Pemaquid, Pemaquid, Pemaquid

There, I’ve said it! What a great word. Today, I sailed south out of Muscongus Bay and around Pemaquid Neck. But first, I had to get through the little passage at the north end of Hog Island – lots of lobster pots, rocks, and a narrow thorofare.

Another day of some fast sailing, some slow sailing, but always fun sailing. There are beautiful houses on the east coast of Pemaquid Neck, the type of houses that scream “Hey! This is my house!”

There are no docks for boats because this is such rough and rocky coastline. The wind started to really pick up and by the time I sailed by the Pemaquid Neck Lighthouse, Rincewind was really ripping along.

On the other side of the neck, the ocean swell disappeared and everything felt much calmer. A quick run down Johns Bay and I was at Witch Island.

A passage through Muscongus Bay

By the plotting I had done on my chart, it was only 10 miles from Maple Juice Cove to Oar Island Harbor. The weather seemed like it would be okay, and there was a lot of time. This turned out to be the most interesting day of sailing so far. I decided to sail the entire way, even if it took a long time due to wind speed or wind direction. There were lots of little islands to go around and little passages to tack down, but it was a great day! The town of Friendship Harbor is on the way – this is the home of the Friendship Sloop, a traditional sailing work boat. Of, course there is only one of these in the harbor. All of the other boats are diesel-powered work boats – so much for the romance of the seas.

On the other side of the harbor is a big row of “lobster cars”, the floats that lobstermen use to store their gear.

Running downwind, I set the sails on opposing sides, called "sailing wing-and-wing".

Several times this summer I have seen these strange sailing canoes. This was the closest I have gotten to one – I have decided that they may belong to an Outward Bound type of group.

Oar Island Harbor is mentioned in the cruising guide as not getting many visits from yachts, but I found it a very enjoyable place to be. As always, there were a lot of moorings and some lobster pots, but I found a spot to anchor just outside of the moorings. Interestingly, the lobster boats seemed to be quieter here that elsewhere I have been. I wonder if this is some sort of agreement with the Audubon Camp on adjacent Hog Island? Here is a picture of Rincewind in the harbor with a fleet of lobster boats.

Oar Island Harbor has the rotting hulk of the Cora F. Cressy, a huge hull from a wooden schooner. Some funny guy has put a sign on the hull that says “speed limit 75 mph”.
Audubon runs the neighboring Hog Island as a camp and nature preserve. This is a picture of their camp with a couple of dorys in front.

Speaking of dorys, a little boat at Oar Island Harbor had this name:

I finally got a picture of one of the scoters. I saw this guy swimming by the boat and took the picture out of the cabin portlight. There have been quite a few of these birds in this area. They are diving birds and also like to run across the water while flapping their wings.

Into Christina's World

Maple Juice Cove (the Olson Farm) is the home of the location of Andrew Wyeth’s most famous painting, “Christina’s World”, seen here off the bow of Rincewind.

This cove is a big area, reminiscent of a Chesapeake Bay anchorage, on the western side of the St. George River. It is all about 11 feet deep at low tide (of course the tidal range is about 11 feet) and has a muddy bottom. Not too many rocks are visible, and lots of nice-looking houses ring the shores. I stayed her for two days just resting (after a night of thunderstorms) and doing a little cleaning of the boat. Yep, more big skies.

You may have noticed two lines coming from the bow of Rincewind at anchor. One of these is the 3/8” chain connected to the anchor. The other line is a rope called a snubber and connected by a hook to the chain to ease the strain on the boat and anchor. Since the chain has no give to it, the rope stretches when strain is put on the anchor (like in the thunderstorm last night) and eases the pull on the anchor.

I spent two nights at Maple Juice Cove - just doing boat chores and enjoting the secure, peaceful surroundings.

Puffins at Matinicus Rock!

Sailing south along the coast of Matinicus Island, past Ragged Island (originally called Ragged Arse Island), it was easy to appreciate the isolation of this area, especially in the days before air transport and diesel engines. It was a day of grey water and grey skies.

It was an exciting moment when Matinicus Rock showed up out of the greyness of the day

I had heard that there was a puffin colony on Matinicus Rock and even though I really did not expect to be able to see any while I was just coating by on Rincewind, imagine my surprise when I saw a whole group of puffins in the water in front of the boat! Yes, these are puffins –

I saw three separate groups of puffins before I had to tack to head to Muscongus Bay. I must agree with the various accounts I have read about the isolated feeling and then eternal grayness of Matinicus Rock.

Heading back toward the coast, the promised poor weather finally closed in and the rain started.

The Cap’n looks happy about this turn of events. It is always good to have three jackets and a cap on in the middle of July!

The message is in the bottle.....

I was pretty excited to be sailing out to Matinicus Island – it is one of those locations that is pretty isolated, doesn’t really have room for anchoring, and is dependent on weather for an easy approach. As it turned out, the sail was great fun, with plenty of wind most of the way, and an approaching thunderstorm to make the final approach exciting! On the way, I passed Brimstone Island, which is a neat little uninhabited outpost.

There were no other boats heading offshore from Jericho Bay, but I did pass three boats that were sailing along the coast and heading down east, including this neat looking yawl.

There was a little cut in the clouds just as I saw Matinicus Island for the first time. Yeah, I know it is another picture of sea and sky!

