Wednesday, August 7,2024

Let’s get caught up…

On Sunday, we traveled from Boothbay Harbor to Rockland, our first destination within Penobscot Bay.  Gentle rollers and little wind, but we had the Radar on all the way – lots of fog and rain.  And it was cold – just 65*.  Quite a contrast from the 95* at home.  And THAT”s why we came to Maine – to escape the heat.

Thanks to fortunate timing, we landed in Rockland in time to enjoy the Maine Lobster Festival.  Our favorite event was the Lobster Cage Race: volunteers packed dozens of lobster cages (lobster traps) with seaweed to make them float.  Then they tied the cages together to make a long “floating bridge” between two piers.  The winner was the one who made it the farthest before falling in!   Hilarity ensued!

We also enjoyed the Lifesaving Museum, featuring the story of the Fresnel lens, which enabled a single bulb or kerosene lamp to be seen miles away at sea!

On Tuesday (yesterday), we cruised from Rockland to Bar Harbor – about 4 hours – right through the heart of Penobscot Bay.  There are marked channels – called Thorofares – that wind their way between the islands.  It was cold – just 65*, but the scenery was lovely and the seas were calm.

Today – Wednesday – has been the best yet in Maine: sunny and warm (70*).  Bright blue skies and calm seas.  And Bar Harbor is gorgeous.

I sailed through Bar Harbor on my first trip to Maine in 2021, but I wasn’t able to reserve a boat slip, so I couldn’t stay.  As I motored by, I was not impressed: 

• There was much more commercial activity than I expected…I thought Baa Haabaaah would be all frou-frou.

• The entire harbor seemed to be faced by an imposing concrete wall…not very inviting.

This time, we reserved one of the four slips at the Town Dock, and everything takes on a different perspective:

• Yes, there is commercial activity, but it’s fascinating to watch the lobster boats pull in and unload their catch into the waiting trucks. (See Lynn’s comments below)

• Yes, there’s a concrete wall around the harbor, but on TOP of the wall is the Seaside Walk, which offers unobstructed views of the surrounding harbor.

The town is cute and touristy, with tons of restaurants.  But it is the vista that defines this place.

Bar Harbour is the apex of our trip: when we leave tomorrow, we turn South and West for the first time since we left Cape May.

We’re not going far tomorrow…just a few miles, circling Mt. Desert and Acadia National Park in a clockwise direction, headed for three nights in Southwest Harbor.

TTFN

PS: Lynn here….About those LOBSTERS. Rod mentioned the commercial aspect of Bar Harbor, but lets look at some of the actual workings of how those delicious creatures get to our plates.

The harbor is filled with commercial lobster boats in the evening, but in the morning, it is almost empty as they head out for their day’s catch.

Rod’s boat is the red hull on the left.

The dinghy’s are all lined up in the evening, and are taken out to their moorings to board the commercial boats in the am.

Here’s a boat done for the day. – traps and bouys aboard.

Each lobsterman has distinctive buoys attached to their traps which tells the other lobstermen who owns which traps. They have a permit number on the trap and the boat also has the permit number and the buoy color on its side.

The boat pulls up to the dock where there are trucks waiting to take their catch. A bucket is lowered and filled with lobsters and then the worker from the truck puts them in bins. These lobsters are going to Massachusetts and Texas.

in 2021, the volume of lobsters was 108,048,794 pounds with a value of $724,949,426. The increase from 2020 was more than the catch for the entire year of 2009.

August 3, 2024

Last night we enjoyed a beautiful evening in Portland.  Fried oyster lettuce wraps!  Yummy!

It poured rain during the night, and we awoke to fog.  By 9:30, the fog appeared to be lifting, the rain had stopped, and we set out for Boothbay Harbor, the heart of Mid-coast Maine boating.

The fog never did burn off; we ran on Radar at reduced speed all the way.

If you can see the green can about 5 seconds from the boat, you win a candy bar!

Nevertheless, we made it to Boothbay Harbor just in time for lunch: our first authentic Maine Lobster Roll.  And BOY! Was it good!

The Cuckold Lighthouse entering Boothbay Harbor

Rod enjoying his first lobster roll in Maine.

You know you’re in Maine when the cole slaw has blueberries in it!

Tomorrow, we’re off to Rockland Maine.  If it’s not too foggy, we plan a stop at Tenant’s Harbor, inspiration for many of Jamie Wyeth’s paintings!

TTFN

Friday, August 2, 2024

Well, we made it to Portland on August 1^st.  Months ago, we set up a dinner date with our new friends Lauren and Jack, and we managed to get here on time, despite all the challenges!

