Beautifull Camden, Maine, U.S.A.
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sat 27 Aug 2011 12:28
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SATURDAY 27th
AUGUST 2011
06.00hrs, A clear sky but dense fog surrounds
everything in Smiths cove , where we are anchored,
Smiths cove is across from Castine, which is, as
the crow flies, about 17 miles N.E. of Camden....
Smiths Cove is considered a Hurricane hole, so we
dicided to come here and shelter from the oncomming
path of hurricane " Irene" expected
here next Tuesday, and also Skipper wanted to visit Castine for historical
reasons,
Talking about Hurricanes, since leaving Ireland on
the 24th of June 2009, we have been through Storms ( Off the coast of Colombia),
a Tsunami ( The Galapagos) , visited a
live Volcano ( Tanna, Vanuatu ), Earth Quakes , U.S. A. and now , the
prospect of
a Hurricane, what next,
Back in the last centuary, Skipper worked at
Staten Island general hospital , N.Y. for his summer holidays on two
occasions,
The Big boss ( Walter Keohler 111 ) at the
hospital's maintainance dept. had
2 sons attending naval college in Castine and each
year, the Big Boss would give skipper the "Cadillac" to go and
collect the boys from college and bring them back
to N.Y.
Skipper remembers these trips vividly,
Driving for ever through forests in New England with names like Belfast,
Baltimore,
Suffolk, Manchester, names which one would
expect to find in England or Ireland, and finally , the beauty of the coastal
region of Castine itself, The sheer scale and
beauty of Maine would remain in his mind forever.
Little did he ever think then, that some day
we would sail in here on our own boat,,,,, How things go
!
Back to Yesterday, Friday
26th
Gerard never turned up for work this morning, so
Billy came to " A Lady" , Billy had met skipper during the week and
it
seems Billy is the real mechanic around here,
After some time, the generator was running and
charging, but not really purring, a bit rough, but at least it is not
overheating,
In fact, she is so rough, it is rougher than a "
Bears Backside"
Billy thinks the injectors need to be checked and the tappets need to be
adjusted,
skipper is not convinced that is the reason
she sounds so rough,
however it will have to wait untill next week as we
need to get out of here and sail to Smiths Cove before that place fills up with
boats sheltering from " Irene" and that there would be no room at the Inn, ( Cove
)
We settled the accounts, returned Brians V.W. and
slipped our lines as we set sail east around the end of the Islands
before turning N.E for Castine, and still, the boat
yard were lifting out boats as fast as they could as we left.....
The day was beautiful and sunny, with a light 12
knot SE breeze and a flat sea,
We took the sun almost to the point of burning and
enjoyed it all,
At 4.30pm we passed " Castine" and turned SE into
"Smiths Cove " just a mile or
two opposite Castine,
The Cove is mid sized, perhaps a mile and a
half long and 3/4 of a mile wide surrounded with tree covered hills,
Just beautifull and already packed with boats of
all sizes and types, from 150 foot sail boats to 20 foot launches,
not to mind a good collection of large Motor
Yachts,
We passed our friends on " Lady Bug" and found a
suitable spot well into the Cove where we dropped anchor,
The tide was low, so with 4m of water under us,
plus a 3m rise in tide, plus 2.5m for our own depth we decided
to leave out 50m of chain, plus another 2m for the
snubber, That shoud be good enough , no matter what blows up
....
As soon as we dropped anchor, these 2 guys came
along side in their little Lobster boat, " Are ye from Cork "! they
asked,
"We were in Cobh, Co Cork, recently in
College's the Naval Ship, "
It turned out that one of them, " Bill Brennan" is
president of Castine Naval college , and their ship was in Cobh this summer,
on a training course, what a small world,
!
AND, And, and, Bill thinks he knows skippers
two Kohler boys and will send on their details, Gawd, just think,
Skipper has not seen these guys since 1970. If they
are the ones, this will be a surprise if it all comes to pass,
We relaxed and had a roast chicken dinner,
then read books in a truely beautifull setting , skipper still reading
his " Lipton " book,
Another interesting day,
Thats all for now,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde ( Skipper
)
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