Day trip to Bucksport and back

Today Sheila and I (and of course Katie & Riggs) took a picnic lunch out to Spray at about 10:30, untied from the mooring in Hatch Cove, and headed out of Castine Harbor. As we passed the town dock we saw the crowd remaining from the just-completed Memorial Day ceremonies. We headed out into Penobscot Bay and turned north into a cool breeze. We attacked our picnic lunch almost immediately once underway.

With a rising tide, it was an easy 2-hour run up the bay, which narrowed to become the Penobscot River. We passed under the new and old bridges that connect Verona Island to Prospect ME (photo above), and tied up to the spacious Bucksport town dock. Bucksport has done wonderful things in the past 10 years or so in opening up its waterfront, including a 1+ mile long brick shore path. We walked half the path, stopped to have ice cream, and then finished the shore path.

When we were back aboard Spray, the wind had totally died down, and we moved to Spray's flying bridge to bask in the sun. After about a half hour traveling south, the southerly sea breeze started up as if someone had thrown a switch. The breeze and resulting waves built quickly so we were soon back down in the warm salon. As we continued towards Castine, the waves on our bow increased to 1 foot, to 2 ft, and by the time we reached Castine harbor, we were bashing through 3-4 ft waves. This made Katie nervous while Riggs just slept through it all. We turned into the harbor and surfed back to Hatch Cove and tied back to the mooring at 5 pm, where we finished our picnic food.

So it was a good trip and a nice break from the work I've been doing on Spray, which has included exterior varnish and paint work plus a new floor for the forward stateroom. Lots of summer left for more cruising and more chores.

This is Bucksport from the water:

Seal Bay

I've been home barely a week and we've already had a nice overnight cruise aboard Spray. This past Saturday we untied from the mooring and headed for the Castine town dock, where we took on a few groceries and filled our water tank. We then headed south down Penobscot Bay, towing Sheila's Monhegan skiff 'Razzle Dazzle' : past Cape Rosier, past Western & Pond Islands, past Butter, Great Spruce Head, & Eagle Islands, and on to Vinalhaven Island.

Seal Bay is an inlet on the east side of Vinalhaven and is probably the most beautiful spot in Penobscot Bay, with amazing granite formations and lots of good paddling options. We dropped anchor between Hay and Burnt islands at about 3 pm and within an hour we (Sheila, Riggs, Katie & I) set off in Razzle Dazzle for a rowboat circumnavigation of Penobscot Island. Its about a 2 hour row, with time for exploring nooks and crannies, and must be done near high tide.

We returned to Spray and made a nice supper of pasta and green beans and spent a comfortable night at anchor.

Sunday's breakfast was pancakes, then another long row around Seal Bay. We had lunch aboard Spray and then pulled anchor for a really pleasant cruise back to Castine. There was surreal fog rolling over some of the islands (top photo). We were back at the mooring in Hatch Cove by 4 pm.

One of the goals we have in cruising this summer is to try to get Katie more comfortable when cruising. She did pretty good on this trip, but still gets nervous in rougher conditions. Hopefully she will eventually adapt to boating as well as Riggs has.

Today I got going on some varnish work on Spray, plus I changed her engine oil. Lots more maintenance work to do this summer, and lots more cruising of the Maine coast, too.

Home again

It took only 3 days for Dennis, Riggs, and I to cruise from Gloucester MA to Spray's home port of Castine ME:

On Thursday, Dennis and I started the day in Gloucester with breakfast ashore. The locals at the restaurant were entertaining, and the food was good. We left our rented mooring at about 0800 and entered the Annisquam River with a slight following current. We had to wait at a RR drawbridge for a train to pass, and after we passed through, the current had shifted against us. But we had an easy cruise inside Cape Anne, and probably shaved 5 miles off the trip by taking this route.

Once out in the Atlantic, we beelined towards Portsmouth NH, which we reached by noon, with a building following sea. We pressed on up the coast and pulled in to anchor near Biddeford Pool. It was an interesting anchorage, like a lagoon surrounded by beaches.

