Camden Harbor, Penobscot Bay, Maine

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Fri 17 Aug 2012 12:50

44:12.48N 69:02.97W

 

 

Thursday 17th August

 

Well the good news is that the fog was a lot less dense today, but that sadly is mainly because radiation fog tends to dissipate quite a bit in torrential rain.

 

The improved visibility at least allows us to see the murky outlines of the land and forests as well as the clouds and rain.

 

To round things off there was absolutely no wind and so we donned our full Atlantic wet weather gear (quaintly known as ‘foulies’ out here) and motored slowly out of Burnt Coat Harbor and past all the distinctive landmarks and navigational aids that had been hidden from us on the way in. One of these was the lighthouse at the entrance which was built in 1872 and its highly visible white presence served to guide the fisherman home, but in a cost cutting exercise the coastguard replaced this in the 70’s with a 20ft beacon whose light could only be seen half as far. The islanders protested and the lighthouse was restored, but in 1982 the coastguard stripped the white paint off the building to reduce repainting costs, making it almost invisible against the black background of pine trees and granite. The islanders again protested and it has been returned to its former glory!

 

We made good time to the island of Vinalhaven and since it was only midday and still sheeting down with rain, we chose to press on to Camden Harbor on the west coast of Penobscot Bay. As we passed between Vinalhaven and North Haven, we saw some interesting houses and boats and we are looking forward to returning there next week when hopefully the sun might be shining and we can see things properly.

 

With just the odd seal and porpoise to keep us company we finally made our way past Curtis Island and The Graves into the outer bay of Camden. The plan was to anchor here, but the anchorage seemed non-existent and the entire place is one huge mooring field (mooring buoys). We called up Camden Yacht Club on the off chance they could help and Barbs offered us a buoy, giving us rather good instructions how to find it.   After milling about in the pouring rain trying to identify the various empty buoys which are randomly numbered and lettered to indicate who owns what, we finally discovered that ‘our’ buoy  had an occupant who had decided to stay another night but not mention it!   Barbs then very helpfully came out in the YC launch and directed us to a buoy that was available for just one night. But because we are staying four nights as we are joining a rally that starts here on Sunday, we felt that it might be best to grab a spot in the tiny anchorage that she had pointed out to us so we could claim squatters rights, so to speak. So we thanked her for her help and dropped the hook nearby.

 

We had planned to go ashore at this point and check the place out, but if anything the intensity of the rain increased and with it came 20+ knots of wind from the north, so we hunkered down and whiled away the rest of the afternoon and evening getting some jobs down, listening to all the unseasonal sound effects outside.