped out of the engine room. What I received was a declaration to solve the problem but not until Monday morning with a clear head and the entire day ahead of him . . . at seventy dollars per hour. So here, Carrie Rose floats on mooring 5 that is attached to an eight thousand pound granite block resting between 12 and 22 feet on the bay’s bottom. 

 

With our free time Charlotte and I backtracked to places passed many time in hast: pottery and art studios; Fort Knox and the Penobscot Bridge’s 400’ observatory; used book stores; ice cream stands and Blue Hill’s new co-op. The next day was filled with the search for various needed goods that had us venturing to Ellsworth, home of most big box stores and traffic worthy of Chicago. We fled.

 

In times like these, to give myself an edge, I wish for a magical amulet or an idol to sacrifice too. My mother would bury St. Joseph upside down when wishing a house quickly sold but I doubt there is a saint devoted to boat maintenance. Like many other problems of the modern world, I am on my own to deal with past, present, and future setbacks. It is the price of admission.

Buck’s Harbor

 

Buck’s harbor is less than 6 nautical miles from Pickering Island, our last anchorage.  It is at the far west end of Eggemoggin Reach, just across from the abandoned lighthouse. The lighthouse and it adjoining building, classic in every way, roost on Pumpkin Island. 

 

The entrance to the reach is marked athwart ship by red and white channel markers along with a series of red and green buoys to guide mariners in. Buck’s harbor is a straight shot thru the buoys.

 

It is a new area for us, so I have my binoculars out inspecting far ahead of the bow. Charlotte notices that are two schooners raising sail and as the first begins to creep out of the entrance, I decide to do a 360 and give the crème colored American Eagle’s sails time to fill. We pass comfortably port-to-port. The second darker colored schooner, Lewis R French, is moving oddly sideways as its paying passengers crank the anchor chain up by about an inch a crank. 

 

Just pass them there is the usual (for these parts) Hinckley sailboat but it is dark grey instead of black, and a sloop instead of a yawl. The marina’s dock is full as is the harbor with many boats on moorings rafted to each other.  To arrive at 11:30AM with a 12 o’clock checkout was probably not the best move.

 

Our mooring ball green #1 was free and only required maneuvering around a couple boats to approach it. Readers more familiar with planes will know that planes land and take off into the wind, and it is the same for boats, when a current is running. Between the wind and current, whichever is the stronger is the proper choice.

 

Charlotte was at the bow with the boat hook at the ready. I could feel Carrie Rose being pulled along with the current, so I passed the mooring ball by several boat lengths before rounding up. 

 

As Carrie Rose turns, she gets sideways into the current and looses some ground toward the mooring. I pushed the throttle forward to compensate, and notice I am traveling at 3.9k. If I slow, I will miss the turn. If I take Carrie Rose out of gear, well she will just go straight. 

 

The speed stays on as I straighten the rudder in response to Charlotte’s pointing at the mooring’s pickup stick. At the last moment, I take Carrie Rose out of gear and feel the current push the bow away from the pickup. Now the bow thruster gets a couple seconds of spin time to keep her bow in place. 

 

Charlotte grabs the stick with its pendent line and pulls it up to the bow. Valiantly she struggles for the thicker mooring line as the current pulls Carrie Rose back. Now in neutral, I jump up to the bow to assist and we mange to wrestle it onto the large bronze bollard that sits behind the windless.

 

This has occurred in the couple minutes since we entered the harbor. We have not humiliated ourselves by missing the mooring. We have not spoken loudly to each other. We have not impinged another boater’s sacred space.

 

With the turn of the key, the diesel stops thumping and I look around. Buck’s harbor is marvelously quaint, if that is possible. The dock and the buildings beyond could be a Lego set. One hundred foot conifer covered hills surround us. In the middle of this U-shaped harbor is the dromedary humped Harbor Island.

 

A thick haze rolls off the hills and the waters outside the entrances are shrouded in fog. There is a fine mist covering the pilothouse’s windows. The boats are a bit confused as the top ten feet of the harbor’s water begins to drain with the changing of the tide. All in all, a day to remember.   

Barred Islands

 

 

The city of Bar Harbor, Maine on Mt. Desert Island is familiar to most. The origin of Bar Harbor’s name is the substantial bar that appears at low tide between Bar Harbor and its tiny companion, Bar Island just to the north. At low tide, people and cars can be seen making their way across the bar to Bar Island and then in a timely fashion back. 

 

Since Maine’s landscape is forever changing multiple signs inform and insist that Bar Island be vacated before the tide begins to rise, and separates them from family and friends for the next 6 hours.

 

Maine has numerous other Bar and Barred Islands that are mostly obscure. As I write this, Carrie Rose is anchored in 27 feet at low tide between Big and Little Barred Islands. The Cabot family, who seem to own many of the places we anchor, owns these islands. Access to the various islands is either allowed or disallowed dependent on visitors past conduct. Here we are boat bound.

