>It’s early on Thursday morning and we headed out of Rockland ME at 05:30.  Next landfall will be the Cape Cod Canal over 200 miles away following an overnight passage.  My original plan was to leave over the weekend but with Irene the NE and E winds that generally follow a hurricane were favorable for a passage from Thursday through late Friday.   If I were to wait until Saturday we would have had to motor into a stiff prevailing SW wind, right on the nose.

Switching by a few days doesn’t seem like much of a problem except that my friend Roger, and fellow SAGA 43 owner who was going to crew with me on this run,  was stuck out west after his Monday (Irene Monday) flight was canceled.  By the time he was able to resolve travel issues he wouldn’t have been able to get to Rockland until Saturday, just to late for the passage to Mystic with the wind forecast.

With only one day to find a replacement crew, I made a slew of calls to friends with the hope of finding someone who could drop everything and make the run up to Rockland with one day’s notice.  To ask someone to take off two days from their life at the beginning of a holiday weekend was a tall order.

However, my friend Keith, again, another SAGA owner, was willing to come up from CT and is on board with me now.  I should note that Keith had mouth surgery on Tuesday and still was willing to help bring Pandora home.

It’s interesting that after making this run for 15 years now, I decided to have just one person join me instead of the usual 2-3 that I have more typically used in the past. My view has changed now that we have spent time with many couples that we have met in the last few years that sail long distances with just the two of them aboard.   I guess that if they can sail around the world with two on board, I should be able to make a 1.5 day run with two as well.

One last look at the hills of Penobscot Bay and Rockland.  If we are able to head south next fall, it may be a while until we have this view again.

>It’s Monday morning, the sun is out and we are still safe and sound having made it through Irene without a scratch.  Sunday was a very long day with not much to do except wait for the inevitable arrival of the winds which steadily increased out of the east, as predicted, and by 2:00 it was beginning to build.   In the early hours the intensity of the winds increased steadily with each gust a bit stronger than the last.  As we were here in Pulpit and in very protected waters, we were spared the brunt but as the wind rolled in over the island hills and into the harbor, you could really feel the power of the wind.

Over the many years that we have been sailing, I have prepared boats for storms, including one that lead to a total loss with the destruction of my boat Artemis many years ago. As a result of these many experiences I have come to appreciate the destructive power of wind and water first hand.  However, I have always left my boat after doing what I could to secure things against loss only to return the next day to see what had happened, if anything.

Yesterday was different as we did everything that we could think of to prepare and after that was done we remained aboard.   I have to say that in spite of being on a boat through some really interesting conditions in the past, there’s nothing quite like 16 hours of heavy winds to keep you tense.

The strongest conditions began around dusk and continued until around 2AM with stead winds in the high 20s and gusts near 40kts.   Actually, I am sure that the winds were stronger than our instruments read as the winds were often peaking at deck level in a way that didn’t match what the wind instruments were reading.  I guess that this was because the gusts were coming down off of the land and being compressed against the water surface.  While we were shielded from some of the worst wind by the surrounding hills, the winds were plenty strong, that’s for sure.  When the wind was most intense, the boat was swinging back and forth through the wind and heeling over in the gusts.  Items that weren’t secured on the counter slid into the sink and it was impossible to have a glass on the table without holding on to keep it from ending up on the floor.  In spite of being raised to keep my arms off of the table when I ate, this was one time when a well placed arm or hand kept dinner in front of me was an absolute necessity.   Even though we were using dishes with rubber bottoms, the silverware would shoot off of the plate so you couldn’t put them down for even a second.  Not quite the same as keeping my arms around a piece of birthday cake to protect the frosting from being snagged by someone.  Yes, that’s you I am talking about Mom!

I had put chafing gear on the nylon rode that held my storm anchor to keep it from being worn through as the boat swung back and forth and fortunately, everything held and there wasn’t any chafe at all.  However, as the  boat slewed around and the storm anchor took the full weight of the boat it was just amazing how tight the line became as the boat surged one way and then another.    On top of all this the sounds of the wind going through the rigging as rose and fell with each gust.

Brenda, who in the past would have never been able to keep her lunch down with so much movement, did great and happily seemed to do fine in spite of the conditions that felt rougher than if we were sailing on a windy day.   I guess that the years of sailing and the last two months in particular, have helped as she now handles motion like a champ.

With the winds so strong and a fear that something would happen while we slept, we decided to keep anchor watch until the intensity of the storm began to lessen.  I went to bed at 9:30 and left Brenda to keep watch and got up at 11:30 to relieve her.  Every so often a car came down to the beach only to sit there for a while and leave after scanning the harbor with a big search light.  I think that it was the harbor master who had stopped by on Saturday night to tell each of us that he was going to be monitoring things as the storm came through and would lend a hand as needed.  Fortunately, no help was needed and by a bit after 2:00 it seemed to me that things were stable enough and the wind beginning to moderate enough so that we could call it a night and get some sleep.  Me, I slept like a bowling ball.  You know, you throw a bowling ball onto a bed, it rolls to the middle and there is sits.  My sleep was sort of like that.

Well, it’s morning, we are all safe and sound and I am relieved that it’s all over and as near as I can tell, all of the boats in the harbor made it through without a scratch.   We will probably have to stay here in Pulpit one more night as we wait for the wind to get back to normal as it’s still plenty windy and for the seas out in the bay to subside.  On Tuesday we will make our way back to Rockland so that Brenda can head back to New Jersey and whatever awaits us at home.