Lauren manages the social media component of DOCKWA, the industry-leading marina reservations app.  She’s very young, very bright, and very capable.  Jack is a service manager at DiMillo’s – the big dealership and marina here in Portland.  They are both avid boaters, and Jack is a competitive paddleboard racer!  Great fun!

The standout feature of DiMillo’s is the gigantic (206’ long) ferry boat that Tony DiMillo converted into a floating restaurant.  The dining rooms are charming, and the food is excellent.

But let’s pause and catch up…

Our previous post was from Salem, MA, on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, we set out for Portsmouth, NH, for a stay at the Safe Harbor – Wentworth Marina.  Portsmouth is New Hampshire’s only ocean port!

We had a great trip… big swells that passed under the boat from the starboard quarter.  Pretty comfortable.  Lucky again!

The Wentworth Marina is named for the huge, venerable Wentworth Hotel, which sits high above the harbor.  This stop has everything you could ask for: a picturesque harbor, a well-managed marina, and great restaurants on site.  And free courtesy cars!  Lynn got to top off the groceries!

We had a delicious meal at Latitude – it’s the sister to the restaurant of the same name on Sunset Key in Key West!

Thursday morning, we headed for Portland, Maine…our first Maine port of call.  To reach Portland, you must travel around or through Cape Ann.  We chose to go through it – via the Blynman Canal.  You enter the canal at Gloucester Harbor, via a tiny drawbridge that opens on command.  It’s only wide enough for a single boat to pass!

The Blynman Canal is a lovely, quiet, 6 MPH break from the ocean swells.  It features lovely homes, quiet waters, and whimsical floating cabins!

Then back in the ocean for another 1-1/2 hours.  Again, big rollers, but no breaking seas.

And we finally saw a whale, but ALAS, it was dead!  So sad. We couldn’t get a good photo, but we sure could smell it!

A quintessential Maine lighthouse – we saw six coming into the harbor

A piece of the Berlin wall on our dock

And a hungry gull enjoying a crab for lunch

We’ve had a nice R&R day here today (Friday) in Portland.  Tomorrow, we’re off to lovely Boothbay Harbor.  It should be just a 3-hour trip, and the sea conditions look manageable: 3.5 foot rollers on the stern.

TTFN

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Hi everybody, and welcome back!  Let’s get you caught up…

When we last posted, we had enjoyed a lovely Sunday afternoon on Long Point beach in Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod…

That evening, the weather changed, beginning just about the time we set out for dinner.

Lynn chooses every restaurant via TripAdvisor, and the one she chose was quite good.  Unfortunately, it was also quite a way from the marina….it feltlike the Bataan Death March, only in the rain.  

We enjoyed our dinner (and a delicious Blueberry Citrus Martini), and called for a cab to take us home.  No Cab.  Voice Mail!  We resigned ourselves to another slog, and set out, only to have a cab pull up next to us and ask if we wanted a ride.  That (and a good meal) saved the evening!  

Monday was our last day in P’Town.  We awoke to cold (65*), rain, and a foggy mist.  Yuck!  Sometimes days like that are good travel days, but the weather apps were showing messy conditions on Cape Cod Bay.  A few boats managed to trickle in during the course of the day, , and they reported 15’ swells on the Bay!  We were SOOOO GLAD we had signed up to stay an extra day in Provincetown!

We studied the wave and wind conditions all during the day Monday, and it looked like we would have a manageable crossing today (Tuesday).  Challenging, but manageable.  We were facing a 3-hour run in open water  (North Atlantic Ocean of course)– mostly out of the sight of land, to Salem, MA. 

It looked like earlier was better, but we were rather apprehensive as we pulled out of the harbor at 6:30 AM.

Let me not belabor this…we got lucky!  A smooth trip!  Not flat seas but maybe just 1-1/2 feet.  Certainly better than 15 feet!

So here we are in Salem, home of the famous witch trials and the House of the Seven Gables….And it is blowing a gale out there in the harbor!   We’re trying to enjoy some crackers and cheese, and it’s blowing the crackers off the plate!  So glad we made it!

Only could get four of the seven gables in the shot!

Tomorrow, we are headed for Portsmouth, NH.  It’s New Hampshire’s ONLY waterfront harbor! (Very short seacoast!).

Sunday, July 28,2024

We left Padanaram (Dartmouth) on Friday morning and had a beautiful passage with the tide in our favor through the Cape Cod Canal.  Flat seas, blue skies and pleasant temperatures all the way to Provincetown.  Here’s a shot Lynn took to show how flat the seas were and how straight our course ran.  We were on autopilot for about 1-1/2 hours from the Canal – across Cape Cod Bay straight to our Waypoint at P’Town.

