Way on down Downeast

We stayed in Somes Harbor for a good long time. Time enough to get choked out by three generators before finally getting the anchorage almost to ourselves…Cat-a-morons from Charleston with families of four never go anywhere once they’ve discovered a nice little cove to foul. I don’t understand why nobody ever told the designers of the Lagoon that the Cylons were the bad guys! I didn’t take a single picture of my favorite view of Somes Harbor because that stupid Shat-a-moron dominated the view the entire time we were there. We did manage to get a few choice shots of that very cool place before we got fed up… But on day four we bolted. We weighed the gunky hook and took the fair current down the Sound back to Southwest Harbor for one last provisioning run and were underway by 0825 the next morning. It was dead so we motor-sailed through dolphin infested waters before the last of the summertime Sunday power boaters took to the water. It was a loud but refreshing hop from the anchorage in Southwest to Sand Cove just outside of Corea, Maine. At that point we were further downeast than the two of us have ever been under sail. It felt good. It was great having a nice big anchorage to ourselves and all, especially after that last Somes Harbor experience, but this place was surrounded by McMansions on all sides and thick with lobster pots. Best move on. We were out of Sand Cove again by 0830 and under full sail in the North Atlantic Ocean less than twenty minutes later. It was an almost perfect sailing experience. We were going east-northeast and the wind and waves were coming from the south-southwest, making for an all day broad reach on a gentle ocean[…]

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Back in Somes Harbor

Way back in 2015 we broke the boat coming around the bottom of Mt. Desert Island at the Bass Harbor Bar. We came up on the bar hard and fast on a close haul under full sail and the world just proved a little too much for our good old boat. This particular bar is a violent place where two massive tidal currents clash over a rocky shallow spot at the epicenter of a wind tunnel and Nomad just couldn’t hold it together. The combined forces of all that nature pulled the genoa track right out of the near sixty year old teak toerail. We struck the genoa and motor sailed up the Somes Fjord to the stillness that is Somes Harbor. This time, it wasn’t all that. Rockland first. The boats behind James looked even better in reflection, with me (Dena) co-opting a signature James Lane photographic style. We walked and did a couple loops through the local Hamilton’s (hi, Dave!) and walked some more. We ate out a little, but not as much as we were tempted to. There’s some pretty good food there. We stayed in Rockland for a nice long time (like we said we were going to do) but we were itching to reach places previously unseen about three days in. Sailing off the anchor is such a deep pleasure. Anytime we have to run the engine irritates us (especially Beluga Greyfinger, mightily). I (still Dena) locate one of my most sublime pleasures in the experience of a nice quiet morning leading to a world in motion without explosive interruption. It is to me what an aspen grove is to some or a sudden long view after climbing a long hill. It is connection and rightness, presence and being. It doesn’t always last through the[…]

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Home, a ways away from home

We sailed to P-Town from Onset after setting a Cetacea Cape Cod Canal speed record of 11 knots. The sail from Sandwich to P-Town was beautiful and exciting and a Cape Cod blue that only that Cape Cod can do. We had another sailboat off our beam all day and another three spinnakers three nautical miles off the port bow. All larger boats (according to their AIS info), we were last to arrive but not by much. We were the only sailboat that chose the open area east of the breakwater rather than the more-distant-from-town area inside the southern point. We keep going through this good-sail/bad-sail routine where we are thrilled one day and then tested the next. This Provincetown sojourn had beauty… And science, wherein we ran the watermaker into a measured container to combat the sticky-float problem with the tank meter. Our Katadyn 80E is operating better than spec, which is great news. Robust machine, even through some of the worst conditions you can put a machine through…ignoring it for years before someone gives a shit. Did I mention beauty? So, we shopped and saw and enjoyed, and then we set sail again for a roughly day-and-a-half run to Matinicus Island off Penobscot Sound. This trip managed to be the most glorious, unexpectedly powerful and yet comfortable sail…until it became something else. First, the awesome part. I (Dena) set the asymmetrical spinnaker around 0830. When the wind shifted a little, I realized that I hadn’t led the halyard correctly and so I had to (got-to, got-to!) do a snuff-with-sock maneuver. Honestly, anyone who knows knows and anyone who doesn’t doesn’t, and if you are one of the handful of people who want more detail, please comment and I’ll give you the blow-by-blow but let me tell you, it[…]

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