Friday presented calmer conditions, and we were able to make an early start and cook fried eggs while under way. We made it up to Tenants Harbor by 3 pm, and tied to a rental mooring. Sheila and Katie drove down to meet us and Katie and Riggs had an energetic reunion. Later we 3 had a nice supper at the East Wind Inn.

Sheila slept aboard Spray and accompanied us on Saturday's final leg to Castine. After an oatmeal breakfast we were cruising by 0800, and rounded Owls Head by 0900, to enter Penobscot Bay - familiar waters! There were building NW winds so when we reach Isleboro Island we hugged its lee shore until we angled off towards the Castine bell buoy. It got a bit bouncy there which was no surprise as that area is often the roughest in the bay. By 1230 we were tied to a friend's mooring in Hatch Cove, and a few minutes later Dave Wyman and Don Small arrived aboard Dove to welcome us back.

Still aboard Spray, we had grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, with a couple beers to celebrate. The we loaded some gear, two dogs, and 3 crew on Spray's dinghy and made for the Hatch Cove dock. Home.

Sheila had earlier tried without success to get the lawnmower going so the lawn was a tall field of dandelions. Dennis and I got the mower to start and I did a quick pass at its highest setting. My sister Marsha arrived from Ellington CT and Sheila made us a nice supper.

On Sunday Dennis and Marsha headed back to CT, with Sheila & I and 2 dogs riding along. They routed to Tenants Harbor so we could get Sheila's car and return it to Castine.

Yesterday morning Dave Wyman and I resurrected Spray's mooring, which she is now safely tied to (below). I've been slowly moving some gear to shore, and getting going on a long list of chores.

I have several projects planned for Spray, and we hope to do some coast-of-Maine cruising this summer. I'll post some blog entries on these activities as they occur, so I hope you will check back now and then.

Its good to be home!

Here comes Maine!

Its been 6 days since the last blog entry, and 2 of those days involved no travel, yet we still have covered all of Long Island Sound, Rhode Island Sound, Buzzards Bay, the Cape Cod Canal, Cape Cod Bay, and Massachusetts Bay, to land us here in Gloucester MA.

Two of the travel days were looong ones:

- Last Friday Riggs and I did all of L.I. Sound, from Manhasset NY to Essex CT, something like 90 miles. The weather and currents were mostly favorable, and we wanted to get into Essex before the start of what was a very windy weekend.

- Yesterday we had B.I.L. Dennis aboard and went from just east of Essex, all the way to Onset MA, at the entrance to the Cape Cod Canal, with a fuel-up stop in New Bedford MA, again maybe 90 miles. This time we were driven by the desire for an early-morning entrance into the Cape Cod Canal to catch the flood current.

In between we hunkered down for the weekend gales, with Spray safely at a mooring at the Essex Yacht Club, but Riggs and I living in luxury at Marsha & Dennis' house an hours drive north in Ellington CT. A real bed, great meals, hot showers. Wow! Riggs even learned a new game.

By late Monday afternoon we (now including Dennis) were back aboard Spray, and headed out the CT River, then east 10 miles or so to anchor in Jordan Cove. Tuesday was our marathon run to the Cape Cod Canal. Today was a pretty good run too:

- Anchor up by 0600. Through the canal with 4-5 knots of assisting current,

- then into Cape Cod Bay, heading NW past Plymouth MA,

- then turning straight north for a 28 mile run across MA Bay, directly to Gloucester. We had fun playing chicken with the 'Nosmo King' tanker shown below.

Tomorrow we are gonna try the Annisquam River shortcut thru Cape Anne, then up past MA & NH to pull into Portsmouth for the night. We'll probably set foot in Maine!! Stay tuned.

NJ: Done NYC: Done

Recent weather has been saying 'GO', and so we have. In the 3 days since last report we have completed the NJ section, all done on the 'outside', and today we went through NYC and are now ready for Long Island Sound.

