Month: August 2012

We’ve been living on the edge of civilization for a couple weeks now.  The public dock, Knightville Landing, provided us with free water and dinghy landing.  It is also the center of pubescent life for South Portland. Check out how they’re all waiting their turn in a neat, tidy line.  These are good boys. The large ships coming through the bridge and up the river gave us good doses of adrenaline periodically. Here’s the same ship, passing us alongside. And here’s a closeup.  A crop of the bow so you can get the scale of this vessel. The red spot in the hole at the front of the boat?  That’s a person.  For real. Meanwhile, the boat sat at anchor.  Well, at anchors.  We settled in and realized that wind and tide were pulling us out into the channel and in where the bottom shallows quickly.  We got ourselves solidly hooked on the bow and then put a smaller anchor into the dinghy and rowed it out behind.  With one anchor off each end of the boat, we swung gently like a hammock without getting in the way of anything like TransFighter. I (Dena) started work at EqualityMaine or Mainers for Marriage Equality, depending on whether we’re working with donations or campaign funds.  It’s a good organization as far as I can tell, though phone canvassing is as hard as any other out-bound call center work for the most part.  I’ve got the script down pretty well, and the rest is a lot like counseling with an agenda.  I’m supposed to draw people out on their concerns about same-sex marriage so that I can assuage those fears and counter the arguments.  It works sometimes.  At least a couple times a night, I get someone to move from somewhat opposed to[…]

And we’re plugging into it. I (Dena) applied for, interiewed for, and got a job canvasing for Mainers for Marriage Equality.  Being as though you’re on this blog, I’d like to assume you know that means yay gay marriage, not sneaky code for marriage for only the “right sort” of people.  Yesterday was the interview and job offer, and today… We went sailing! Caught up on chores and with a job starting soon, we were able to turn our attention back to the most important thing.  We hadn’t had an opportunity to test the rig since we had the mast put back on, but today, the conditions were perfect.  Strong but not overly strong wind, warm but not blazing, and busy but not too many boats on the water. First off, we had to check out a new anchorage spot.  The general anchorage right off Portland’s Old Port is incredibly busy in the summer.  The ferries kick up a  lot of wake, but even more bouncing results from the dozens of pleasure boaters who don’t feel the need to keep their speeds down through the anchorage.  We got people motoring 10 feet off our stern kicking up a wake that would knock us over in the cabin. We weighed anchor and toddled further up river.  Nosing slowly into every spot that seemed like a possible spot to anchor, we made our way under the Casco Bay Bridge and into a strangely lovely industrial area.  Before long, we’d identified our new home and marked it on the chart.  It was time for fun! We hoisted sail at the mouth of the Fore River where it meets Casco Bay. Even though the day was perfect, we started off with two reefs in the sail, making sure not to overstress the rig in[…]

Remember when we said the fog had devoured us? The fog stayed with us until about 1pm, though we managed to charge our batteries with the solar array even through the mist.  Once it burned off, the heat built quickly and we jumped overboard for a refreshing swim (in water we’re told is 10-15 degrees warmer than usual). So there we were, sitting in the cockpit, enjoying our boat at anchor and a shot of rum each.  We were drip-drying , when we spied the tiny island to the northeast at the mouth of the bay. “It’s Christmas Island!” exclaimed James. “It is?” queried Dena, credulously. “Well, it has a single, tall conifer, so it outta be.” Consulting the chart, we discovered that the little pokey piece of land is actually named The Nubbin.  So of course, we had to make clit jokes and we had to go visit! As we approached, the island’s bird population took noisy flight, protesting our invasion.  We pulled around to the northeast side of the island and shoved the bow into the kelp beds until we could get our feet on the rocks. Traversing the slippery kelp wasn’t the easiest thing, but once we got on the dry land above the high-tide mark, we were inundated by the smells of a bird sanctuary.  A US Coast and Geodetic Survey marker dated 1941 is inset on the highest point.  We carefully inspected what there was to inspect. Discovering new territory always makes me (James) feel like the “king of the world”. The single tree is taller, but there are many more of these flowering bushes.  Anyone know what they are? The island is such a small nubbin that our circumnavigation only took about 10 minutes, even stopping for photos.  We both marked our territory and[…]