CruiseNews #9

Let me first apologize for the length of this e-mail.  Our friends here in Southwest Harbor, Ann and Charlie Bradford, who run The Island House, a Bed and Breakfast Inn, have been kind enough to let us use their telephone line to connect our computer for e-mail.  Thus, freed of the time constraints imposed upon me by having to write a whole letter in less than the hour maximum Internet time allowed at public libraries, I kind of went overboard.  You might want to read a little bit each day and pretend it is three or four e-mails.

Date:  8/8/99
Port of Call:  Southwest Harbor, Maine
Subject:  A Vacation from Retirement

Don't let anyone ever tell you that being retired isn't hard work, because it most certainly is.  So it has been especially nice to take a little "vacation" from the passagemaking and engine repairs of the previous weeks. We have done some of the things that many people do on vacations: catching up on chores there is never enough time for; going sightseeing; and taking a mini-cruise.

CHORES
For the first week and a half after our arrival, we spent a good bit of time here in Southwest Harbor attending to normal challenges like grocery shopping without a car and doing laundry without a washer, as well as things that we haven't been able to do in our "normal" cruising lifestyle. One big chore we had been putting off was notifying everyone of the change of address forced on us by the relocation of our mail forwarding service. This required sending lots of letters and post cards, and getting new business cards printed up.  And then there were the phone calls.  LOTS of phone calls.  Imagine trying to find a pay phone you could use long enough to call every magazine, bank, credit card, utility, business, and--worst of all--government agency that needs to know your address. Of course, first we had to write out a list of all the telephone and account numbers, since we couldn't possibly carry all that paperwork in the dinghy to the pay phone.  Then, we find a likely pay phone in a sleepy corner that seems seldom used, and begin dialing.  Oops, can't dial direct! You have to punch in your telephone access number and credit card number for every company that doesn't provide a toll free number.  After checking a few of the businesses off the list, and thinking smugly how well things are going, a succession of trucks park directly in front of the telephone, their noisy diesel engines growling, as the drivers use the parking lot in front of the telephone as a loading zone to deliver goods to nearby businesses.

In a way, changing our address was a microcosm of our cruising experience. We try to plan ahead as much as possible, taking care of as many of the details in advance as we can.  Then we begin the task of doing something (whether it is dialing a telephone or traveling between two places) which should be quite easy, but we do it in a terribly difficult fashion. Eventually the diesel trucks, or the weather, or an engine failure come along to make an artificially difficult task downright challenging. And we wonder what little things we have forgotten--which agency we didn't call, or which spare part we didn't buy--will come back to give us even more difficulty in the future.

SIGHTSEEING
In between chores we took some time to do some sightseeing around Acadia National Park, which takes up all of Mt. Desert Island that isn't occupied by the towns like Southwest Harbor and Bar Harbor.  A real boon to us this year is a free bus service that was instituted by the National Park Service to reduce traffic and pollution in the Park.  We can pick up the bus just down from the town dock in Southwest Harbor, and ride it into Bar Harbor.  From Bar Harbor there are five other bus routes that either serve as feeders from the campgrounds, or run to the main attractions of Acadia.

One day, along with Glyn and Jenny from the sailboat "Wandering Star", we took the Park Loop Road bus.  We got off at Sand Beach, and hiked down the rugged Maine coastline.  We hiked past Thunder Hole. If you haven't seen it, Thunder Hole is an area where the ocean has made a small cave-like incursion into a weakened seam in the otherwise solid granite of the island.  The waves roll in off the open Atlantic, with thousands of miles of open ocean to build up strength, then are funneled into a chute which is perhaps six feet wide, and extends into the rock for 30 feet or more.  The incoming ocean waves raise up to cover the mouth of the cave, then with vast force, push back to the inner wall of the cave, compressing and then releasing the trapped air, making the ground shake and the air roar, more like an earthquake than thunder.  At least that's the theory.  When we were there it only gurgled. (OK, we have felt the thunder on previous trips to Maine.)

