Position: N 44 21.623 W 068 19.649
We did it again. We’ve been having so much fun we haven’t been keeping you in the loop. Sorry. It’s a tough life, but somebody’s got to do it.
Here’s the quick account of our last few weeks. After sailing through New York City we made a couple of stops and ended up in Hamburg Cove, Hamburg, CT, about 8 miles up the Connecticut River where we put Rachel on a mooring and went to visit Mark’s mom for several days.
After a lovely, albeit very busy 6 days with her, we returned to Rachel, slipped the mooring, and headed to Point Judith Pond, just south of Wakefield, RI to spend a few more days visiting with some cruising friends. It was a great visit – they even took us to that cruisers paradise, the “3 for $10” wine store!
After dinner one night on their boat and dinner the next night on Rachel, we hauled anchor at first light (a.k.a. “o-dark-thirty” to us cruisers), sailed up Buzzards Bay, and made Onset, MA at the entrance to the Cape Cod Canal before dark. We then waited a few more days for weather and the arrival of some other cruising friends with whom we’d agreed to make the trip up to Maine. They arrived, the weather moderated, and we left together to catch the tide through the canal at 1:30 PM on Sunday, July 19th. Our planned destination was “somewhere in Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island, Maine”, although we were not sure we would make the entire voyage without stopping as there was the possibility of strong northeasterly wind in the forecast. We would have chosen to make landfall somewhere else along the Maine coast had it arrived.
The trip went well. We headed due north for 100 miles until we were just off Portland, Maine, where we altered course to the east and sailed about 10 miles offshore along the Maine coast. The whole way we were on the lookout for whales, this is prime breeding ground. We were not sure if we really wanted to see one as they are very big and have been known to tip boats over – yikes!
We had a couple of ‘maybe’ sightings, interspersed with lots of partially deflated mylar balloons. Why so many balloons? We have no idea but they are littering the Atlantic in this area. Boycott mylar balloons!!
We also had another surprise visitor to the boat when we were about 20 miles offshore. We looked down at the port genoa sheet (the rope that controls the front sail) and saw, of all things, a dragonfly! It stayed with us for a few minutes, catching its breath, one would assume, then flew off toward its destination.
As the sun was setting on the 2nd night we finally saw a whale, a huge whale, only about 100 feet off our beam. We can’t be sure of it’s length, but it must have been around 50 or 60 feet long. It’s head emerged, it took a breath, and sounded. It’s back rolled on by for a long time, then its dorsal fin and finally a big tail. With a flick it was gone. We both stared at the sea where it had disappeared, hoping to see it again. Wow!
Later that evening we looked over at our friend’s boat and saw a huge dorsal fin right off their bow. We didn’t know what it was but felt sure they were going to hit it. We hailed them on the radio then saw them out on deck looking down. Moments later we saw the fin behind their boat where it then disappeared under the surface. We called them again on the radio and they were all excited. A great white shark about 15 feet long had slowly swum along the length of their boat right beside them!
We also saw many seals, their heads bobbing along the surface looking much like lobster buoys, until they saw us, snorted, and disappeared. We were surprised to see so many this far out from shore, especially after the shark sighting.
Our 2nd night out was very dark as there was almost no moon and the sky was almost completely covered with clouds. We’re talking dark, here. Really, really, really dark. Sitting in the cockpit alone on night watch we kept being startled when we’d hear a “flap flap flap flap flap” sound. We finally figured out that it was shearwater taking off after being startled from their rest by Rachel’s passing. Shearwaters are a kind of gull that sleep on the surface and make a loud flapping noise with their feet as they run on the surface to get up enough speed to take off. Until we realized what it was, it was a bit nerve wracking and a bit scary, especially since we couldn’t see anything.
At any rate, in just under two days and nights and 221 nautical miles – most of it spent motoring on a glassy flat ocean interspersed with about 12 hours of easy sailing – we dropped anchor here at Mt. Desert Island, Maine at 9:00 am Tuesday, July 21st. We tidied up, did our “arriving after a passage” boat jobs, went ashore for a walk in the afternoon, followed by an early dinner, a couple of quick games of backgammon, and were off to bed early. Yawn…..
