Home of the Wanderer

Henry and I got up around 08:00 this morning. We cast off from our anchorage, and began the journey to Rockland. In the interest of speed, we motored the whole way — Pop wanted time, after our arrival in Rockland, to replace the anchor pin which fell overboard as we set the anchor yesterday) and the carrying lines on Rubber Ducky’s sides (one of which snapped as we were un-beaching her from Birch Island) before Mom & Lee arrived to pick up Henry and me.
Breakfast — eaten during the motoring to Rockland — was peaches that had been cut up for us by Pop. H also had yogurt and some coffee cake. We washed up our dishes, and started packing and prepping for out arrival in Rockland — and departure from Pamina. Our conversation, meanwhile, was about Dwarven Artisan-Engineers and Orcish breeding programs. Fascinating stuff for use in the epic fantasy stories that we tell, and thus not yet for public consumption.

We arrived in Rockland around 10:00 and went about readying Pamina for a two-week cruise, and the two of us for departure to Burlington. Pop, Henry, and I went to Rockland Boat, a chandlery that lies about a five to ten minute walk from Knight Marine boatyard, where we were docked. After getting our supplies, we returned to Pamina and our waiting tasks — Pop to set the jury-rigged anchor pin, I to replace the lines on Rubber Ducky’s sides, and H to unload our gear and pack it into our mother’s car.

So now we’re driving south-west to York, Maine, to spend the night with David & Susan, my mother’s uncle and aunt.
The trip went well, a success by all measures, and my father’s fastest crossing of the Gulf (25 hours from West Falmouth to Tenant’s Harbor). The only problem was that it wasn’t long enough, and that, perhaps, is the best kind of problem to have. Now we’ll rinse the salt from our hair, off our bodies, and out of our clothes, and turn our eyes and minds to the year ahead. I have already begun to consider next summer, and how I might make time at the end of August for another cruise across the Gulf of Maine.

This log was closed on Monday, 18 August 2003, at 12:40, by Gavin Weld White.

We motored all the way to our anchoring site, not wanting to arrive any later and discover that there was no room. We’ll get in a little sailing in the morning, if all goes as planned.

We’re harbored in a little triangle formed by Dix, High, and Birch Islands. We arrived here at about 15:30, and at around 16:00 we went ashore. We went first to High Island, where we followed several paths back inland, found the quarry, oohed and aahed, and left swatting mosquitos. Returning to Rubber Ducky (the inflatable dinghy) where she was tied to the granite wharf, we decided to pay a visit to Birch Island.

While High Island is covered with alder and apple, Birch Island is covered in grasses, heaters, shrubs, large rounded rocks, and the occasional pine. We beached the Ducky and went ashore to explore. Together we ambled around the rocky beach, until Henry & I went inland, scrambling up the boulders littering the small islet. I delighted in the wafting scents of dried aromatic herbs, and the sight of waving grasses.

We returned to Pamina, where I rinsed the sand from the cockpit and managed to pour some significant quantity of seawater into the quarterberth through the open window. I mostly just doused my own bags, getting both this notebook and my computer (which we just loaded on-board today so I’d have it in Burlington) marginally wet. Funny — the computer was more easily dried than the binder-full of paper. It is fortunate that the marginality of the dowsing was quite literal — no page seems to have gotten wet enough to bleed ink or stick to another page.

Together we prepped dinner — steak for Pop, Alice, and Henry, and a bowl of veggies, fried rice, & edamame for me. We all had hors d’oeuvres, steamed asparagus, and sautéed mushrooms with onions. The last was of my own making — Alice was going to use butter, and when I suggested using Earth Balance she offered that I could make it myself any way that I liked. I agreed. Everyone liked it, and Alice said that the only difference she noticed was that the mushrooms and onions seemed slipperier than when she cooks them with butter.

Henry had a little red wine with his steak, and a lesson from all of us on the drinking and appreciation of wine. Dinner was accompanied by Mozart’s symphonies 40 & 41 from my computer (via a small portable RF transmitter), as well as another reading of my log. And a few glasses of excellent wine. Trust Alice to provide — she has amazing taste, and neither she nor Pop will drink trash.

Anyway, drinking three glasses of wine has made me sleepy, and I’m headed for bed. In the morning, we sail for Rockland.

(The swimming was exhilarating — Sam, Mike, and I went in several times.)

We went for a sail this morning, a brief out-and-back that included some fast tacking up a narrow channel. It’s quite a pleasure to ride the prow through nearly flat water on a close-hauled point. She cuts the water beautifully. So smooth.

We were becalmed at about 11:30, so we motored back to meet Alice, who had driven up to meet us. After fueling, filling the fresh-water tank, washing out the icebox & the head, and loading up the gear & food for Pop & Alice’s two-week cruise, we moored again and went ashore for lunch.

Lunch was ordered from the little restaurant at the Cod End marina in Tenant’s Harbor. A mix of lobster rolls, fried oysters, onion rings, fries, and PB&J. Several toasts were made — to the captain, the crew, to Alice (who had pre-made the dinners), and to Pamina (the ship, a 36-foot sloop made by Sabre).

We said our farewells — Steve, Mike, & Sam were driving back south in the car with which Alice drove up — and cast off from the mooring at 14:00.