Tuesday morning was calm in Atlantic City NJ, so after the ordeal of the NJ ICW the previous day, we instead went out Absecom Inlet, and turned north. It was pretty easy cruising, but since we're about a mile off shore, there is nothing close by to watch, and it almost seems we are standing still. Sure enough, we eventually reached the Barnegat Inlet, as the afternoon wind started up. We were in and safely anchored by the time the wind built to a screaming pitch (I think 35+ knots), until the sun went down, when the wind wound down.

Wednesday we went back outside again, and it was a duplicate of Tuesday, and when the wind kicked up, we were rounding Sandy Hook, and anchored behind the jetty at Atlantic Highlands before the wind again really got going.

This morning we were in no hurry, since the flood current up the East River wouldn't start until after 11 am, so we cruised slowly towards the Verrazano Narrows, fought a 3 knot current to get into NY Harbor, then cruised up the west side to snap a few pix of Lady Liberty, and headed to the south end of Manhatten.

The East River was a piece of cake, easy following current, and nearly no traffic. We were under the Throgs Neck Bridge, and into L.I. Sound, by 1:00, and tied to a free visitors mooring here in Manhasset by 2:00. Plenty of time to walk Riggs and then buy some badly needed groceries.

Tomorrow, eastward down L.I. Sound, at least as far as Port Jefferson. Stay Tuned.

Wide water and Narrow water

So over the last few days, we've covered some wide waters (Chesapeake and Delaware Bays), and some narrow waters (C&D canal and NJ ICW).

Last Friday we left Solomons MD at 0815, after taking on 100 gallons of diesel (@ $2.65/gal) and topping off the water tank. It was a nice calm day on the Chesapeake and we made our goal of Queenstown MD, some 55 miles farther up the Bay, in time for a walk around the lovely town.

Saturday was the perfect cruising day: calm waters, warm & sunny, and favorable currents, and we had made the top of the Chesapeake (Chesapeake City, at the entrance to the C&D Canal) by 1400 hr, and instead of dropping anchor as planned, we kept going, across the C&D, and nearly half way down Delaware Bay before finally pulling into the Cohansey River in NJ to anchor for the night. It was tough to find a spot to land Riggs for 'necessities', but we managed. Totals for Saturday: about 90 miles traveled over 11 1/2 hours. A record for the entire cruise.

On Sunday we got an early start out into the lower Delaware Bay, but soon the current and wind turned against us, and it was a rough ride down to Cape May, where we entered the protected waters of the NJ ICW, and traveled a mere 6 miles before dropping anchor in Sunset Lake. At least we were able to dinghy ashore to a park to play ball.

Today was a grueling day. The NJ ICW has not been maintained well, and has some shoaling issues. Fortunately we've hit a time where high tide is mid-day, so morning travel is on a rising tide, and there is extra depth for mid-day travel. But when we pulled anchor at 0800 hr, the tide was still low, and we had barely traveled a mile north before we ran aground. We we right in the channel too. With the rising tide we waited maybe 20 minutes and were able to back off and resume travel, and made maybe 300 yards before running aground again! Fortunately, the bottom here is typically soft mud, plus Spray has a deep skeg that protects the propeller, so a little patience is all it takes. As the tide rose, we had one more bump on the bottom, and some scary depthfinder readings, but we did OK.

Until the bridges. Just before reaching Atlantic City, there are 4 drawbridges to deal with. The first one, Dorset Avenue, was being worked on when we arrived, and we had to 'hover' for 20 minutes before the crew could be moved aside, and one span lifted for us to get through. The next bridge went OK, then we again waited 20 minutes for a RR bridge to open (they had a train coming through - the nerve!). The last bridge went OK and we were free to pull into the'Brigantine' anchorage overlooking th Atlantic City hotels.

You just might remember that we were stuck in this anchorage for 5 nights back in October while two nor'easters passed through. Well, when we dropped anchor today we had strong, warm SW winds (30+ knots) to deal with. It made for a hairy dinghy ride to a beach for Riggs, but has since calmed down.

We are moving north faster than does the boating season. In the lower Chesapeake we were about a week ahead of the beginning of the boating season. Here we are about a month ahead. So today we saw maybe 4 other boats, and are the only boat anchored here.

Tomorrow we fight our way another 40 miles up the NJ ICW. Stay tuned!