Today I satisfied one of the things I really wanted to do in Maine: sail up the famous Eggemoggin Reach! This roughly 10nm stretch of water runs perpendicular to the prevailing SW breeze, so it’s a fast reaching passage up what feels a bit like a canyon. At around a mile wide, and covered in tall trees running down to the water, it’s a great zoom: sheets cracked, flat water and a chance to power the boat up and rip through this famous piece of water. It’s also a racetrack where every boat takes on each other, and a wonderful place to see beautiful Maine built windjammers, boats from the Wooden Boat School on the eastern side, classic schooners and every kind of boat in between. So it was with some anticipation that we worked our way past the RW ER buoy (a red-white painted buoy that signifies safe water, and in this case, marked ER for Eggemoggin Reach) …only to find…that…as always it seems… we were on the Eggemoggin BEAT (sailing into the wind). Now we all know that gentlemen don’t sail to windward, but we made an exception today and short tacked our way right up the ‘Reach’ over several hours, leaving short and satisfying zig-zags on the chart plotter. Sure enough, we were soon in a duel with three other boats, each of us beating our way west and trying to win the cross. One was smaller than us, so we rolled him with ease, as we should, but we had a good fight with a similar sized sloop. Funny how a casual sail turns into a hard core few hours of trimming sails, steering to the jib’s tell-tails, and trying to squeeze every bit of height out of the boat. We won, but it was close and tough, and Max did a great job – loving it in fact! – confronted with this sudden change of tempo and rush of competitiveness! Now he understands why we’re trying to keep the boat light!
After the Reach we hit fog again, slipped carefully through the Casco Passage and anchored in a foggy but interesting bay called Mackerel Cove, on Swan Island. There’s a little town here with a wonderful name: Atlantic. Perhaps we’ll go in, but I think more likely we’ll have a gin & tonic, crank up the barbie and cook dinner, and otherwise enjoy the gentle roll on this (the leeward, and therefore protected) side of Swan Island. From here we’re in striking distance of Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park. The real Maine! Yes!
The photos are of the plotter as we worked through Eggemoggin Reach, then one later that shows an afternoon's worth of tacking. The final one is the sleeping Outward Bound boat from yesterday.
I still have no internet, so write this in anticipation. Did you know too that you can click on any of these photos and they will enlarge. And you can also click on the ‘comments’ section below each update. It sends the comment to us first, by email, and then prints it on the site. We’d love to hear from you. Or you can just email me at tom_buchanan(at)mac.com
1 comment:
Sitting here at my desk in hot humid New York City makes me very jealous at the moment...
Looks amazing... and all the better with a little fresh seafood provided by mother nature. Careful diving up there.. lobster pots are plentiful and the locals don't take to kindly to strangers in diving gear! Saying that, would be over the side pretty quick for a look-see myself.
And now... back to staring at little flashing numbers on the screen and screaming voices on the phones as the markets try to figure out what is going on!
Post a Comment