Hurricane Island, Penobscot Bay, Maine

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Fri 24 Aug 2012 01:37

44:02.22N 68:53.14W

 

 

Thursday 23rd August

 

We woke to fog again today, but we could not make an early start anyway as I had decided that I needed to investigate the rumbling sound that we feel has developed recently under the boat when motoring. This involved a full wetsuit and a plunge into some pretty cold and rather murky water. I had rather assumed that it would be a lot clearer, but it was too late by then. The good news is that the prop all seemed fine as did the shaft anode which was a rather obvious suspect.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Miraculously the fog vanished around 1000 hours and we headed off from this idyllic anchorage and motored (again) to Hurricane Island. This involved more careful navigating between countless granite islands and rocks, but again we were rewarded when we made our way into the small anchorage close to the small dock on this rather special island.

 

Hurricane Island has had a chequered history, but its obvious heyday was in the late 1800’s when there was a thriving granite quarry and over 1500 people lived and worked on this tiny island. Incredibly in 1915,when the mine’s superintendent of some 20 years died, the entire operation shut down and within hours a panic had ensued with everyone rushing to catch what was billed as the last boat to leave. The place was turned into a ghost town literally overnight. In 1963 Peter Willauer (who was also on this rally in his boat ‘Eight Bells’) opened the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School, which was part of the worldwide network of outward bound schools. The school closed a few years ago, but the island is once again active with a newly developed Centre for Science and Leadership.

 

We were allowed to wander around the island and we saw the old quarry which was quite stunning as is so much of the scenery around here. The centre’s director gave us a talk about the place and it was undeniably an inspirational location.

 

After the talk it was time for everyone to say their goodbyes and whilst some of us will be back up in Maine next year, quite a few of the British boats will not, as one is heading back across the Atlantic and three are heading for Panama and the Pacific. John and Wendy also said goodbye as they were jumping ship yet again, to join Al Shaheen who were heading back to Camden rather than come with us to Rockland and getting a taxi back to Camden.

 

We lifted the anchor and set sail (hurrah, at last) and had a lovely reach across West Penobscot Bay to Rockland where we anchored again in the mooring field to the south east of the town.