Monday, August 26, 2013

Gunkholing



These are our last days on the water, at least for this year. We’re headed south to the Casco Bay area and will be meeting up with friends and family. This has been the best sailing summer ever. I have loved my time on the boat and it’s difficult to see it coming to an end.
So, what makes this summer so much better than last year? The truth is, I’m not completely sure. We have definitely suffered through a great deal more boat “issues” this season – more expensive ones too. And then of course there’s the foggy, rainy, cold weather that just keeps coming back, every other day or so.

Even though we’ve had some bad weather days, we’ve also had a number of magnificently beautiful ones too. Maine is lot like that little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead. The weather up here is either very, very good, or absolutely horrid. On the good days, we’ve enjoyed some pretty fantastic sailing. And even a bad day can bring an incredible sight that cannot be seen so expansively on shore - a rainbow.


I’ve been almost entirely free of my previous seasickness worries, which has allowed me to learn more actual sailing and navigating skills this year. I wouldn’t say that I’m a real sailor yet, and I rely pretty heavily on the modern equipment aboard the boat to read the charts along with the wind. But I’ve been slowly and surely taking on more of the sailing responsibilities, and that feels pretty great.

We also have been sailing in some less densely populated areas up here in Maine. Seaside tourist towns certainly have their charms, but I’ve really enjoyed the numerous opportunities for exploring small, uninhabited islands.


The main thing that is different this year might just simply be that both Rick and I have relaxed a bit. The boat was unfamiliar last year, and so many systems seemed to be going wrong. A bigger boat with more sophisticated equipment means more things to go wrong and more repair work that needs to be farmed out when it does – a difficult pill to swallow for a do-it-yourself-er like Rick. I think we both have come to accept that owning a boat is not a static experience, and that the joy derived from sailing will always be offset to some extent by the time, trouble and money that is necessary to keep that boat afloat. Totally worth it in my book. In any case, a happy Rick is just a lot more fun to be around. I’m sure the same is true for a happy Becky.
(Here's a video of Rick happily doing sailorly stuff:  http://youtu.be/54ss1bf5OIA  )

I don’t think I will ever pass under another bridge without remembering Rick’s encounter with that railroad bridge back in June. But I think we are both past that enough to just laugh about
it now. I love the bridge coming in to Southport Island – it pivots every half hour to let the boats pass through.





We’re planning on landing in Falmouth tomorrow for the usual Boothby family gathering. There will be hiking, barbequing and bocce ball playing, and then I will be flying home and leaving Rick to find his own way home on Valkyrie. This is our last night of cruising and we both get a hankering for the fried clams at Holbrooks – a little waterside joint where we enjoyed clams as a little snack last year.



We pull in at what a Mainer would call “wicked” low tide, and I’m sure we are very close to running aground, but we’re both anxious to get away from those beef stew left-overs which we’ve been eating for days, so obviously worth the risk. 

It turns out that Holbrooks has a pretty extensive menu and we order EVERYTHING! Three lobsters, steamed clams, fried clams, sweet potato fries, corn, coleslaw – the works. While we are waiting, we meet a set of sixty or seventy-ish twin sisters, just finishing their meal. A real couple of characters, they are obviously locals and are very interested in our boat. It turns out that they’ve done a bit of sailing in their day and we have quite an exchange of sailing stories. When they learn that we sailed up here from Baltimore, anchoring in small inlets and coves, one of the sisters exclaims excitedly, ”Oh, you’re gunkholers!”
Excuse me? Apparently, “gunkholing” is an actual term for seeking out scenic and isolated coves to anchor in, rather than simply going to the more popular and crowded marinas. The “gunk” refers to the mud that one tends to find in shallow creek beds and coves. Rick says he knows the term, but I’ve never heard him use it. It sounds like something you wouldn’t say in polite company. I wish I’d known about this when I wrote the “Muscongus” post awhile back!

When our food arrives, we pull out our chilled bottle of champagne and plastic wine glasses we brought ashore from the boat (it’s ok, this is a BYOB place). What a feast – the perfect way to spend our last evening cruising (gunkholing)!


Tuesday, August 20, 2013

"If You Can't Take the Heat..."



I got what I came here for. We have sailed the northern waters, all the way up the Maine coast and almost to the Canadian border. Now what? If we’re not going “down-east”, then where are we going – “up-west”?



We’re not going anywhere because it’s foggy and raining again (surprise, surprise). But not to worry, I’ve got a little project I’ve been itching to work on, and a cold rainy day at anchor gives me just the opportunity. All this cold weather has gotten me in the mood for some slow-cooked pot roast; with some carrots and onions, maybe some mashed potatoes… Yum. Only one problem though; a three pound pot roast will take four hours to cook. We’ve certainly got the time, but the amount of propane we would burn in those four hours could really deplete our tanks. The solution – a pressure cooker!

According to a number of websites I’ve been looking at, cooking a pot roast in a pressure cooker will shorten the cooking time to forty-five minutes. But I’ve never used a pressure cooker before. My mother used to cook with one. How hard could it be? I brought one along on this trip that I picked up cheap (big mistake) at the grocery store about three years ago, but had somehow never gotten around to using (another mistake). I did remember to bring the instructions at least.



