Cruising at last! Castine to Portland

 

 

We had several planned ETD's. Saturday 9/14, then Monday 9/16, then Tuesday, but finally on Wednesday the 18th we headed out of Castine Harbor at around noon. As you can see above, conditions were perfect as we passed Dyce's Head Light, and that held for an hour or so as we headed south down Penobscot Bay. Then the typical afternoon SW wind started up but that wasn't bad as we headed directly into the resulting chop.

After we rounded the south end of Islesboro, we angled more west towards Rockland where we planned to fuel up. Now that we were taking the waves at an angle Spray tossed some. Not bad for us but apparently too much for my homemade dinghy davit system, which suffered a major structure failure when one of its support arms snapped. Sheila took the helm while I lashed the dangling dinghy to Spray's transom and we continued into Rockland, arriving at Journey's End marina at nearly 3 pm.

We quickly took on 120 gallons of diesel fuel (@ $3.88/gal which is a good price) and had planned to continue onwards another 2 hours to Tenants Harbor, but the choppy conditions and my desire to repair the davit prompted me to ask about renting a mooring from Journey's End for the night. It would be $30 for the mooring but if we were interested in tying up in an available slip instead they could do that for the same price. Done deal!

So comfortably tied up in the slip we addressed our raging hunger with a quick walk to Rockland Cafe for takeout lobster rolls and fries, which we brought back to consume on Spray's flying bridge. Then I set about repairing the davit (its now better than ever) while Sheila had an adventure chasing down some medicine for Riggs (more on that later). Being at the dock was convenient for walking the pooches around downtown Rockland. We also picked up a few items for Spray at the nearby Hamilton Marine store and got hot showers at the marina.

While Wednesday was warm and sunny, it got cold at night and Sheila broke out her sleeping bag. It was in the upper 30's when we awoke Thursday so we fired up Spray's propane heater. Thursday quickly warmed to become a perfect cruising day, calm and sunny, and we were underway at about 8 am, out around Owl's head and then turning SW. We passed Tenants Harbor at 10, Boothbay at 1 pm, and continued to Seguin Island, picking up a mooring there at 3 pm.

 

Seguin has a great lighthouse and we enjoyed touring that plus hiking some its paths. After supper we went back ashore and climbed up to the lighthouse (360 degree view) to see a great example of cosmic symmetry: Since it was near equinox the sun set directly west, and since it was a full moon, just as the sun set you turn around to look east and see the moon rise in perfect synchronization. Really nice.

 

Since Seguin is out in the big ocean the swells gave us a somewhat rolly night, even though we we in a reasonably protected cove. The mild rolling actually didn't bother our sleeping, and Friday morning we were ashore early for another climb to the lighthouse and to drain the dogs.

 

Friday was also a perfect cruise day and we soon entered Casco bay and snaked between its islands for a quick stop in Falmouth, then on to Portland where we had reserved a slip at DiMillo's Marina, right in the Old Port! We were in the slip by 2 pm and have since (its now Saturday night) been enjoying the big city. Some of my ex-colleagues from ORPC stopped by Friday evening to visit, which was real nice. You can see below that life here is pretty comfortable.

 

Original plan was to stay here 2 nights and move southwards tomorrow (Sunday), but the calm weather is gone as a front passes through, and we'll probably add a 3rd night and resume the cruise on Monday. Stay tuned!

 

 

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