From the stern – like driving down the highway!

Friends have told us that they see whales almost every time they cross Cape Cod Bay, and we kept an eye out: visually, and with the depth sounder.  In the picture below, you can see our course on the left screen, and the depth sounder on the right, showing clear to the bottom at 200 feet.

No whales showing up either on the surface or below!

We are really enjoying P’Town.  It’s Lynn’s first visit, and I have never been here by boat.  It is a GORGEOUS harbor: huge with almost 360* protection.  The marina is very busy and very well managed.  Here’s a shot of where we are geographically: look for the little blue dot!

And here’s the beautiful harbor:

P’Town is notorious as an LBGTQ+ haven, and it doesn’t disappoint in that regard.  The street scene is crazy.  It also features beautiful beaches and wonderful restaurants.  It’s protected on the east by a long, curved spit called Long Point Beach, and we set out for there in the dinghy, which is powered by a 1,000 Kw electric motor.  The motor served us well for short hops in the Elizabeth Islands and the Bahamas, but it ran out of juice before we reached Long Point…soooo,

We bummed a tow from a friendly passing catboat, and we ended up getting to the beach via the Long Point Shuttle pontoon boat.  Great fun!  Every day is an adventure!

Nice guys on Pegasus who towed us back to the marina!

We spent a lovely afternoon picnicking, beach walking, and watching the harbor seals gambol in the surf.  Sorry, we have no seal photos – every time they popped up, they’d submerge again before we could get a picture!  We did get some other photos, however, including one of Guinness drinking water from a huge clam shell.

All in all, a terrific day!   We have one more day here, and then we’re off across Cape Cod Bay once again to Salem, MA.  The forecast is for conditions rather more challenging than we faced on our trip here.  We’ll be safe, but it could be an uncomfortable crossing…we’ll see.  In the meantime, we’re off to another Top-Rated restaurant!

TTFN

Friday, July 26, 2024

Well, it’s been a couple of exciting days here in Panadaram, MA.  That’s pronounced Pay-danram for the uninitiated.  It’s a small, adorable village just south of New Bedford.

It seemed like a great place to stop before heading through the Cape Cod Canal to Provincetown, on the tip of the Cape.

We left Newport Thursday morning, and we were aware that we were losing coolant.  When we pulled in, Lynn pointed out that this is a full service marina with Cummins-qualified technicians (our diesel is a Cummins).

So I walked up to the service office, and they had a tech on board by noon.  WoW!

They identified the source of the coolant leak (the pump was failing), and they also spotted a problem with the aftercooler that cools the water coming out of the turbo.

Briefly, what they were able to do is source the parts and make the repairs in 24 hours.  WOW!

These were two potentially critical problems.  They could have stopped us dead in mid-ocean or destroyed the engine.  I am so lucky!

Of course, this meant once again juggling the next few days of our schedule.  As they say, “Everyone has a plan until the gun goes off!”

But, seriously, I really can’t believe our good luck!

Two nights in a lovely little village and two GREAT meals in the restaurant right at the marina.  And two serious problems caught and repaired.

So tomorrow, we take off for P’Town.  The forecast calls for a lovely trip, and we hope to see whales!

Newport, RI  –  July 25, 2024

The trip from Saybrook Point, Ct to Newport, RI was tiring.  At least for me.

It was only 4 hours, but we had 3-foot swells.  The boat wasn’t slamming, but it was up and down for 4 hours.  And fog – we were on radar for half the trip.

Lynn didn’t mind at all.  I think I’m getting soft.

Because we had “crushed” the earlier part of the trip to make up lost time, Newport is the first chance we’ve had to stay an extra day and enjoy the harbor…and Newport is a great place to start.  Newport calls itself the Sailing Capital of the World, and the town is full of history and restaurants and nautical flavor.

At the heart of town are the old wharfs that project out into the harbor.  Each wharf is as wide as a three-lane highway, and they are PACKED with restaurants and shops.  Tuesday night, we had a delicious dinner at Diego’s – a Mexican restaurant on Bowen’s Wharf.  Now think about that: good Mexican food in Rhode Island?  At a touristy restaurant?  It had good reviews in Trip Advisor, so we gave it a shot.  We were ready for Mexican, and it was delish!