Otter Cliffs, Acadia National Park

We hiked further down the coast to Otter Cliffs.  When you see picture postcards of Maine, with tall golden cliffs capped with pine trees, cliffs that rise proudly out of an inky blue ocean and are accented by angel-white spray wreathing the base, chances are pretty good that you are looking at a picture of Otter Cliffs.  Each curve in the trail yielded another enchanting perspective of the coastline.  Combined with the clanging of the bell buoys off the nearby ledges, the cries of gulls wheeling overhead, the smell of balsam, and feel of the slight breeze touching exposed skin, the overall effect is a rarely matched treat to the senses.
 
On another day, after Glyn and Jenny had sailed on for Nova Scotia, Cathy and I took the bus to Bubble Lake and hiked to Jordan Pond House. We followed along the shore of Eagle Lake, crystal clear and sparkling blue in the sun.  The steeply wooded slopes are completely undeveloped, giving one the ability to mentally travel in time, back hundreds or even thousands of years, with no messy anachronisms to disturb the time travels. We then followed up and down the rocky, wooded trail skirting The Bubbles. The Bubbles are pair of rounded, bare granite peaks which, if the original cartographers had been less reserved, would have been named after some feature of the female anatomy.
 
The trail took us to Jordan Pond, where the surface improved to a maintained gravel trail, befitting the more frequent traffic.  We followed the shore of Jordan Pond, until we arrived at Jordan Pond House, a restaurant that has served tea and popovers to the Island's visitors for more than a century.  If you've never had a popover, it is difficult to describe. It is a pastry baked in a pan like a muffin tin, but larger.  As it is baked, the top of the popover mushrooms far over the level of the top of the pan, and the outside of the popover becomes a golden dark brown color.  When served, they are about the size of a softball, but when cut or torn open, all that is inside is air.  Many people rave about the popovers, but to me they only serve as a repository for copious quantities of the marvelous Jordan Pond strawberry preserves that are placed inside before eating.

MINI-CRUISE
On August 1st, we raised the anchor from the thick mud of Southwest Harbor, and went for a sail.  Actually, "sail" is a bit of an exaggeration. We went for a drift.  With just the barest breeze, which was blocked and diverted by the shores of Manset, Clark Point, and Greening Island, we ghosted along at speeds of between zero and two knots.  Our destination was Somesville, at the head of Somes Sound, some five miles away.

Running wing-and-wing down Somes Sound
Somes Sound is the only fjord on the East Coast of the United States.  It runs almost due north and south for a distance of about three and a half miles, with a width of about 450 yards at its southern entrance at The Narrows, widening out to almost a mile near its head, before constricting to the 100-yard wide entrance to Somes Harbor at its northern extremity.  On the eastern side, Norumbega Mountain climbs 850 feet up from the water, while to the west the 680-foot high peaks of Acadia Mountain and St. Saveur border the shores, whose depths plunge another 150 feet below the surface.  About a quarter of the way up the Sound on the west side is an indentation called Valley Cove, which is directly below the peak of St. Saveur.  The Mountain rises so dramatically from the water here--600 feet vertically in less than 100 yards of horizontal distance--that it is a favorite spot for the local sightseeing boats.  We enjoyed it, too.
 
We spent so much time drifting the mile or so to the entrance of the Sound, and so much longer as we watched Sovereign, with the frail breeze in her sails, battle the current ebbing through The Narrows, that we had only made the two miles from Southwest Harbor to Valley Cove before we had to start the engine to ensure we would be in Somes Harbor before dark.
 
After a calm night in this extremely well protected harbor, and mellowed by the pleasant, if slow pace of the previous day's drifting, we sailed off the anchor and gybed down the narrow sound in fluky winds that bounced off the mountainous walls of the fjord.  We battled the current in The Narrows again, this time as it flooded into the sound on the rising tide.  We passed between Bear Island to port, with the picturesque lighthouse that is the subject of dozens of postcards, and Sutton Island to starboard, with its grand waterfront houses.  We sailed through Eastern Way, and set an easterly course to clear Schoodic Island.
 
