Log of Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Tuesday, June 17--Grey, foggy, still. Rain overnight. The birds on shore at Lewis Cove are making a racket. Once again the coal failed to catch in the stove overnight. We haven't been doing very will getting it to light. 0620, Paul is trying again.

The plan--confirmed by phone yesterday--is to meet Ryck at the town landing at about 1000 and then depart for Casco Bay.

0815--Coffee & cereal.

0900--Diesel in prep for getting underway.

Truly 'thick 'o fog' this morning, the visibility can be measured as a few boat lengths, perhaps 100 feet. Luckily we only have to sneak around the corner to get where we are going. But this is the sort of morning where you need a compass course inside the anchorage so you don't embarrass yourself within the first hundred yards of the voyage. This was one of the rare occasions I set up the moving map software on the laptop and actually relied upon it. I also had a course on the handheld GPS and a paper-and-pencil course as well. Belt, suspenders and one hand on waistband felt about right to keep from being caught with ones pants down this particular morning.

0930--Lifted anchor, underway, motoring to Boothbay Harbor Public dock to meet Ryck (dense fog).

We arrived without incident, perhaps a few minutes late, to find Ryck and Jenn on the pier. The log makes no mention of two of the more amusing aspects of this rendezvous. The first was that when we scoped out the public float the afternoon before, we realized that large sections of the decking had been taken up for repair. This wouldn't matter much except that Ryck has limited vision and so we duly warned him that Boothbay seemed to possess a black humor we had never noticed before. Then, when he actually arrived, it seemed that Ryck and Jenn could both visualize where the coffee was in their kitchen at home, but neither had packed it. This wouldn't have mattered at all, except that the rest of us live in such fear of making the wrong move regarding coffee around Ryck, that we had almost none on board. So a short detour to rectify this oversight was the first order of business.

1020--Alongside the Public...
Seguin current calc: Boston High 11:30, Low 5:10; flood starts +2:10 = 13:40, Ebb starts +1:35 = 18:45

The current calculation for the mouth of the Kennebec can be really important, since with the wind against tide this stretch of water can become unnavigable on an otherwise benign day.

Usually the delay to get that last minute item before setting out is the source of some impatience on the part of all concerned. But in this case, we were going nowhere until the fog scaled up a bit more, so we just chatted on the dock and kept an eye on the harbor, biding our time.

1145 Slip the docklines at Boothbay Hrbr. (fog scaling up.)

I really wanted to get to Western Casco Bay--Jewell Island to be specific. The only touchy navigation is the last half mile where one rounds the north end of the island to enter the anchorage in Cocktail Cove, so I was ready to go as soon as the visibility was half way decent. We probably could see about 1/4 mile as we cleared the harbor, but that was plenty for our purposes.

1350 Kennebec to Stbd.

On this day the tide was just starting to flood and the wind had a good bit of East in it, so the water was flat as we passed the Mighty Kennebec.

1400 Seguin appears on in its lower reaches. Horn faint.

The visibility was up to almost a mile in patches as we passed Seguin to Port.

1415 Paul sights finback whale 150 yds to port.

North Wind exceeds 6 Kts for 1/2 - 1 hr.

1500 Wind subsides; restart engine visibility deteriorates.

1600 Fog scales up significantly. Many Casco Bay features--lighthouses, sm. islands; toothy ledges, etc. appear.

This was a happy moment for a scale up, the final approach to the island anchorage was near and I didn't want to work my way through the last ledges blind. If push came to shove, I was of two minds whether to use GPS and echo sounder or change destinations. Probably if it was calm I would have pushed on in, but in a breeze or a heavy ground swell it wouldn't have seemed prudent.

1700 Landfall @ Jewell Is. Hook down in Cocktail Cove @ 1730. Put Ryck to namesake work w/adequate if lime free dark 'n stormies (after much discussion).

Subsequent discussion dissolves amid considerable good fellowship, as one might well imagine.

Jewell I. is, like the Boston Harbor Islands, a lovely spot close by a major city. This time we didn't go ashore, but even from the anchorage in Cocktail Cove you can see that it is a wild spot in danger of being loved to death by all the people who have access to it. We slipped in near low tide with the big shingle beaches on each side of the cove and the misty island beyond. Chilly, a bit bleak, but beautiful.

We turned in early with the plan to leave at first light for the long trek past the inhospitable coast West of Portland and the hope of getting to the Isles of Shoals or perhaps Rockport before nightfall. Today was a short day of only about 25 miles, tomorrow we hope to cover up to 65 miles.