Since I had no idea if I would be able to get a mooring for the night, I called on VHF channel 19 as recommended in the cruising guide, and inquired about a mooring. After two attempts, someone answered that “Josh” was not around – he was on Vinalhaven – but that I would see his moorings in the harbor. It was easy to enter the harbor and very easy to find the moorings.

The mooring buoy had a plastic Pepsi bottle taped to it with a map/info sheet inserted in the bottle. The map was of the island and the info sheet asked me to leave $25 in the bottle to pay for the mooring. A “message in a bottle”! There was one other cruiser in the harbor, on a small sailboat from Canada. I spent a nice, secure night here.

A Sail in Merchant’s Row (get it?)

There are so many spectacular sky scenes from a sailboat, but here is another – the sky over Burnt Coat Harbor.

A short sail awaits me as I head for Merchant Island. As it turns out, this area is ground zero for the number of lobster pots I have seen. Generally, I have not been overwhelmed by the number of pots, except in areas that are perfect anchorages. However, this area around Merchants Row is really amazing in the number of traps that can fit into the water. Those “bugs” have no chance of escaping.

Little islands abound off the coat of Maine – I guess there are thousands of them. There are some themes in names, there are many “Bush” Islands – “One Bush Island”, Two Bush Island”, “Three Bush Island” – there are lots of each of those. Also, there are many “Egg” Islands. I was surprised when I glanced at the chart when approaching Merchant Island for my anchorage and noticed “Bill’s Island” – see the picture below.

Reminding us that all of this granite landscape was sculpted by receding glaciers, some islands have very large boulders balanced right on the edge of the shoreline. Here are a couple of samples -

The anchorage at Merchants Island is across from Harbor Island – another perfect example of the granite island crowned with pine trees and blueberry fields.

This anchorage was pretty exposed and had a constant swell that rolled in from the northwest. The openness of the location can be seen by this view of a windjammer sailing by –

Do you smell something burning?

Well, it must be Burnt Coat Harbor on Swans Island. The original owner of this island had a long and colorful history that ended with him being hung in Paris (or London) after not paying business debts. Entering the waters near Swan’s island, I passed by a sailboat that had caught a pot warp on its keel. They ended up having to cut the warp to free their boat from the pot. Hockamock Head Light shows the entrance to Burnt Coat Harbor with its unique square lighthouse.

This is a working harbor and it took a little doing finding a clear area to anchor. As usual with Maine harbors, if the water is not full of moorings, it is full of lobster pots. This harbor also had a strange looking floating contraption which I assume was a sort of lobster pound for storing the day’s catch.

Shortly after I anchored, the windjammer “American Eagle” (I wanted to ask if they had any outfitters with them) anchored just off my bow. I was in the process of reading a Maine novel “Rigged for Murder” whose novel thanks the captain of this windjammer for technical information for her book.

For a little comparison, I took a picture of Rincewind and American Eagle together in the harbor.

The big deal here for me was “The Boat Yard” take-out restaurant. I rowed over to their dock and bought two lobsters and fries to take back to Rincewind. While I was waiting for my food, I took a little walk to stretch my legs. If you look carefully, you will see Rincewind off the corner of the restaurant.

Once back on board, I had a great feast!

Reachin' for an Eggemoggin....

"Eggemoggin Reach” is a sailing route leading from Penobscot Bay to Jericho Bay that puts the sailboat on a course that allows a beam reach (wind at 90 degrees off the bow of the boat) and provides perfect sailing. I headed up to this area after Karen left from Rockland. I spent the night at Bucks Harbor, a classic Penobscot Bay location. Along the way, I saw several classic Windjammers.

I also found out why “Barred Island” is named ... I got a great view of the “bar” connecting the two high parts of the island.

I almost stopped at Pickering Island again because a strong south wind had picked up and it started to get foggy, but as the weather cleared, I decided to continue on to Bucks Harbor. I was disappointed in the ambience at Bucks Harbor, even though it is the location of Sal’s outing with her father in Robert McClosky’s “One Morning in Maine”. It has a fairly rustic feel, but all of the sheltered areas are taken up by moorings. This leaves just a very small, exposed, area for anchoring. As it turns out, the weather was settled over night and there was no problem.

I had a chance to dry the laundry I had done in Rockland – not knowing the dryer was broken before I started washing.

The sunset cast a beautiful alpenglow over the area.

As almost everywhere in Maine, the water was wonderfully clear in Bucks Harbor. Shown here by the anchor still three feet below the water in this picture.

There was an unusual and gnarly looking fishing boat of some type on a mooring next to where I anchored.

I had to motor at the start through Eggemoggin Reach. It was so calm that even Twoflower left a lasting wake!

But by mid-morning, the wind had filled in and I had a great sail. However, I was not on a beam reach. The wind from the SE meant that I was beating (tacking back and forth into the wind) the whole way. The eastern end of the reach was clogged with lobster pot buoys, and a lobsterman offered to sell me lobster from his boat as I sailed by. As I tacked toward Jericho Bay, I passed a small ledge with a grand name: Torrey Castle.

As I entered Jericho Bay, heading toward Swan’s Island, I was treated to a classic view of Isle au Haut showing itself above the sea mist. Next stop: Burnt Coat Harbor!