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.