Since leaving NYC, we’ve been busy sailing, catching up with friends and family, and gulp, looking for jobs. Sorry not to have fun postings from Long Island, Block Island, Martha’s Vineyard, Woods Hole, Cape Cod, Gloucester, and Isle of Shoals, but such is the life of a lazy vagabond with intermittent Internet connection. Thanks to everyone who took us in, fed us, showered us, loaned us cars or drove us to grocery stores, or otherwise wiled away a few hours with us.
Greenport, Long Island, NY. Met up with friend Domi and her little dog Finn too. Finn first came aboard High Country in the Bahamas, where he was on his first sea voyage from the Virgin Islands to his home port in Greenport.
Very aggressive birds in Greenport.
Beachcombing (well, picking up deflated balloon's) on Martha's Vineyard.
Fishing boat in Menemsha Harbor, Martha's Vineyard.
Maine, land of spruce-clad islands and...
beautiful reflections.
Checking out our options to clean the bottom. The guy who owns this boat has been wintering over in Portland the last few winters, a possibility we'd actually been considering - yikes!
s/v Boundless, back from the first successful week of taking a group of kids sailing in Maine. Boundless normally does these trips in the Chesapeake in the summer and the Bahamas in the winter. This was her first summer in Maine and we were happily surprised to see them when we pulled into the anchorage by Peaks Island.
www.differentdrumsailing.com
Rick looking very much like a day charter captain aboard as he entertains the 2 Nancys. Meredith has heard it all already and can relax and smile for the camera. We all spent the day aboard s/v Margherita, which belongs to Nancy and her husband Jerry. How nice to go sailing on someone else's boat and not have to worry about a thing! No wonder people like to go on charters, it's very relaxing.
A junk moored off of Peaks Island.
Rick's brother Rod and nephew Nick drove all the way from Richmond, VT to Portland to hang out with us for the day. Not much wind, but got them to haul the sails up anyway and brought them over to Peaks Island for the day.
Occasionally, we got around to doing some boat work this summer. Here Rick is installing a horn, which we purchased after our trip aboard ssv Westward and we nearly ran over a small sailboat (High Country size) that hadn't been sounding a horn in the fog. While Rick hung out aloft, I recovered (warmed up) from having spent 15 minutes in the water scrubbing the bottom.
More family! This time from my side. This is Uncle Jim and Cousin Sam trying to catch us a mess of mackerel for dinner.
After cleaning 3 mackerel, Uncle Jim decided that he'd rather have lobster for his birthday dinner, rather than spend all day filleting these small fish. No one argued.
Aunt Julie hanging out on High Country.
The Eggemoggin reach Regatta, High Country observing, not racing - we always seem to break something when racing.
We invited former charter guests (and parents) to join us for the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta. The day started off foggy and it looked like we'd have to bag it, so we spent the morning eating Lemon Poppyseed Muffins and coffee and in a few hours, it cleared enough to take off. Afterwards, they took me for that Maine experience, picking wild blueberries.
Shadows of water bugs in a stream coming down Acadia Mountain, Mt. Desert Island. The shadows make it look like they've got huge pads on the end of their legs, but I could never see anything on the actual bug. Any entomologists out there?
View from the top of Acadia Mountain. Pretty, but not many blueberries up here.
s/v Simplicity hoping for more wind, but making nice reflections in the water. He escorted us into Rockland Harbor and gave us the use of his mooring, conveniently situated in front of the public landing.
Mussel madness! I was so excited to find this abundant source of free protein, that I got a bit ahead of myself and served us a batch of mussels before checking on the water quality from where I'd gotten them (Peaks Island). That locale had just been closed for a few weeks due to red tide and was in general closed due to pollution.
We later found suitable places to collect mussels, but had to give up eating them after Rick broke a tooth on a mussel pearl.
ssv Westward: Our first weekend in the Penobscot Bay, we left High Country to sail aboard the Westward, which is one of Ocean Classroom's sailboats that offers educational trips. We had been interested in working for them or similar organizations and after an interview, go invited to "deadhead" (no students) from Rockland to Boston.
The first day was completely in the fog, but during our night watch, the full moon rose above any lingering surface fog.
We got to participate in the workings of the ship, which meant standing watches (steering, lookouts, etc).
The lookouts as we enter Boston Harbor.
And as an added benefit, during our morning watch, 4 humpback whales showed up for a visit, along with dozens of Minke whales.
I learned that there is more than one way to furl a sail, and they all have names. The captain decides which furl to use, depending on circumstances (like if you're trying to show off or just want get the damn thing secured quickly).
I was particularly excited about this trip because Boston is one of the few big East Coast cities that we missed on our trip north.
