Eastport to Northeast Harbor without ever leaving the boat

Peter had a great time at the Moose Island Marine Supply store in Eastport, where he went after finishing his meal and catching up on a few things on the Internet. He purchased a new Racor diesel filter unit because, I am sorry to report, the generator is still not quite right. When I met up with him, he was excited to have met knowledgable sales people at a store that was actually seriously stocked for boats. He decided he needed one more fitting, so we both went there. The salesman gave a lot of thought and devoted much time to finding a cone-shaped piece that would be perfect and was a bit dismayed when he could only come up with a part that would work well but could have been designed a bit better for the job. (It has to do with male and female cones pressure fittings and angles and things that Peter tells me are too complicated to write about in the blog. Personally, I think I am up to it, but you will have to find your own YouTube video.)

Around 5:30 that evening, we cast off from the Eastport dock. With no wind but current in our favor, we motored for an hour to reach Hersey Cove in the back bays of the far eastern coast of Maine. That evening was the calm before the storm. It began to rain early in the night and rained continuously all of Thursday, Sept. 22. White caps streamed past the windows as we stayed dry if not particularly warm inside.

The rain let up on Friday morning (Sept. 23). With Hurricane Fiona going by on her way to strike the Canadian Maritimes, high seas and stronger winds were predicted on the Atlantic Ocean close Maine’s eastern shore (sustained wind up to 60 knots with gusts up to 90); we were obviously not leaving the protection of the backwaters. Peter had learned from the marine supply man of an even better hurricane hole than Hersey Cove, so before noon, after the rain had stopped, we weighed anchor and motored through the wind and the waves to Schooner Cove. There was a substantial current flowing through a narrow passage, and our whitewater reading skills were put to use in determining the best place to enter the slot. In the cove, there are four enormous mooring balls, obviously intended to be used in storm conditions, but we chose to edge in closer to shore and drop anchor.

The wind continued to rise as the day went by and we passed the hours hiding from the hurricane reading, playing games and listening to the radio. (We hadn’t heard Science Friday on NPR in months!) Peter did some line splicing and minor jobs and I cooked and played word games on my own. Hurricanes are intense and the conditions outside are magnificently violent, but huddling inside can be immensely boring. 

Mantra kept us safe, but the winds pushed her around a lot. When she was turned beam to the wind, we were heeled over as if we were sailing close-hauled or close reach. We avoided the full force of wind and rain on the Maine coast, but we still experienced sustained winds around 20 knots, and we believe that the winds were near gale force for a while during the night. Our instruments recorded a 37.8 high.

This shot of the navigation screen shows the amount of movement of Mantra. The dark red is actually dozens of overlapping lines. Normally, there is one or two lines representing changing tides, currents of wind. 

Stormy sunset before the rain

We stayed in bed late on Saturday morning (Sept. 24) because the wind was still howling and we were obviously not going anywhere that day. We spent our long hours similarly to the way we had the day before. By late afternoon, the wind had died down to a gentle breeze and slim streaks of blue sky peeked through the mottled gray clouds. The sunset was not spectacular but tinges of pink dusted the eastern horizon as night fell and our boat sat still in the water with only a pleasant and almost imperceptible rocking.

On Sunday, Sept. 25, under rain-washed clear skies, we moved to Cutler Harbor in Maine. As we left the cove, we could see the white water of reversing falls ahead of us; fortunately, we were not headed that way. (Reversing falls are more common in the northern Gulf of Maine tributaries than the hoopla about Saint Johns Reversing Falls might lead you to believe, but they don’t all have a bridge over them for good viewing.) We turned to port and headed out through the bay in a strong current. I was at the helm, and it was quite exciting reading the currents like whitewater to steer a 56-foot-boat, using ferry angles to cross the incoming stream and a large eddy to avoid the current.

After the storm

Once we were out at sea, the wind increased to 10-15 knots from the SSW, but the waves were only 1 foot. Unfortunately, southwest was the direction of our course, so we were fighting the wind. The water in the harbor was calm when we arrived at Cutler around 5 p.m. but the temperature had decreased and the blue skies had disappeared behind thick gray clouds.