 

The Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast lists eight Bar Islands in its index but fails to mention any Barred Islands. A deeper perusal of the book reveals a Barred Island reference and even gives it a 4 star rating, its highest. One wonders as to the index’s neglect in listing the islands. Not being conspiratorial in nature, one does not wish to speculate as to the reason.

 

On the way to Big and Little Barred Islands from Warren Island State Park on West Penobscot Bay, several boats were seen anchored north of our path. Binoculars out, compass direction noted, and paper chart consulted revealing another pair of Barred Island situated slightly north of and between the diminutive Colt Island and the larger Beach Island. 

 

Both sets of Barred Islands possess a fatal flaw and it is exposure. Once the bars are submerged in high tide, there is no protection from the southwest, northeast, and for that matter north winds. The cruising guide bluntly states, “leave” if any of the above winds pipe up. 

 

Carrie Rose spent a comfortable if anxious day between the Barred islands as a southwest winds began to gust and whitecaps formed in the channel beyond the bar, then with twilight, the wind died and allowed for a quiet night and morning.

 

I appreciate that to my non-boating readers this obsession with Bar and Barred Islands may seem like minutiae, but alas, this is the nature of cruising in Maine.  

 

Elsa

I have enough trouble writing prose let alone poetry, but that said here are four attempts. The first is a premonition of weather to come while on a dingy cruise up Castine’s Bagaduce River on a quest to find “Bagaduce Lunch” and a haddock sandwich. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th are before, during and after the tropical storm Elsa shook things up in Belfast Bay where we decided to hold up.

 

Wispy mare’s tails above,

Seals basking on hot rocks –

Cold water below.

 

Blue Hill’s distinct bump

In Elsa’s deepening gloom –

Southwest wind rising.

 

Water brown with mud,

Dense rain subsides and the wind –

Southeast to northeast.

 

Flood tide gusty wind,

Carrie Rose pulls at her lines –

Fog and darkening sky.

 

Jumping Fish Bay

The heat wave broke. We were lucky that Mt. Battie, which lies northwest of Camden diverter the severe thunderstorms. There was a little rain and a lot of black clouds and distant thunder but the worst skirted by. More importantly, we did benefit from its cooling effect.

It was time to leave Camden. The first anchorage, Barred Island, was ruled out due to exposure to the NE winds that will predominate for the next few days. Sir Tugley Blue suggested a well protected unnamed bay between Holbrook Island and Smith Cove, so off we went on an 18 nautical mile cruise northeast on East Penobscot Bay. 

 

The bay is approximately one mile from Castine. Castine is on the swift flowing (especially in an ebb tide) Bagaduce River, which is in reality a tidal estuary. It is a classy village and is home to the Maine Maritime Academy. Their large training ship, the State of Maine, cannot be missed.

 

Castine’s European history begins in 1604 and ends with the British leaving in 1815. Between those years, it was fought over by the French, British, Dutch, and Americans. For its remote location Castine has been the site of many battles including America’s largest loss of life in one battle, 474 men, before Pearl Harbor during the ill fated Penobscot Expedition of 1779.

 

The turn from East Penobscot Bay is between the northern tip of Holbrook Island and Can “1A”, which protects Carrie Rose’s bottom from the barely submerged Nautilus Rock.

 

[As an aside, cans are always green and nuns and always red. Occasionally, there are multicolored buoys, which usually demarcate a junction on the watery road of life. One such buoy, the red and white “CH” (it also has a bell) exists just north of us at the junction of the Bagaduce River and East Penobscot Bay.]

 

Once past the entrance, the bay opens up, and with it, I noticed many grey mottled black heads and noses of the local seals. They are most often solitary creatures but not here. I even saw one with a large silver fish in its mouth, a first for me.  

 

We motored straight in and set the anchor on the 17 foot mark on the chart. The tide eventually lifted us to 29 feet and in anticipation of this I had let out 110 feet of chain. Dave came by on his dingy to invite us for dinner and to discuss the coming rainy day's strategy. As I grabbed his line, a large bald eagle soared past us and perched onto a small shorelines tree.

 

The surface of the bay came alive with jumping fish that were no doubt being chased by the legion of seals. And then to starboard a pair of dorsal fins appeared, one smaller than the other. They surfaced several times always next to each other leading me to conjecture that they were mother and baby spending a pleasant afternoon gorging on the plentiful fish.

 

Charlotte and I took the dingy to the granite gravel beach for a walk and on the way passed close under the eye of the eagle. The beach is on an isthmus between our unnamed bay and Smith Cove. The dinghy’s varnished wood bottom scratched as we dragged it up on the beach. The flood tide is relentless and soon the dingy was floating again, so we took the hint and motored back to Carrie Rose. 

 

Now we had seen eagles, seal, osprey, porpoises collectively feeding on the jumping fish, so Charlotte named our unnamed bay, Jumping Fish Bay, a wholly appropriate name.