Harmonie - On the way to Maine

On the way to Maine

Harmonie

Don and Anne Myers

Sat 25 Aug 2007 03:07

43:31.301N 66:28.126W

We made the crossing from Nova Scotia to Maine on Monday (8/20/07), and arrived Tuesday morning at Northeast Harbor, which is just around the corner from Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Island. It took us about 26 hours (this was our location at about 7pm Monday night) and the wind gods were once again angry with us as the wind was mostly coming from the direction in which we were headed. The gods were either seriously angry or just out for a little fun because every time we reached a waypoint and changed our course one way or the other, the wind pretty much did the same. So, a long motor it was. We are doing our part to support the oil and gas industry.

With all of that said, what a crossing it was! The seas were fairly calm, the air was clear, the temperature was slightly higher than what we experienced in Nova Scotia (felt like a heat wave), the whales were extremely outgoing, the sunset was beyond words, the stars were fabulous, and when we reached the waters of Maine, the number of lobster pot lines and buoys sitting directly in our path were beyond belief.

So, let's start with the whales. We believe, based on our experiences thus far, that the whales have been successfully saved. During the daylight hours, we saw many. Remember those Moby Dick type whale tales where a sailor stands up on the bow or up in the crow's nest of a ship and yells 'Thar she blows!!'? Yup, they really do. The whales I mean. They blow. And here is a picture to prove it. Three of them. Blowing. Cool. Not only did this variety of whale blow (others don't), but it also reveals its tail when diving (see the second picture below).

All of this is really neat when seen from a distance, but when seen from just a few boat lengths away or even closer, it's a little, um, scary. We saw what we thought was a log just to the left of our path as we were moving along and realized as we passed it (at a safe distance) that it was a whale laying near the surface of the water. Then, early Tuesday morning, Don was on watch and I was sleeping when I heard the motor slow down really fast.

Just a quick side note here: when motoring or sailing for a really long time, you become accustomed to the specific sounds the boat makes (and there are many). So, if a sound suddenly changes or a new noise is heard, it's a major indicator that something must be wrong. When on a longer passage, you tend to be particularly jumpy about such things. Ok, I'm more jumpy about it than Don is, but then again I think he just hides his anxiety better than I do.

Ok, back to the story. I'm sleeping, and I hear and feel the engine go from 2200 rpm to idle really fast. Something is obviously wrong. I jump out of bed (wearing full long underwear attire and a few other layers, by the way) and run the two steps up to the cockpit. I look over at Don at the wheel and ask 'What's wrong?'. Don keeps his eye on the water ahead and calmly says, 'A really big whale just crossed right in front of the boat.' We both then looked to the starboard side [non-boater translation: right side] of the boat and watched as a really big-ass whale submerged into the water (and left a really big-ass ripple in its wake).

So that's our whale story. The only problem with all of this is that we saw many whales in daylight and had a close call with at least one. Kind of makes you wonder how many were out there in the dark, huh?

Ok, now the sunset. See the picture below. Beyond words.

And the stars. Just like in the movies. Millions of them. It was a perfectly clear night with no moon and no land with lights close by. I tried to take a picture with the camera on 'night setting'. I got a really attractive picture of our mast at night, but no stars.

Now the lobster pots. As we approached land and the water depth became shallower, we started to see lots of the buoys that are used by fisherman to mark the location of lobster pots. Correction. Don started to see lobster pots. I was sleeping (again). This time, Don actually woke me up to help him navigate through the lobster pot maze.

First another side note: For you non-boaters, If a boat runs into, over or really close to one of these lobster pot buoys, the line that connects the buoy with the lobster pot can very easily get wrapped around the boat's prop and create havoc. This is particularly true when motoring (vs. sailing). If this were to happen, it would be a very bad thing.

So, Don woke me up to help him navigate through the lobster pot maze. It went something like this:

Anne: "Do you see that pink and green buoy just to the right?"

Don: "Yup, I see it" (no trace of annoyance in his tone)

30 seconds later:

Anne: "Do you see that black and white buoy on the left?"

Don: "Yup, I see it" (slight trace of annoyance)

20 seconds later:

Anne: "Do you see that white one straight ahead?"

Don: "Yes. I see it" (annoyed)

10 seconds later:

Anne: "Do you see that orange one over there?"

Don: "Over where?" (quite annoyed)

5 seconds later:

Anne: "You're headed right for those purple ones, watch out!"

Don: " " (no response)

1 second later:

Anne "Do you see those purple ones?" (annoyed)

Don: " " (no response)

Anne goes down below to toast an english muffin for breakfast.

Needless to say, my help was not needed and Don navigated us through the lobster pot minefield very successfully. It took us close to an hour to wind our way through the pots into the channel to the harbor. The trouble is that the fisherman pay no heed to the channel - it's all fair game to them. Once we got to the mooring area within the harbor, we were amazed to see lobster pots in amongst the moorings (made for interesting maneuvering on Don's part as we came in to catch the mooring line). We have our own personal lobster pot right next to the boat here on our mooring in Northeast Harbor. The guy that manages the rental moorings did say that if we decided to help ourselves to some lobster, we might find our boat mysteriously floating free of its mooring line in the middle of the night. Apparently fishermen don't take too kindly to meddling boaters.

I didn't get any pictures of the field of lobster pot buoys coming in (too busy 'helping' Don navigate), but I'm sure when we leave tomorrow (Saturday, 8/25) there will be plenty of picture taking opportunities.

More about Northeast Harbor, Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park to follow in another posting.

Anne