>As I write this it’s early Saturday morning in North East Harbor and I am sitting on a bench out in front of the library and tapping into their WI-FI as they are not open yet.  However, after a frustrating week of poor Web access I am taking advantage of their fast router to get another post up.

While we were in South West Harbor we were on a mooring near the marina and each evening Brenda and I enjoyed our evening “cocktail cruise” in our dink touring around the harbor to view the sights.   On one of these outings I spied a boat that looked familiar.  I felt that I had seen the boat before but couldn’t place it, the trawler “Spirit of Zipilot” a green muscular yacht with a home port of Anacort Washington, a long way from home for sure.   Interestingly, Joan Kessler was Joan Freeman, television and movie star in the 70s and 80s  There is a website for everything.  You gotta love it.  It seems that one of her last films was the horror film, Friday the 13th.  Interesting connection.

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It’s Thursday morning and the sun is back out after several days of rain. While the sun peaked out yesterday, it was only after a bout of heavy fog where I learned that cell coverage, or at least the ability to send data over the cell network was seriously degraded when the air is heavy.  In fact, while there is plenty of “bars” on my phone, uploading e-mail, and photos for this blog, is a annoying effort.  Alas, that’s why I have not had a post since last Saturday.  The further east we head, the worse the coverage.  However, lots of ground to cover and photos to share beginning with last weekend out at Frenchboro, one of the most remote offshore islands in Maine for their annual lobster festival.  Much has been made of the homesteading efforts to keep the island community alive on Frenchboro over the years and thanks to a thriving lobster fishery there, it’s working.  While the one room school house has about 20 students, I think, the island is still home to families that make this remote and often isolated island their home year round.

We have been visiting Frenchboro for many years and always enjoy the views of Mt Desert in the distance and the nice local folks.  In the past we have always rented a mooring in the harbor but this year we were told that there wasn’t any fee and to just pick up one.  It seems that there was some disagreement last summer as to who should be profiting from a rental venture.  Some said only the fire department and other public works should benefit, and with some perhaps wanting to handle it differently, it seems that moorings are free now.  So much for the common good and free commerce.  The good news is that there are plenty of moorings to use and this remains a great spot to visit.

In past visits, we have always marveled at how few people there were when we were ashore.  However, with  a well publicized lobster festival, this wasn’t a very isolated island at all for the day of the festival at least.  The Maine State Ferry system ran a special boat out and back to get folks to the festival.  And go they did.  What is normally a car ferry that runs once a week I think, was just jammed when it arrived on Saturday morning.  One trip out and one returning that same day.  What a sea of lobster killing humanity they were, streaming off of the ferry and on to the feast.

 A closer look shows just how many were aboard.  I wonder where they got enough lifejackets for everyone.

While normally a very sparsely populated island with about 60 year round residents, this weekend saw the population swell many fold.  Of course, the festival was held on the church lawn.  Many, many lobsters met their maker at this event.

>Back in the late 70s, about the same time Brenda and I purchased our first boat, a guy named Jon Wilson started a little magazine Wooden Boat.  It came out 6 times a year and catered to those who owned and loved wooden boats.  At that time, wooden boats were really on the fringe and nothing like today where the most wealthy show off their good taste buy owning and sailing these works of art.

However in 1974 Wilson saw the future and started a magazine in what was an unlikely place, from a publishing point of view, in Brookin Maine.  However, from a subject standpoint, he couldn’t have picked a better place as Maine has become one of the most prolific places in the US to have wooden boat built, rebuilt or maintained.   From the very beginning, I became a subscriber, and still am, devouring each issue as I still feel that it’s one of the most interesting magazines.   After all of these years it still comes out 6 times a year but the business has grown in many impressive ways.

Wilson is no longer involved on a day to day basis with the business but he still owns it, I believe, and the publication is as successful as ever.  Fortunately, I don’t travel like I used to but the magazine is still readily available in airport newsstands, something that has always amazed me given the fact that the magazine caters to such a narrow interest group.  Or does it?  I did read once that Wooden Boat has the largest newsstand circulation of any boating publication and given it’s very high production values and beautiful photography, I am not surprised that someone would pick up a copy while waiting for a flight.  Perhaps it’s a love of beautiful things that drives so many open it’s pages.  Believe it or now, the magazine has 100,000 subscribers.  I assume that newsstand is in addition to that number.

The headquarters is located on an old estate on the water and out in front there is a great spot to anchor for a visit.  Over the years they have branched out into other related areas of business, most notably, the Wooden Boat School, and the Wooden Boat Show that is generally held at Mystic Seaport in Mystic CT each year.

The boat school is located on the headquarters grounds and is housed in what was once the stables for the estate.  Along with a very nice workshop/school is an area where the “disciples” can camp out while enrolled.  They also have moorings off of their dock for those who opt to stay on their boat in the harbor.

The facility for the school is wonderfully maintained, as you would expect from a group that spends hours laboring over wooden boats.  The school is in what used to be the stables on the estate that is now the Wooden Boat headquarters.  What a beautiful building, slate roof and all.

And, of course, there is the Wooden Boat Store as they publish books and plans as well a sell unusual tools and the ubiquitous T shirts.  Years ago the store, and mail order business, were located in a room in the main building.  Now they have a dedicated building and a nicely designed one it is at that.

Brooklin Maine is located on Eggemoggin Reach, a nice stretch of water that runs perpendicular to the prevailing winds so you can sail up and down the reach in calm water most any time the winds are out of the South West.  This light is now a private residence and marks the northwest entrance of the reach.   I have always thought that it would be wonderful to live in a lighthouse or at least the lighthouse keepers house.  Not sure how I’d address the furniture in a round room.  For sure, the theme would be nautical.

