{"id":11778,"date":"2021-07-18T15:48:40","date_gmt":"2021-07-18T20:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=11778"},"modified":"2021-07-18T15:48:40","modified_gmt":"2021-07-18T20:48:40","slug":"we-made-it-to-maine-its-good-to-be-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=11778","title":{"rendered":"We made it to Maine. It’s good to be back."},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Sunday and the Down East Rally fleet has arrived in Rockland.\u00a0 I was able to arrange for a special “event” with the city of Rockland that would allow us to take over the entire public pier for three days.\u00a0 To see more than 20 of our boats tied up and happy to be in Rockland is rewarding to me as so much effort by me and so many other volunteers goes into each rally, it’s nice to see things come off with a minimum of mayhem.\u00a0 Cruisers rarely pay for dock space when they are on the move as costs can add up and quickly overwhelm a cruising kitty.<\/p>\n

Here in Rockland dockage normally, costs $2.50\/ft\/day, but for this “event” the total is only $125 per boat for the entire three days.\u00a0 That’s a big discount and well worth the price.\u00a0 To make this happen I had to apply for an special permit with both the harbor commission and city council.\u00a0 It took several months to put everything in place.<\/p>\n

The smallest boat in the fleet is Aquila at less than 30′ and she arrived after a very long crossing at nearly midnight last night.\u00a0 I had been in touch with them once they were within cell range and had hoped that I’d be able to meet them at the dock and help tie them up.\u00a0 However, as the night wore on, I suggested that they just pick up a mooring in the harbor and wait until light to move onto the dock.\u00a0 Lori, one of two on board, is new to all this and she told me “we have stories to tell”.\u00a0 I’ll bet.\u00a0 They don’t have radar or AIS but they do have a good chart plotter so at least they can tell where they are going if not where others are going at the same time.\u00a0 \u00a0The ever-present issue that concerns all us in fog is how “two objects can not occupy the same space and time”.\u00a0 Crunch…\u00a0 Stressful.<\/p>\n

We arrived in Rockland yesterday late morning with a number of other boats with the rest trickling in as the day progressed.\u00a0 \u00a0 The 165 mile run from Mattapoisett began for most of us on Friday morning at 07:00 in the fog, which got progressively worse as we got closer to the canal where visibility was a little more than a few boat lengths.\u00a0 Actually, from the moment that we left Newport on our way to Cuttyhunk and then on to Mattapoisett, we had three days of heavy fog.<\/p>\n

Cuttyhunk Harbor was pretty thick.\u00a0 \"\"Craig and I hiked up the the summit at the center of the island.\u00a0 \u00a0Seeing this picnic table brought back bitter sweet memories of a very special week of cruising years ago with my sons Rob and Christopher and my dad.\u00a0 It was Dad’s last time aboard.\"\"
\nThe scene on this trip was a lot more barren without the four of us.\u00a0 I will admit that it made me a bit sad but what a wonderful memory.\u00a0\"\"When we left Cuttyhunk, yep, more fog.\u00a0 Not to be deterred, the crew of Gypsy Soul mugged for the camera. \"\" As we entered the canal the current was beginning to run in our favor which was a good thing as the current runs very hard, up to 5kts when it’s at full flood or ebb so there is no way that we could have gone through against it.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the current was a big help as we had timed our transit to coincide with the beginning of the flood.\u00a0 However, the fog was so thick that we could only see about 75′ as we picked our way from buoy to buoy the last mile or so to the entrance.\u00a0 It was nerve wracking.\u00a0 At one point there were a number of small runabouts passing us and they were very had to see on radar and surely didn’t have AIS trackers.\"\"The most fun part was when a 100ft+ yacht finally loomed out of the fog.\u00a0 I saw them on AIS and radar but they were actually beside us before we even saw them.<\/p>\n

As the fog lifted, it was fun to see so many Dawg boats filing through the canal together. \"\" Brenda’s friend Karen, who lives on Cape, agreed to come down and wave to us as we passed by.\u00a0 That was fun.\u00a0 She took photos of nearly all the boats in the fleet as they came by including this one of Pandora.\u00a0 \"\"Karen and George on the “quay”.\u00a0 \"\"The fog persisted until we were nearly out into the Gulf of Maine.\u00a0 Amazingly, the gulf side was completely clear and remained so all the way to Rockland.<\/p>\n

There wasn’t much wind until we were about 25 miles into the gulf and it drove us along quite well until early evening when a squall line came through.\u00a0 Someone on another boat sent me a photo.\u00a0 I was so busy getting Pandora ready for the arrival of the squall that I didn’t have time to get a good photo.\u00a0 I am told that this formation is called a roll cloud.\u00a0 \u00a0It looked pretty ominous bearing down on us.\"\"The rest of the trip was fairly benign and by the time we entered Penobscot Bay the seas were nearly glass calm.\u00a0 \u00a0As expected, there were loads of lobster pots to dodge.\u00a0 Welcome to Maine.<\/p>\n

You really get a feel for how remote some of these islands are.\u00a0 Look at these houses lined up with low scrub as the only sign of vegetation.\u00a0 I can only imagine what life here must be like in the winter.\u00a0\u00a0\"\"Owls Head light is a beacon alerting us that Rockland was just a short distance away.\u00a0 \u00a0Seeing the light reminded me of so many other trips to Maine.\u00a0 I think this may be my 16th in a series of three different boats.\"\"So, here we are all tied up, 21 boats, for three days in Rockland.\"\"Actually, I wasn’t able to fit all the boats in the frame.\u00a0 Pandora and a few others are off to stage right.\u00a0 The blue “boat” behind me is owned by the NY Developer Larry Silverstein.\u00a0 You may remember that name as the guy who purchased the World Trade towers about two months before they were taken down in the 9\/11 terrorist attack.\u00a0 It took years to collect on the insurance from that disaster.\u00a0 I guess he finally got his money. \"\"Today is rainy but the rest of the week promises to be pretty nice.\u00a0 With a heat wave hitting the NY area, the high here today will be a chilly and rainy 65.<\/p>\n

Later today, off to the Farnsworth Museum, home to paintings by three generations of the Wyeth family, NC, Andrew and Jamie.\u00a0 looking forward to that.\u00a0 Perhaps there will be time to see the Maine Lighthouse Museum too.<\/p>\n

And, don’t forget a visit to Hamilton Marine to find some must have items.<\/p>\n

Tonight all the Dawgs descend on a local brew pub.\u00a0 When I asked the manager yesterday if that was Ok, his reaction “I guess I had better get another bar tender”, delivered in a classic Maine understatement.<\/p>\n

We made it to Maine.\u00a0 Indeed, it’s good to be here.<\/p>\n

More to come, including Brenda on Sunday I HOPE!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s Sunday and the Down East Rally fleet has arrived in Rockland.\u00a0 I was able to arrange for a special “event” with the city of Rockland that would allow us to take over the entire public pier for three days.\u00a0 To see more than 20 of our boats tied up and happy to be in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11778"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11799,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11778\/revisions\/11799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}