logo Serafina
Date: 16 Aug 2012 00:18:45
Title: Burnt Coat Harbor, Swan Island, Maine
[<< Prev Post] | [Next Post >>]
[Back to Index/Map]

44:08.34N 68:26.80W

 

Tues & Wed – 14th & 15th August

 

Well I have to take it all back because on the strength of Tuesday alone, I can now confirm that Maine is indeed very pretty! The fog stayed away all day and the sun beat down out of a clear blue sky and we certainly saw the place at its best.

 

The day started with a good Samaritan act as we had spoken to fellow OCC member ‘Dovka’ the previous evening when they had called us on the VHF to say hello as they had just moored nearby and they had mentioned then that their outboard engine was broken. We are not using our smaller 2.5hp engine a lot and so we offered to lend it to them until the end of the rally next week which we are both attending. They were thrilled, but as we did not have our dinghy launched, Craig kindly ran me and the outboard over to them.

 

The morning was spent ashore with Craig and Karene in South West Harbour, Mount Desert island which was interesting and we took the opportunity to visit the William Gilley Bird carving museum which was actually a good deal more interesting than it perhaps sounds – although Sarah was not overly impressed I suspect!

 

In the afternoon we settled down to a few jobs and Craig insisted on lending us their new two man kayak and we had a paddle around the anchorage (and great fun it was – although Sarah immediately started making unlikely plans for a second-hand one next season.   And put it where?) which had only contained a few boats when we arrived (including the beautiful 138 ketch ‘Rebecca’) but was now rapidly filling with boats all flying the burgee of the ‘Cruising Club of America’. Some of them also had OCC flags so we paddled over to one to find out more about what was going down here and it transpired that the CCA had ‘do’ on ashore in the evening and we were very welcome to come along for a drink! We turned this down for the very good reason that we were already invited to dinner on Il Sogno. We visited several more OCC member boats and most of these will also be coming to the rally we are joining on Sunday, so we are set for a busy social time next week.

 

Wednesday started pretty early as we heard Il Sogno raising their anchor around 0630 hours and so we stuck our heads up to wish them a safe trip on their way back to Rockland to pick up some friends who will be sailing with them for a few days. Dovka also hailed us as they slid past on their way out of the anchorage, but we chose to have a slow morning as we had planned a shortish 23 mile sail ( and I stress the word ‘sail’) and were in no hurry to set off. No fog, but sadly very little wind either, but all this was to change.

 

We have managed very little real sailing in Maine as the wind has been very light and fickle and we have been pressing on to cover some ground, so today we felt we wanted to have a nice relaxing jaunt. We left Mount Desert island at 1150 hours and set a course to the south west. Of course this being Serafina, the wind was now coming from the south west and so we had to tack our way out from the islands into the open Atlantic. The wind stayed very light, but with help from the tide we made good progress and were eventually clear of the southern tip of the islands we were skirting round and able to change onto the opposite tack. This was the point at which the fog rolled in without warning and visibility dropped to barely 50 ft. We had already found it hard enough to sail close hauled and thread our way through the omnipresent lobster buoys and their attached toggles, but now we were unable to plan very far ahead as they loomed out of the dense fog just a few yards ahead of us. Helpfully the wind picked up at this stage and so we found ourselves batting along at 5+ knots in this predicament. So we pressed on with Sarah positioned on the bow spotting the pairs of buoys as they appeared out of the gloom and calling instructions to swing to port or starboard, whilst I juggled these commands with the need to avoid the bits marked as land on the plotter and spot possible boats and potential collisions on the radar.

 

Our destination was Burnt Coat Harbor on Swan island which is a working lobster boat base and has a tight entrance and is pretty shallow and very restricted. We worked our way into the small harbour, past rocks and buoys, but unable to see any of them at all and were relying very heavily on the GPS and mark one eyeballs! The fog chose to lift momentarily as we got inside the first part of the entrance and we were able briefly to see the layout ahead of us, but within a minute all this visibility was snatched away again and were back to navigating blind. We gently edged our way across the bay to a spot we judged might keep us out of the way of the lobster boats, but this place is like everywhere else, full of lobster pots and their guardian buoys. We were about to drop the hook, when we were treated to a second brief sight of what was now within 50 metres of us and were stunned to see that we were about to anchor squarely in the entrance to an working arm of the harbour that does not appear at all on our GPS chart! Again the fog immediately closed back around us and so using the recommendation from Active Captain (three loud cheers for Active Captain), we headed back across the bay to the spot they suggested for anchoring and dropped the hook there. Within minutes an American flagged yacht loomed out of the fog and it anchored nearby, which made us feel better and a bit safer too.

 

We were very pleased when a bit later the fog cleared again, albeit briefly and we were able to see where we were so to speak. It is actually a delightful spot and we seem to be well positioned, although having now seen the size of the resident fleet of lobster boats, we suspect we might be in for another early morning wake up call.

 

We have been reliably informed that the volume of pots generally deployed across the sea bed in Maine is possibly as much as a third less than usual, mainly because the price of lobster has fallen. (It is available to those of us in the know at just $2 a pound) Back in the day, lobster was considered a cheap foodstuff and was only fed to prisoners and slaves.

[<< Prev Post] | [Next Post >>]
[Back to Index/Map]

Diary Entries