A number of boat yards specializing in wooden boats have grown up in the area so most any time you sail on the reach you will encounter some lovely vessel out for a sail such as this little gaff rigged sloop.   Interestingly, one of the best known photographers of wooden boats is a guy Ben Mendlowitz who does a lot of work for Wooden Boat, lives near by and I am pretty sure that we saw him chasing a really nice sloop later that day in his runabout taking pictures.  It’s the late afternoon light that Ben enjoys using to get the best shots of his subjects.  I met Ben years ago when I had him speak at a Corinthians Gam about his photography.   It seems to me that traveling all around the world taking photographs of beautiful wooden boats would be a fun way to make a living. Ben probably wouldn’t approve of that nasty outboard hanging off of the transom though.

A couple of the students working on a wood strip canoe.  Generally, you sign up for the course with the plan of learning how to build a particular boat that you will finish in a week.

  

>As the saying goes, if you don’t like the weather, wait an hour.  Actually, we didn’t like the weather yesterday and had to wait about 24 as it was rainy and cold all day, only to finally stop drizzling around dinner time.  But hey, into every day a little rain must fall.  Besides, it washes the salt off of the boat.  

It’s Thursday morning and we are here in Belfast Harbor, at the head of Penobscot Bay.  We came here on Monday evening from Holbrook harbor near Castine after a nice cozy night on one of the nature preserve moorings.   This chart shows our run from the SSCA Gam in Isleboro, up around the top of the island, over to Holbrook Harbor and then to Belfast.  All very close and way up at the head of the bay.   Note that I figured out how to make the route show up better on the chart, in red!

The preserve at Holbrook has great trails and a really terrific dock to get ashore.  The dock is particularly important as the granite rocks drop off to the water rather dramatically.  With all of the rain of late the moss is lush and the forest floor very soft and quiet to walk on.   There is quite a view from the top of the steps on the dock.  Not a lot of boats in the harbor keeping Pandora company.  All and all, a beautiful day.  Not great cell coverage though, even with the booster.

>It’s Sunday morning and we are here in Islesboro in Penobscot Bay Maine.  It’s raining and the day looks like it isn’t going to be one of those crisp clear days that we have been having so many of lately.  Yesterday was great fun as we joined in at the 20 something annual Islesboro Gam for the Seven Seas Cruising Association, a worldwide group of cruisers and liveaboards.  While we have only been members for a few years, we have begun to really enjoy the group and members that we have met.  To spend time with “regular” women who cruise great distances has given Brenda a lot more confidence and helped her see the positives of a life afloat.    There is definitely a different mentality with these folks and what their lifestyle means to them compared with the Yacht Club Set that we have hung out with for so many years.  Both groups are great fun but this group is much more low key and mostly of very modest means.  While many of them have retired early, they live simply because it allows them to spend more time doing what they want to and it seems that they are more focused on accumulating experiences and less on gathering stuff.

That’s not to say that they aren’t voyaging in impressive boats but they still seem like simple folks and are really quite welcoming and unassuming.

This is only the second year that we have joined in at the gam which was held at the summer home of a cruising couple who have been here in Islesboro for many years.  Their home is modest but wonderfully maintained and is set up in a way that they can shut it down, water and electricity OFF, for the long cold Maine winter while they head south to enjoy warm weather cruising.  They drain their water, board up the windows and just lock the door.  The heating system is filled with antifreeze so they can just walk away.   Sounds great as I have been wondering what it would be like to be several thousand miles away when an ice storm hits and the power is out for a week with know one to check on things.  Not a pleasant thought.

On Friday night we participated in a really fun event, a dingy raft-up for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres.  The way that this works, given the need to accommodate crew on the nearly 40 boats in attendance, was to have everyone tie up to the stern of a host boat in a big floating mass, meet, greet and pass their offerings from boat to boat.  Half of the fun is swapping plates of nibbles between bobbing dinks while talking to everyone tied up to you.  What was particularly amusing is that the winds really piped up so this floating cocktail party was bobbing and pitching all the while trying to balance drinks and snacks.  Relaxing isn’t the word that comes to mind, more like great fun.

As we were in the thick of the group, this shot doesn’t begin to show how many boats, nearly 40 in all, were tied together.

In the mix we met some of the most interesting people including a couple who’s home port was Anacortes Washington.  Interested, I asked them if they went through the Panama Canal.  They reply was “not yet”.  Clearly enjoying the questioning, there was a moment while they watched me try to process this answer.  After a generous pregnant pause, they volunteered a bit more information letting me know that they had crossed the Pacific and made their way through the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal.  After spending several years in the Med they were continuing their journey and had decided to visit Maine and participate in the Gam.  All and all, they had been underway for some 9 years and after Maine would be headed south for winter in the Caribbean prior to finally transiting the Canal, the Panama one.  Hearing that, I asked if they were then going home to Washington only to learn that they still had lots to explore going up the west coast and that it would likely be a long time till they “swallowed the anchor” and moved ashore.  This is just one example of the really interesting folks that we have met through the SSCA and you can see why they are a group that we are enjoying.

Part of the tradition of this Gam is to invite a speaker to give a talk and this year’s was particularly enjoyable.  Their speaker was an author of some 18 books and what a terrific speaker he was.  James Nelson the author of several works of fiction, has also written many historical non-fiction books including his most recent title, George Washington’s Great Gamble:  And the sea battle that won the American Revolution.  I won’t detail his talk here but it’s sufficient to say that he is a very engaging speaker and the book sounds just terrific.