For me, the big question is who will be crew for me as my friend Roger who was planning to help me bring Pandora back to Mystic later this week is stuck in Denver and won’t be home until Thursday or Friday due to canceled flights. I am not sure what I want to do about the return trip.   To quote Scarlet O’hara, “I won’t think about that today, I’ll think about that tomorrow”.

As no blog is complete without a few photos, here are some shots of the harbor this morning all sunny and bright.   Yesterday you certainly couldn’t see all the way to the Camden Hills across the bay.

>It’s Sunday morning and we, like just about everyone on the East Coast continue to think about Irene.   We are anchored in Pulpit Harbor on North Haven, not far from Rockland to ride out the storm which is expected to reach us later today.  We chose Pulpit because there is good holding for the anchor, make that two anchors, and is protected from all directions so we can avoid any waves that make staying securely anchored more difficult.  Wind is bad enough but wind and waves are where it can get really interesting.

The harbor isn’t that big and it has a good variety of boats that have chosen to be here as well.  Late yesterday a large motor yacht arrived, took a tour around the harbor and left realizing that there wasn’t enough room for them.   I wouldn’t say that the harbor is at capacity but it’s plenty full and as boats arrived there was some jockeying for position to be sure that everyone had proper swinging room for wind shifts.

All day yesterday owners were preparing their boats, as we were with Pandora, by removing gear that might come loose in the winds expected to peak at over 55kts.  We removed both head sails to reduce windage and the risk that they might come loose and tear themselves apart in the wind.  That was a fun task as folding up a 600 square foot genoa on the forward deck was quite a handful for me and Brenda as the foredeck is only a fraction of the length needed to do a proper job.  We also set out a second anchor, an anchor that I purchased for just this purpose when we got Pandora.  Happily, this is the first time that I have had to use it.

Our main anchor is a 65lb Bruce with 200′ of stainless chain which is plenty big and heavy, and that combined with the Fortress storm anchor made of high strength aluminum and designed for use on boats up to 65′ verses our 43′, should hold well.  The Bruce is set to the south and the Fortress to the east, where the strongest winds are expected.  The initial winds are expected to be from the east with the direction shifting to the south as Irene passes to inland.   It’s Sunday morning and the wind is beginning to build and is probably blowing a modest 18 kts.

One of the problems with this storm is that she is very slow moving so that means that the winds will be with us for a lot longer than would normally be the case from a storm of this type.  Irene is also a very large hurricane with big winds covering a 100 mile range.

We hope that we are well prepared and hope to have no problems.  We will certainly know more on that score by this time on Monday.   Actually, we are a lot more concerned about our home in New Jersey as that’s where the really big winds and rain are now.  We have always had a problem with water in the basement and if our two sump pumps fail due to a loss of power, that’s going to leave a big mess.  Brenda should be home by Wednesday or Thursday to survey the damage.  Let’s hope for the best.

On Friday morning, when we were still in Perry Creek, I was up quite early and took this shot of the sunrise in the fog.  It was very ethereal.

>As I begin write this post I am sitting in a community center on North Haven where we are spending a few days in nearby Perry Creek, one of our favorite little harbors.  Since leaving Frenchboro we have gone up to Blue Hill, back to Merchant Row and now here to North Haven.  It’s been a bit frustrating not to have the ability to do a post due to weak cell coverage but I will try to make up for lost time now.

With hurricane Irene headed up the coast, we hope to secure a spot in the inner harbor in Camden by Saturday to be ready to ride out the tropical storm/hurricane conditions that are expected to hit on Sunday and carry through to Monday.  The forecast is for sustained winds to 40kts and higher gusts.  Out in the Gulf of Maine they are expecting seas to near 20′ and gusts to 70. That’s not a place that I’d like to be.  The conditions that we will likely see in a harbor will be exciting enough.  If we can’t get into the inner harbor at Camden we will have to find somewhere else to go, perhaps Pulpit Harbor as that’s very secure as well.  I am supposed to head back to Mystic at some point next week with my friend Roger but our departure will depend on the weather.  I also have to get a few days of work in prior to leaving having been on vacation this week.

When we headed all the way up to Blue Hill we were counting on the wind shifting to the NW to help us get back down the bay.  The winds didn’t disappoint and shifted to allow for a nice run back to the south the following day.  Along the way we enjoyed the sights on a crystal clear day including this lovely lighthouse.  As with most others on the Maine coast, this one has been converted into a private home.  What a lovely spot.  As it’s located on a private island, it must cost plenty to keep everything in shape and well painted.

We also spied this seal spying on us.  We also saw one sleeping on the surface with his head just out of the water.  They are remarkably tough to photograph as they tend to drop down below the surface when we pass.

As it’s getting down to a few days till we have to be in Rockland to begin heading home to Mystic, we thought it prudent to begin heading back west to shorten the distance needed later in the week and decided on Perry Creek. That’s been a place that we have enjoyed for many years, in part because of the  mussels that we pick on each visit.  In just a few minutes you can get all that you could want for a meal. The real trick is cleaning them to get ready to eat.  That takes much more time than gathering them from the shallows because they totally cover the bottom at low tide.   Brenda outdid herself this time and we had home made, no make that boat made foccaccia bread

In Perry Creek we had this lovely house boat as a neighbor.  Very cute.  They following morning we spied a couple sitting on lawn chairs enjoying a cup of coffee and the view.  This is a very reasonable way to have waterfront property.  And, when you tire of the view, you can always tow it to a more appealing location.

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After lunch we were invited by our friends Miles and Loreen along with new friends from the UK to go for a hike on the island.  The path took us around the water and offered us grand views of the surrounding sea and far off islands as the fog had lifted, finally.  The granite in the area is a lovely pink.  This was a typical view down to the water.