There is something magic about Schoodic.  It may be because the tides increase dramatically east of there, or that the fog is the worst in Maine a little bit beyond it, or that there are no facilities for yachts until you get to Eastport, at the Canadian boarder.  It could be because Mt.. Desert Island is so pretty that it acts as a strong magnet to keep boats there.  Whatever the reason, most yachts never venture beyond Mt. Desert Island, and Schoodic stands as the eastern sentinel between the more crowded harbors of the southwestern coast of Maine, and the relative wilderness of "Down East".
 
On our way past Schoodic Island, for about 30 minutes in the early afternoon, it looked as if the wind had died completely.  We dropped the sails and motored for a while, raising the sails again as the wind returned.  The wind filled in forcefully from the north, and we had a beautiful sail, the boat churning along smoothly at six and seven knots, churning smoothly even through the roughness of the shallow eleven foot bar between Petit Manan Point and Green Island .  We turned the corner at Jerry Ledge and beat upwind between Bois Bubert Island and Jordan'sDelight, looking through the natural rock archway on the Jordan's western side and wondering about the people living in the solitary house at its top.  We anchored at Trafton Island for the night, sheltered from the southerly swells, but exposed to the dying northerly wind.

Jordan's Delight, Down East
From Trafton Island ,we sailed further "Down East" in a nice southerly breeze.  We passed close aboard Shipstern Island, and turned at Black Rock to sail along the archipelago of islands that jut out to the south of Jonesport.  This area is both a thrill and a joy to sail in.  From Seahorse Rock at the southwest corner to Black Head at the southeast corner is a seven mile stretch of coast where the promontories and islands are placed in such a way that it is possible to sail a straight course, passing within a literal stone's throw of each piece of land, and still be in water more than 120 feet deep the whole way.  At Black Head, we turned north and ran the last four miles up the entrance to The Thorofare at Roque Island.
 
The area of Roque Island is perhaps the nicest cruising destination in all of Maine.  And since we consider Maine the best cruising on the U.S. East Coast, it was with great pleasure that we anchored in the protected harbor of Bunker Cove, just off The Thorofare.  Roque Island and the islands nearby appear on the chart like a much abused capitol letter H.  The H has been tilted off its axis 30 degrees counterclockwise ,the crossbar is bowed upward, and there are fractures separating the bottom tips of both the lower legs from the rest of the alphabetically-inclined island.  The crack at the lower left of the H is called The Thorofare, and in this channel is a fine anchorage with room for just one or two boats our size, leaving allowances for the 14 foot tides.  The bowed-up crossbar of the H is, in actuality, a mile-long crescent shaped white sand beach that is frequently deserted and always beautiful.

Wildflowers and view of Roque Island
We spent a wonderful few days here, exploring the many little coves and islands in our dinghy. At low tide we picked mussels off the steep rocky walls of our anchorage. Later in the day we flagged down a passing lobster fisherman and purchased two fresh lobsters.  We dinghied over to Halifax Island, and walked ashore, picking wild blueberries that grew in low clumps almost everywhere on the island.  We spotted a dense fog rolling in across the outer islands, and jumped in the dinghy to race across the two and a half miles of water between Halifax Island and where our boat was anchored. We just made The Thorofare as the fog covered the harbor.  Behind us was a solid gray blanket where only a minute before Halifax had been plainly visible.  In a last excursion in the dinghy, we followed the narrow cove into the shallow water to the south and east, stopping to watch five or six seals bobbing at the surface at the entrance to Bunker Hole. Back at the boat, we feasted that night on boiled lobsters and steamed mussels, both fresh from the ocean and dipped in melted butter.  I don't think there has been a meal I've ever eaten to compare with it.


Lobster fresh from a passing lobsterman
We were sad to leave this area, but we had an "engagement" scheduled back in Southwest Harbor, so in the early daylight of August 5th, we raised the anchor and motored out The Thorofare.  As if to make up for the lack of wind, a fair current pushed us along as we motored back to Southwest Harbor.  Near the very end of the return trip, as we passed Schoodic, the current turned from our stern to our bow, trying to gently push us backwards.  It was as if the waters of Down East knew the sadness we felt at leaving, and wanted to help us stay there, even just a little longer.

Smooth sailing,

Jim and Cathy