There was a small craft advisory on Monday, Sept. 26, but that did not stop us; we are desperate to escape Maine. It was calm in Cutler Harbor, but as we passed by Little River Island, the wind and the seas increased. Out at sea the waves were five feet, coming in five second intervals. The wind was blowing 15 knots, then 20 then 25, and we were going against it. Conditions were chilly and not pleasant.

Dodging hundreds of lobster pot buoys as we entered shelter through Englishman Bay, we reached calm water and navigated into Shorey Cove on the north side of Roque Island. Later in the day, we could hear the wind whistling through the tree tops and through the rigging, but we were quite stable. (It had been a bit rocky at Cutler.) From the north shore of Roque Island, we could see the Gardner houses on the eastern side of the cove. That family has quite an impressive piece of property.

While I did some cooking and assessed our provisioning needs, Peter hanked on the staysail at the bow of the boat because he thought we would have done well with it that day and conditions were predicted to remain the same. (In the end, we did not use it.)

After we hauled up our anchor around 9:30 on Tuesday, Sept. 27, we all too quickly left the sunshine behind and headed into thick fog on the eastern side of Roque Island, fog which enclosed us in its white and gray mist until we reached our destination in Northeast Harbor. We used sail power as much as we could with the 10-15 knot southwest winds. Even though visibility was only 1/8 of a mile, and water condensed from the fog dripped everywhere and ran in droplets across the windows of the pilot house, and 5 foot waves were rolling under—and sometimes across—the bow every 5 seconds, and constant attention was needed because we found lobster pot buoys miles off shore in up to 200 feet of water, the sailing was great. The lobster pots were a nuisance, particularly because we only had about a boat length of time to maneuver around them once we spotted them in the waves and fog.

Sherri in layers of warm clothes

View looking forward in the fog

Peter at the helm in the fog

The rolling motion of the boat in the waves made me sleepy, so I had to take a nap down below for a while. Luckily, I had made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, as trying to prepare a meal down below would have been mildly nauseating.

At 5:45 p.m., we arrived in Northeast Harbor and picked up a mooring ball (after avoiding collision with other moored boats as Peter started to yell instructions at me when he didn’t like the course I was steering, and I don’t perform well when there is shouting). By the time we stopped, sunshine was just beginning to appear, but then the fog rolled in at sunset.

The great news is that the sun has been shining all day today, and I was able to walk around in bare feet once again. We opened the vents from the dorade boxes and some of the hatches—how wonderful it was to let fresh air in after being tightly closed up inside for way too long!

We needed diesel fuel; we have had to motor more than we would have liked. Around mid-morning, I called Clifton Dock to check their hours, and it is a good thing we didn’t wait a moment longer because the owner was just waiting for one other boat that had called ahead for fuel and then she was closing for the season! There have been many signs that maybe we are a bit late leaving this area!

Peter and Mantra at Clifton Dock

Clifton Dock

After we re-moored, we launched the dinghy and loaded it up with laundry, trash, books I have already read, grocery bags, mail, laptops, towels and toiletries and headed for shore. The launch service for the mooring field ceased seasonal operation a couple weeks ago, but the yachtsman’s facility with wonderful hot showers, extremely efficient washers and dryers, and Internet service is open. As soon as I put a couple loads in the washers (Should I mention that we ran out of clean underwear days ago?), I hesitated no longer in getting myself clean. After days of wearing a fleece beanie almost all the time, even inside the boat, I was suffering from severe hat head.

We have a shower on the boat and hot water after we have run the engine, the shower is hand-held. For us, it is luxury to stand under a shower head and have hot water envelope us in its warmth. We also have a washing machine but no dryer, so without any sunshine, it would have been futile to hand clothes on the lifelines, and it was so damp inside the boat that wet laundry would have never dried. Really! It takes the dishes hours and hours to dry in the rack and the towels we use for drying ourselves after infrequent showers remain damp for days.

Autumn has arrived here, and already there are brightly colored trees in shades of red, gold and orange contrasting with the deep green of the evergreens. If it could be sunny like this at least more than half of the time, the Maine coast would be more welcoming to me.

Tomorrow morning we set sail (and we hope to sail!) to cross the central and southern part of the Gulf of Maine, transit through the Cape Cod Canal and stop for a rest after a couple days on the water in Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts. I don’t like night sailing, but we both are feeling a strong urge to reach Rhode Island.