It all started with a phone call from our friends Tom & Sharon Brownell who were in Belfast, Maine, asking if we wanted to sail with them for a week or so before heading to the Newport Boat Show. It took about a half-second to agree, and soon we were winging our way from California to Maine.
On arrival we were met by our friends Jeff &Debbie Kolod, who were going to be sailing with us. Over the past twenty years we had sailed all over the world on our “Share The Sail” events in places like Tahiti, Greece, New Zealand, Tonga & The Caribbean.
This time we would be sailing on “Distant Star”, Tom & Sharon’s Hyles 54. When we got to the boat after a cross country flight from California to Maine we spent the evening talking about old times.
They were in a slip at the Front Street Shipyard. In the AM, after coffee, we got ready to depart. JB Turner, the President of the shipyard, stopped by to say hi, as he and Tommy were old friends, and then he helped us cast-off the dock lines for Distant Star.
As we pulled out of the slip we saw a real oddity. Across the channel were three rubber ducks. These were not your normal rubber ducks, no sir! These rubber ducks were HUGE! Baby duck was about 10 feet tall, and mom & dad ducks were close to twenty feet tall. They were just floating there!
We were told these were the “Mystery Ducks” of Maine. Someone with a great sense of humor, (and probably more money than they needed) had been moving these humongous apparition’s Between marinas in the middle of the night for quite a while! I have to admit, they did look very kewl!
But I digress; Our destination for the evening would be Pulpit Harbor on North Haven Island in Penobscot Bay. The 25 mile sail was about as good as it gets, with just a headsail, sailing downwind in 10-17 knots of wind. Before we knew it we were approaching Pulpit Rock, at the entrance to the bay.
The entrance to the bay has this very large rock in the middle of the entry. Passing to the port side of the rock we entered the bay, it was high-tide, so us newbies had no idea that, if we had gone the other side of Pulpit rock we would have grounded. One side clear, the other all rocks!
Once inside it was a perfect anchorage. The bay is surrounded by beautiful hills and some really beautiful homes. With the wind coming out of the north, and the entrance on the West, the bay was perfectly calm all night.
Our next day found us sailing amongst some of the most beautiful islands in Maine. As we motored thru the Fox island Thoroughfare between North Haven and Vinal Haven we came upon 3 tall ships heading to Camden for a tall-ship gathering. There was hardly any wind and they were barely making way, but it was a beautiful sight.
A few miles further on and we pulled into Seal Bay for the night. It was, once again, a perfect anchorage. The water was like glass and we were surrounded with beautiful islands.
After a fun dinghy ride thru the small channels between the islands, we invited Captain Nutty and Steve from the Catamaran “Off The Hook” to join us for sunset drinks, and the evening was what cruisers hope for. A beautiful night, great friends and a safe anchorage.
In the morning we awoke to a whole new scenario. It seems there is a 12 foot tide, and the “huge” bay we’d anchored in that night turned into a rock-strewn nightmare. The path we had sailed into the bay was now a sandbar. We were surrounded by boat-eating rocks but the charts were pretty good, and when we pulled out in the AM we stuck to the deeper channels. No problem.
We headed out into Deer Island Thoroughfare towards Stonington. This is where the granite used to build most of New York came from. Some of the cranes and equipment can still be seen there.
We made our way to North East Harbor where we picked up a mooring. It’s just around the corner from Bar Harbor (or should I say “Baa-haa-baa”?). After a very calm night we headed into town to check our North East Harbor, and then took a tour of the area, including Bar Harbor and Cadillac Mountain.
In Bar Harbor we enjoyed a great lunch at the The Bar Harbor Inn, right on the water, and then we caught a shuttle to the top of Cadillac Mountain. The view from the top was fantastic. We hiked the top of the mountain, and then returned to the boat for a quiet evening aboard where Jody whipped up some great spaghetti.
The next day we headed out for Somes Sound, on Mount Desert Island where we saw some amazing homes tucked up in the hills overlooking the sound. Ya wanna talk about an ideal existence, this looks like it. Of course we had exceptional weather. No fog and temperatures in the 70’s.