On Wednesday, our first stop was a visit to “The Breakers”, the Vanderbilt mansion on Newport’s famous Cliff Walk.  Lynn and I had both seen the Breakers before – years ago – and we felt it was time for a refresher.  As you’d expect, the mansion itself is breathtaking…no expense spared.  The product of unimaginable wealth.  And perfectly maintained.  A real treasure.

Unexpectedly, there were elephants on the grounds!

On the first stop of a nation-wide tour, 100 life-like, hand-made elephant statues were scattered among the mansions and the college campuses here.  (See thegreatelephantmigration.org) At least two-dozen were positioned on the Great Lawn at the Breakers.  They were quite charming: each constructed of layer upon layer of pencil-thin reeds; each one life-like and each one different!  

We caught the free hop-on trolley back to town and hit the Sailing Museum, which was really fun!  Housed in the old Armory building, the space is completely re-thought and re-purposed as a series of interactive and artifact exhibits designed to involve and educate the visitor into the sailing experience.  Our favorite was one in which you sat facing a screen, holding a tiller in your hand, and experienced what it’s like to steer a powerful sailboat toward a mark.  I was shocked at how life-like the experience was: heading up; falling off; seeing the wind shift; feeling the tension in the tiller as the speed increased and the deck of the boat began to heel on the screen.  Close to virtual reality.

Guinness wasn’t impressed

Dinner last night at Busker’s, an Irish Pub.  Again, good reviews on TA and good food!

We forgot to mention that at the end of our dock is the US Intrepid which was a breakthrough design in the history of yachting and the 12 Metre Class. This yacht won the America’s Cup in 1967 and 1970. They take folks out for a sail and looking at the photo, you’ll see there’s only seating on the deck. It would be quite a ride on a windy day!

It’s Thursday morning now, and we’re due to set off for Pandanaram, a little harbor near South Dartmouth, MA.  The harbor is socked in with fog as I write this at 7AM.  Hopefully, it will burn off a bit before we get underway….

July 23, 2024

Last night in Manhassett, we had visitors to the boat – Mr. and Mrs. Schwans and their five kids.

Then we enjoyed a beautiful sunset.

Just last week, I was encouraging a newer boater to go ahead and tackle the Intracoastal Waterway. I said “Just think of it as a series of day trips…you make it to Belhaven, then the next day you move on to Beaufort…etc.

What I should have told him is “It’s like a series of day trips, and every day something else can go wrong!”

We woke up this morning in Manhasset Bay( right where the East River joins Long Island Sound) and we realized that the full moon had caused a 10’ tidal drop. We were actually sitting on the bottom.

We eventually pulled away from the dock (7:30 AM), but the boat wasn’t running right: it sounded rough and it wouldn’t go fast. I thought I had damaged the prop, and we crept back to another dock at the marina but in deeper water.

The only thing to do was pull the boat and check the running gear. The good news is that the marina has two travel lifts – the huge slings that pull the boat out of the water. The bad news is that the service department probably had a fully packed schedule…could we persuade him to pull us ASAP?

If we were back in the water by noon, we might still keep to our schedule.

So … we had to wait from 7:30 until 9AM before we could reach the Service Manager. Amazingly, he could put us at the head of the line – another boat cancelled because he was waiting for parts…what are the odds?

THEN…we had to wait another 1-1/2 hours for the tide to rise enough so that we could bring the boat into the TravelLift.

AND THEN, it turns out we had “sucked up” an old dock line that had been lying at the bottom of the slip.  It was wrapped around and around the prop and shaft.

The line came off easily, and we were back in the water by 11AM!!!! A little Bad Luck…a lot of Good Luck.

The line melted!

I had planned a leisurely trip up Long Island Sound, with lots of stops and short travel days, but because we lost 4 weather days at the outset, we had to press on, or we’d have to change marina reservations for the next 55 days…not an attractive prospect.

So we just pushed the throttles forward, and headed for Saybrook Point Marina, one of our favorite stops on the Sound. Again, we were blessed with flat seas. We covered 3/4 of LI Sound in just under 5 hours, and made our dinner reservation at Fresh Salt.

************

Fresh Salt didn’t disappoint: great drinks, great food, and Affogatto for dessert.

We’re expecting severe thunderstorms tonight, and we’ll be safe and dry!

********

And we’re thinking about Linda Zink, my dear friend since third grade, lost to acute myloid leukemia, and her husband Bob, my friend since high school, carrying on without her. Linda’s memorial service was today. She is in heaven.

July 21, 2024

Wow!  What a beautiful trip up from Metedeconk to Long Island Sound.

