Rincewind's cast of characters

At the moment, there is only one living soul on Rincewind, but that doesn't mean that there are not other important personalities on board!

The "e" bucket has been sailing with us from the s/s Sun-treader days. It has seen good times swabbing the deck and bad times of violent sea-sickness, but has smiled through it all with it's happy "e". The "e" comes from the first set of lettering for Sun-treader - a failed attempt at applying the vinyl letters.

"Bucky" the 20hp Bukh diesel engine chugs along underneath the companionway steps and rarely asks for anything other than fuel, oil, and cooling water! This is a rare portrait of Bucky.

"Captain Bendy-Butt" is an old salt on board, but has a proclivity for drink and wild parties, so can't be depended on for any real work. Here he is seen surfing on the tiller rather than taking care of his assigned navigational duties!

The auto-pilot is extremely important on any short-handed sailboat. Ours is a basic tiller-pilot and has worked flawlessly throughout our voyages. "Otto" is a frequent nickname for auto-pilots, but ours is named "Klemp", after the famous conductor Otto Klemperer, whose nickname was Klemp. (Get it?) Here you can see Klemp's arm controlling the tiller while Cap'n Bendy surfs.

It's here!

The pin has arrived! Seems like a little thing to have caused all of this trouble.

To hike, perchance to eat a popover

Today is really a "Maine Development Day" in the words of a famous camp director. I took Twoflower to the dinghy dock on the east side of Northeast Harbor and hiked to Jordan pond via the Thuya Garden and Elliot Mountain. The final goal was to have tea at the Jordan Pond House. I was not disappointed by the popovers and added a bowl of lobster stew to round out my lunch.

Waiting... (ok, so I shouldn't complain..)

It is a gorgeous day in Northeast Harbor, but the furler pin hasn't arrived yet, so I am stuck on my mooring for another day. They say that the part should arrive this afternoon....... I used the time this morning to do some important shopping (see photo for some of the most valuable items). I received a special delivery at Rincewind of a couple of warm muffins this morning - what a treat!

A place called Roque Island

Rick and I made landfall at this unbelievable spot- it almost felt like we had made a wrong turn and ended up in the Bahamas!

Pronounced "Roke", there is a broad, mile-long white sand beach backed by woods and some meadows, with a rocky escarpment at both ends. It was a fitting end to a great eight days at sea. Another boat came in at the same time (s/v Reanimation, from Rhode Island), but anchored in a small cove about a mile from the beach, so Rincewind was alone in its beachy anchorage. A little swell from the ocean set up a rocking motion on the boat, but it was not uncomfortable. The island is privately owned (I heard rumors in NE harbor that some think it is a CIA base!) and signs ask visitors to not leave the beach area. Welcome to Maine, but not tooooo welcome. If you look carefully, you can see Rincewind in each of these pictures.

A meeting at sea

Last year, Emily and I never saw another sailboat when we were offshore. This summer, Rick and I saw six sailboats - the one I will talk about in this post and a group of five boats that we encountered about 70 miles east of Block Island which were evidently in the Newport-Bermuda race. One of those boats even had to change course to avoid us. None of those boats had much of a radar return and none of them talked to us on the radio - I guess they were a little too busy racing!

The nicer story was s/v Wendigo, a cruising catamaran (ca. 38 ft.?) that hailed us as they motor-sailed near us (no wind that day). They were sailing from Florida to Noank, CT, and had specifically come close to us to chat. It was nice talking to them on channel 68 before each boat headed on its way.