After coating ourselves generously with sunscreen, Henry & I went forward and attempted variously to engage in conversation & to nap. I believe the latter was more successful, as I woke to cries of “Dolphins!” from the cockpit. We saw one or two, just cresting the surface, about 200 meters off the starboard beam.

The day remains bright and beautiful. Though we’ve been motoring for about an hour now (it’s 15:04), I have some hope that we will soon set our sails and catch the wind.

At 21:30 last night, there were fireworks astern. Somebody on land was celebrating, and the were kind enough to share.

I read my log to the captain & crew, and they all approved.

We enjoyed our dinner, with jokes about how very much we were eating. Henry and I did a rendidtion of the Star Wars Gangsta Rap. In the end, Steve, Henry, and I did the dishes (accompanied by Steve’s stories of making KP look like fun during his stint in the army), and almost everyone went to bed.

H & I, of course, stayed up and talked, with conversation ranging from storywriting to AGT to family life to job searching and back again. We made some progress in casting our story, and came up with a plan for generating character descriptions. We went to bed around 00:30.

We got up this morning at about 08:15. Mike claims to have gone in the water several times already — he’s wearing his trunks & his towel is drying in the cockpit, so I’m inclined to believe him. I might go in myself in a few minutes.

Breakfast this morning was more fruit — the melon is starting to ferment, so I went with a banana.

Tenant’s Harbor. It’s very still, especially after the storm. I slept from shortly after the last entry until about 20:15, and when I woke it seemed like we were docked. We are, in fact, moored.

Dinner tonight, which is currently cooking, is x-loaf. Meat for most & veggie for me, of course.

The crew is commenting on the voyage — Mike & Steve are saying it has been much more pleasant than last year. The Captain affirms it. For my part I know not, but I’m glad to have finally come.

Around 18:15 the storm had passed us over. Somehow, I think, it hadn’t fully developed when we went through — it looked much worse behind us than when we were in it.

For a little while, we tried to figure out if the bars on the radar ahead of us were islands or just more storms. I think the conclusion was that they are islands — they’re still ahead of us, though.

(A note from the margins: the record speed from the voyage was set by Steve Ladd, some time between 15:00 and 17:00, at 9.4 knots. [For those readers unfamiliar with the term, a knot is a nautical mile per hour. A nautical mile is the distance spanned by one minute of longitudinal arc-length along the equator at sea level. This is exactly 1.852 kilometers or 1.151 statute miles.])

Mike just found the camera.

Around 17:00, we started striking sails, battening hatches, donning foul-weather gear, and generally prepping for a nasty storm. T-storms lined the horizon. They’re almost on top of us now.

Sails are down, we’re all ready. (& motoring)

Wind has gone from 10-14 knots up to 30+ knots. The sky is beautiful. I’m going to gear up & head topside.

At 14:30-14:40, a pod of dolphins came to play and swim alongside. I counted five of them, leaping and diving. Several times a dolphin crossed just beneath the bow. They were beautiful.

I spotted the first one swimming just off the port bow. I peered forward, and recognized it as it dove across the bow. I raised the cry, and the pod started leaping off the starboard beam. They went astern, then ’round to 7 & 8 o’clock, while one or two at a time came forward to play. (My father has since said he thought there may have been as many as three pods, one each port and starboard and one up by the bow. That makes sense, given how quickly they seemed to move from one place to another. In that case, I would have to guess that there were at least fifteen of them.)

An hour later, at 15:35, someone aft spotted a spout on the starboard beam. We saw it blow several times.

Riding the bow, as I have said, is incredible — slowing to an almost stop relative to the waves on which we ride, watching those waves rush by mere inches from the gunwhales (sometimes christening the anchor), and surging forward on the next wave.

At 13:30, Henry sighted a Humpback whale breaching at about 4 or 5 o’clock (starboard astern), about halfway to the horizon. Excitement and shouting — it breached thrice more, we woke the captain, and it breached again. Gorgeous. We saw a few more splashes, but the whale was too far away to really make out anymore.

Henry and I played some Go, and I went to bed at the end of my watch. H joined be in the quarterberth some time later. A little before noon, we were awake and talking about games. (He said I’ve invested my energy in game-playing disproportionately to what is common in our culture. While granting his point, I pointed out the relationship between abstract strategy games and the maintenance of IQ.) At just before 11:50, he put his foot out through the open window into the cockpit (perhaps to play with and startle its occupants, Mike, Steve, & Pop). The response was immediate and demanding.

“Whale! Whale! Hey, guys, get up here, there’s a whale astern!”

We rushed topside, of course. We saw the whale dive several times, each time further away. Much excitement, and talk of the last time a whale was spotted on a similar journey one or two years ago. (Turns out it was around the same bank, too — Platt’s Bank.)

We prepped lunch — sandwiches for most, & spring onion soup for me. We were sitting, eating, and talking, and just as Sam came above (at 12:25) we sighted another whale, again astern, this time to starboard. We watched it crest several times as it fell behind us. It wasn’t really traveling, but we were (and are).

Speaking of which, it seems we could make Tenant’s Harbor tonight. The one constraint here is that the pressure has been dropping. It looks like we’re in for a storm, & Pop’s been searching his charts for a good harbor. Meanwhile, we’ve been averaging about 7 knots overground, and ranging up to 8.5.