Here’s some contex for my pleasure: When you leave the Metedeconk / Bay Head area, at the northern tip of Barnegat Bay – if you’re headed north – you must transit the Point Pleasant Canal in order to reach the Manasquan Inlet and the Atlantic Ocean.

The Point Pleasant Canal can actually be very UNPLEASANT.  You can watch the craziness on YouTube! A very messy place!

Anyway, today we were lucky.  No speeders.  No morons creating huge wakes.

And our luck held all the way through New York Harbor, up the East River, and into Manhassett Bay at the western end of Long Island Sound.  Blue skies, flat seas, and moderate temperature!  We flew to NY: 4.7 hours dock to dock.

I don’t often blow my own horn, but I was very pleased with the decision we made a week ago to delay the trip in order to catch calm weather! And i was grateful for weather apps that can forecast a week ahead with accuracy.

Here’s a screen shot from the weather app: Strong winds up and down the coast (the green areas) except for the window from Brick (Manasquan Inlet) north to NY and LI Sound.  YOWZA!

The dark blue in the center is where we travelled today – very calm seas!

Lynn here….while Rod was running the boat and we were both enjoying the calm seas, I was amazed at the activity we saw on a Sunday morning – men at work!

A shrimp boat with outriggers heading home at 7:30 am after a night out on the seas

A small commercial fishing boat being followed by gulls as they throw their chum overboard at 9:00

A HUGE tanker heading out to sea from New Jersey at 10:00 am

A large cruise ship and a container ship getting loaded for their next trips at 10:30 am.

And a large cruise ship in Brooklyn waiting for passengers.

A cute carousel – also in Brooklyn

And, of course, this never gets old – entering NYC!

July 19-20, 2024

Leaving Rock Hall, MD, July 19, 2024

Hi everyone and welcome back to Travels with Lynn and Guinness!

This trip got off to a rocky start: we boarded the boat in Rock Hall on Saturday, July 13^th, the day after my 80^th birthday, all ready to go, only to learn that the air conditioner pump had failed.  In 98* heat.  So that was a non-starter! Back to West Chester for two days.

The service crew at Haven Harbour installed a new pump on Monday morning, but by then, the weather apps were forecasting 4-5’ waves offshore and in the Delaware Bay, not settling down until Friday.  (Anything over 2-1/2 feet is VERY uncomfortable.)

We need three days of calm conditions to get from Rock Hall to Cape May up to NY Harbor.  Here’s why:

To get to Maine, we must travel north to the head of the Chesapeake Bay, east through the C&D Canal, then south down the Delaware Bay to Cape May.  And the Delaware Bay can be treacherous.   Last summer, we had to stop and shelter overnight.

Once we’re in Cape May, we can finally head north again, but we must go offshore before we can get into the more protected waters of the Barnegat Bay.  It takes one long day from Cape May to Metedeconk: my brother’s house near the northern tip of Barnegat Bay.

Once we leave Metedeconk, we then need a third day of good offshore conditions to run up the North Jersey coast, around Sandy Hook, and into NY Harbor.

So…if we weren’t going to have good conditions, we realized that we might as well wait in Rock Hall.

So…we left Rock Hall on Friday instead of Monday – 4 days behind schedule.

But it was worth the wait: cooler temperatures and calm seas.  The Delaware Bay was a lady, not a witch, and we had a smooth run to Cape May, where we met Lynn’s friends, Dana and Doug, for dinner on Friday night.  One minor issue developed when we were docking in the marina.  A new dockhand was on the boat securing the front lines and managed to get one of them caught in the bow thruster, rendering it useless. The solution required someone going under the boat to free the line.  I initially thought I would do it but looking at the jellyfish and dead horseshoe crabs, I thought better of it.  We arranged for a professional diver to come Saturday morning, but as I worked through the problem, I was able to reverse the thruster and free the line.

Today – Saturday July 20^th, we made the run north along the Jersey coast in conditions as calm as I’ve ever seen them.  Flat, slate-gray seas and a light haze to soften the sun’s heat.

2-1/2 hours to Atlantic City, where we could have ducked inside, but the sea conditions were so favorable that we continued offshore to the Barnegat Inlet.  Then the madness began!  This was a Saturday in the summer, and it felt like every boat owner along the Jersey Shore was out in the Bay at full speed.  And then there were the sailing regattas who just happen to keep crossing the channels – it was a bit of a zoo!

We are now tied up at my brother’s house and it looks like the weather will be cool tonight.  After a late lunch, we are taking advantage of the quiet and their laundry facilities before we head up to NYC tomorrow.

The dock at Tom’s house

Good night all!