For the evening we picked up a “secret” mooring in Valley Cove. It looks like a lobster pot buoy, but is actually a mooring only a few people know about. As we approached it looked as if it was only a few feet from the rocky shore, but as we got closer it turned out to be very deep, and we had a great evening under the stars.
The next day we planned a funeral service for our old friend Jeff Inshaw. We had all known him for many years, and he and wife Marie were good friends, and worked with us at the boat shows for over 20 years. Jeff was one of the nicest, mellowest and gentle people I have ever known. He’d passed a few weeks ago, and Marie sent us ashes, which Jeff Kolod had put into a “turtle”. We launched him near the “EE” buoy at 44.12 North and 168.32 West. We had Marie on “Facetime” for the whole service, and it was recorded for future viewing.
Just to show you what kind of people the lobstermen are in Maine, since we were “adrift” for awhile during the service, a lobster boat came out to make sure we were okay and didn’t need help. Good people!
It was a perfect morning of another perfect day in Maine.
Our next stop was Brooklin Harbor. As we were pulling into pick up a mooring, Steve White and his wife motored by in a beautiful powerboat. He runs Brooklin Boat Yard where some of the most beautiful boats in Maine are built!. 15 years ago my partner, Darren O’Brien and I worked with him on a feature we did on Aphrodite. One of the most amazing boats we’d seen, and the winner of the Wooden Boat Show at the Mystic Seaport back then.
We sat at anchor enjoying the unbelievable weather (76 degrees in Maine in September??) and a few hours later Steve White came out, and we spent a great afternoon sipping rum and reliving the past.
In the morning after breakfast we headed to Buck’s Harbor. We tried to pick up a mooring, but it seems the people running the moorings had departed, and the moorings were not looking too good, so we headed out, and sailed on to Castine.
This was one of our best stops. Kenny Eaton from Eaton’s Boat Yard, founded in the 1880’s was there, the third generation, and we had a great time talking with him. He is a true “Down East Mainer.” He is still the original building, started by his grandfather, and it felt as if we were walking thru history as we meandered thru the building.
We wanted to see the town, and a few minutes later we were in a kewl golfcart getting a tour of the town. I highly recommend doing that if you stop here. The history was amazing, talking about how the English, then the French, then the Dutch, and finally the American’s ruled the town.
On the waterfront was Maine Maritime, one of the most prestigious training facilities in the US for Merchant Seamen. The Schooner Bowdoin, which took Admiral Perry to the North Pole was tied up at the dock, along with the 500 foot training ship “State of Maine.”
Castine turned out to be one of our best stops of the trip.
In the AM we headed over Smith Cove, just a couple miles from where we’d spent the night.
A dinghy exploration was launched, and a couple pools were discovered that seemed to be of another time. Almost mystical. On the way in we passed three seals. Seagulls indicated an abundance of marine life. Those included Clams, Mussels, crabs and snails. The tides were going out, and the pools poured from one to another, over a lot of mussels. Gathering the mussels was a fun event, and once back to the boat they were prepared for a future meal.
That night we were treated to a “Maine Tradition.”
FOG!
Yeah, all caps, as it was truly different from any fog I’d ever sailed in. I swear you could cut it with a knife! It was that thick. By 10:30 it started to dissipate a little, so we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and waited for it to clear.
All this week we’d had 70-75 degree weather. Jody & I assumed that wasn’t unusual. We were wrong!
For us it was actually pretty kewl, as in sailing in California, that would be normal. Tommy & the crew assured us, this was NOT normal in Maine in September, but the fog was normal.
We were welcomed back to Belfast by the ducks, and spent our last night aboard at the docks at the Front Street Shipyard. The rest of the afternoon was spent cleaning and getting the boat ready to remain in the yard for a week or two, before they would start sailing south.
This was the first time Jody and I sailed to coast of Maine, and it as an experience we will never forget.