I decide to test it out with plain water. Oh boy, what a scary contraption. You have to heat the contents of the pot so that pressure builds. Then, the steam is supposed to escape through this thingy on the top that should “gently rock” back and forth. Well, once the pot is hot, steam starts escaping from a few other places, but not through the top. “It’s probably just not hot enough yet,” Rick says from his safe seat, far away from the stove. I wait for it to heat up some more. The steam is really hissing out now, and the sound is becoming increasingly high pitched. I'm still waiting for some movement from that top do-hicky, but it’s just sitting there, motionless.

The pitch keeps getting higher and higher. This can’t be how it’s supposed to work, right? Rick can no longer ignore what’s going on in the galley and moves closer to the stove, but we’re both afraid to get close enough to this bomb-in-the-making to turn off the burner. I can just hear Scotty from the Enterprise - “Capt’n, she’s gonna BLOW!”

Finally, Rick chances it and pops the do-hickey off with a fork, releasing an explosive jet of steam. After it cools down enough, we do some diagnostics. Basically, it’s a cheaply made piece of junk, and I feel lucky that we didn’t get hurt. That thing is going right into the trash. I end up cutting the meat into small pieces and making a stew. Two hours on very low heat, hardly using much propane after all. And the best part –--- it’s delicious!


Friday, August 9, 2013

Going for Roque


The Bar Harbor Inn

Well, we’ve made it to Bar Harbor at last. Located on the northeastern side of Mt. Desert, the name of this little town is probably the first that comes to mind for any non-Mainer as the quintessential sailing and tourist destination in this northern state. We’re happy to spend a day ashore as two of those tourists, but the first order of business is to get to the grocery store.

We load up with backpacks and grocery totes, and make the mile-long trek to the store with an additional detour around town. It feels good to stretch our legs after so many days on the boat. Not so good is the feeling once we are weighted down with a ridiculous amount of food, booze and ice, and on our way back. My shoulders are very unhappy. Maybe next year we should bring a collapsible cart with us for these occasions – or cut down on the gin (no way!).



The town is pleasant and clearly designed with the enjoyment of tourists in mind. There is a beautiful little park overlooking the harbor, and a main thoroughfare ripe with souvenir shops, restaurants and ice cream emporiums. I find the whole place a bit too “Disneyfied” for my taste, particularly after our experience in the much more “real” town of Rockland. I’d also prefer the party atmosphere of Provincetown, since there’s no pretense that your experience there is anything like real life. Even so, Bar Harbor is a nice place to spend a day and have a good meal (and an ice cream cone).

The Margaret Todd
(a Bar Harbor institution)
Our larders now wonderfully full, we head out early in the morning for Roque Island. It’s a fifty-mile trip up the coast, and it will take us all day to get there, but a fellow sailor we met in Rockland told us it was a must-see. Rick has never been north of Bar Harbor, at least along the Maine coastline, and he’s anxious to get up to the “wild country”.

Bald Porcupine Island
Even the sights along the coast coming out of Bar Harbor already make the trip worth it. The two Porcupine islands are stunning, as is the view of the lighthouses on Egg Rock. The wind is mighty cold though; I’m completely bundled up in blankets and I’m even wearing earmuffs for this trip.

Egg Rock


There are virtually no people up here. The cottages, large and small, that were so prevalent on the coast up to Bar Harbor are virtually non-existent now. We have no cell phone service, and the internet access which had been spotty on our way up here has now completely vanished.

We reach Roque Island late in the day and pull in to the large crescent shaped harbor. Take a look at the video we took:

The shoreline is not the familiar rocky edge, but instead a broad, white sand beach. The circular appearance of the harbor seems too perfect to be natural – we speculate that the island, as well as the harbor are the remnants of a prehistoric volcano, but who knows?
 
Aerial view of Roque Island
(pirated from the internet)
My only regret is that we did not go ashore during our short visit to this unusual spot. Sunset was approaching and it was windy and cold – we were comfortably ensconced on the cabin top with cocktails, and I thought maybe we could take the dinghy in in the morning. Unfortunately, when we awake the next day it is foggy, and already a late hour. We really need to shove off to keep our schedule and get back south. Sadly, I’ve broken my newly minted resolution of seizing the moment, or in our case, the scene. We’ll have to plan for a longer visit next year.



The return trip south is much less enjoyable. Foggy and windless, we have to motor almost the entire sixty miles (about ten hours) down to Swan’s Island. Even with the fog, we are able to see harbor porpoises, a dolphin, and even a puffin. Neither of us had ever actually seen one.



What we don’t see are seals. Not one seal the entire trip. This is very unusual – seal sightings are normally a dime a dozen up here, not exactly ho-hum, but not particularly noteworthy either. Where are they all?

The fog lifts for the last hour of our voyage and we motor into a little anchorage near Swan’s Island where we figure out where all of the seals have gone. They’re all right here, sunning themselves on two of the low, smooth rocks in this little harbor. We count almost fifty of them, lazing around, enjoying their own version of the cocktail hour. A few of them are swimming in the water nearby, jumping into the air and making some impressive dives. They are probably catching fish, but my fanciful interpretation is that they are entertaining their lounging friends with their acrobatics.