Revisiting the site of an epic night
24 Aug 2020
In February 2002 Gloria, Tasha and I moved over to the USA on a 2-year international assignment with AstraZeneca. We ended up bringing “Dreamcatcher”, our 16-foot Wayfarer sailboat, with us, mostly because my parents weren’t prepared to have it sit on their driveway for 2 years! It was shipped across the Atlantic on a car transporter and Rod and I drove down to New Jersey to pick it up from an enormous storage yard. (As I recall we drove into the yard, located the boat, hooked up the trailer to Rod’s van and left, without having to show anyone any paperwork!). In the years that followed, inspired by an article we read about the Maine Island Trail, Gloria and I sailed the entire coast of Maine. We did this in five sections, each about a week in duration, but we didn’t sequence the various sections in geographical order. Consequently, our very first day on the water happened to be sailing from Rockport to Little Hen Island on the east side of Vinalhaven. We are now anchored about 100 yards away from where we spent that first night … and as you will see, it did turn into an epic!
Liz helped us launch “Dreamcatcher” in Rockport and looked after the boat trailer and Tasha (who was about 11 at the time) for the following week. The sail eastwards across Penobscot Bay was a little too exciting in a 16-foot day-sailer with fairly strong winds and considerable swell from the north. But we made it to Vinalhaven and proceeded through Fox Island Thoroughfare, where we practiced man-overboard drill when one of us dropped the pee bucket overboard! Eventually we pulled into to what we thought was Little Hen Island, tied off the boat to the rocks and set up our small anchor on a sand bar that was nearly dry at low tide. After cooking a meal on land we put up our boat-tent and settled on board for the night. Shortly after dark a cold-front came through with strong north-westerly winds. The line tying our boat to the rocks floated off as the tide (10ft) rose and then our anchor dragged. We were swept back past a small island and I was forced to go into the water to keep the boat off the rocks. We finally managed to secure some additional lines to this island and “Dreamcatcher” dried out on a shelf of rock as the tide retreated. The rest of the night went OK! In the morning we took our wet gear onto the island to dry and a very thoughtful South African couple arrived in a dinghy to see if all was well and to take us back to their catamaran for coffee. It was a tremendous act of kindness as both Gloria and I were severely rattled by the experience. Once we got everything squared away we continued on our journey, sailing over to Isle au Haut as our next stop. We were young then (relatively speaking!) and inexperienced / careless (by any standard!). It wasn’t an auspicious start to that particular cruising adventure, but we did go on and complete the project and had a great time and learned a lot in the process. It turns out it can be quite helpful to check the marine weather forecast carefully! It’s also interesting to note that when we got picked up in Lubec at the end of the most northerly section of our journey, it was Tasha (by then aged 17) who drove the van and the trailer.
Sailing a large boat in some ways is easier. We had no engine on “Dreamcatcher”, just the sails and oars and we wore wet suits to mitigate the risk of capsizing in cold water. It was at times quite scary. On the other hand, if we ran over a lobster pot in old boat it would trip the rudder causing it to float up and we would simply have to lean over and push it back down to reset it.
Today we sailed a very similar route in “Cotinga”, except we started a few miles further south in Rockland. The days started foggy with a forecast for light and variable winds, but in fact we had a great sail across Penobscot Bay. It is incredibly beautiful in the anchorage and we have a 55 lb Rocna anchor and 80 feet of 3/8 inch chain the water, (which weighs an additional 130 lb), so hopefully that will keep us in one place! As a postscript I should tell you that we went exploring in the dinghy and found the exact site of this epic night … we also found Little Hen Island and the Maine Island Trail campsite. It turns out after 17 years we just discovered we weren’t ever where we thought we were!
Mike
44 05.826 N, 68 48.063 W
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