Housekeeping
22 August 2020
Today we motored back from Pulpit Harbor, North Haven, to Rockland so that Rod could catch a ride back to Rhode Island. It’s been great having him cruise with us the past week. Being here gives us a chance to catch up on some “housekeeping”, so we were able to take our trash to shore, fill up a couple of jerry cans of fresh water and this afternoon we also managed to do our laundry at the local Laundromat. We have planned a rough menu for the next week or so, and tomorrow we will hike over to the local supermarket and stock up on provisions. These are jobs that are part of our normal life on land, they just take a bit longer on the boat because they involve dinghy rides to shore and walking to wherever we need to go.
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about how different cruising is during the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the aspects that we have really enjoyed in the past is meeting other boaters, chatting with them and sometimes getting together for a drink and to share stories. That isn’t happening now. We do see plenty of other cruisers but our interactions are very limited. It seems a shame, but in the overall scheme of things it’s a minor inconvenience to us. We have been quite impressed with how seriously the people of Maine are taking the virus. Almost everybody seems to be wearing masks in the shops or where it is difficult to maintain distance and we have seen a number of signs asking people from “out of state” who have not yet completed quarantine not to enter the building (such as the North Haven post office). It appears that one of the casualties of the social distancing is the charter sailing business out of Rockland. We saw that several of the old wooden schooners that would normally take customers on multi-day cruises on the coast of Maine are still covered in their winter shrink-wrap and won’t be opening for business this year. However, there are some restaurants open here in Rockland. We aren’t yet comfortable with the idea of eating inside a restaurant, but we were very excited to find a wood-fired barbecue shack with outdoor seating. So, before Rod departed, we all enjoyed a fabulous pulled pork sandwich!
Tonight we are anchored on the south end of Rockland harbor (which is huge). It’s really calm at the moment with just the occasional roll from the wake of a passing ship and we plan to have a quiet, lazy evening and see if we can stream a Netflix movie through our cell-phone hot spot!
Mike
44 05.634 N, 69 05.826 W
Rod and Gloria on a picnic bench on the Rockland Harbor walk ... cool mural! (iPhone photo)
A friendly guy who was working on his old wooden sailboat. He bought it about a year ago, but it only recently came out of shrink-wrap and apparently needs a lot of work. (iphone photo)
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