Winter crept under my skin some time ago, slowing me as it slows the sap in the trees. I could tell you I've been busy, too busy to write a blog entry. But I couldn't tell you too accurately what has kept me occupied.
I'm in the final stages (I'm told) in writing the youth novel. Just a bit more tweaking (I'm told) and the arduous task of finding a good title.
But it's been more than two weeks since I got the last edit back from the agent and I've been too preoccupied -- with the season or other projects -- to finish that work.
Last week, I spent three days in Herndon, VA, interviewing Elaine Foster, my friend who provided me much of the research for Eight Survived. Now I'm trying to write a story about her amazing life.
But first, we are going to collaborate on a long magazine piece that she calls "The Truth about Thomas Paine." She is outraged that Glenn Beck has hijacked Paine to his cause -- which I would categorize as pumping up ratings. Her work was written some time ago. The task now will be to recast it as a broadside against Beck's claims of his affinity with Paine. She has the goods to make it work, and to break new ground about Paine's life.
When we get that done, Elaine wants me to help her with another project that she calls, in a subtitle, "What Ken Burns Didn't Tell You About the Civil War."
That's a great story, too. But I'm at least as intersted in telling Elaine's story and seeing her become, at age 86, the next feminist icon.
Two days until we get to see the grandchildren open presents. Monica is all atwitter! It should be fun.

From my desk, I can see through the front window the brilliant color of the red maple by the driveway, its background the rust of a cherry tree foliage and the yellow of another maple. Nearly Thanksgiving and many of the trees won't let their leaves depart, hoping to preserve their own beauty, even as time makes other demands.
The skin hangs in wrinkled folds under my arms where, a year ago, there were smooth, rounded muscles. I am embarrassed, ensnared in vanity, and try to restore more youthfulness with exercize, but it does not work. Were I a tree, I too would cling to my colorful leaves.
And then I think of Elaine Foster, whose mind and thoughts and curiosity glow, at age 86, through the tissues with which time has left her, transmitting the beauty of her inner qualities.
Last week, I spent another eight wonderful hours talking with Elaine, learning more about her research and her discoveries. In the end, I believe I will be able to write a story that introduces you to this special person whom I've had the good fortune to meet.
Meanwhile, work on the second rewrite of the second youth novel was completed last week -- I may have been silent on the blog, but I've been busy -- and I sold a few books in Newport, RI, to fellow Bermuda 1-2 sailors.
Bluebird is on land and buttoned down for the winter. Robin is in her slip and waiting for us to keep the sailing season alive.

The copper sailboat weathervane is spinning now atop the red sheet metal roof of the cupola and 1.5 of the 4 sides are clad in cedar shingles. One more project nearing completion while others simmer.
I've added one to the front burner. My working title is Battleaxe. Here's the pitch letter I'm sending to the agent, Mike Hamilburg.

The members of the Washington, D.C., church probably were unaware of the peculiar skills possessed by one of their members – Dr. Elaine Foster – when they agreed that she should investigate the congregation’s history. If they had known, perhaps they would not, in the end, have shunned her.
Parishioners did know this: Their church was founded by the very same Scottish stonemasons who built the White House. They took great pride in this and always had.
They must have been impressed with Foster’s credentials as a researcher, because they commissioned her to track down the details of that story for a book they were publishing.
But there was a problem. As always seems to happen when Foster delves into history, the story she unearthed took an unexpected turn or two.
The first side road led to the discovery that the dates were all wrong – that the White House and the church could not have been the products of the same stonemasons.
And that detour led Foster to a preacher who had run the church in the 1890s – a diminutive fellow who appears to have had a need to inflate certain facts in order to enhance his reputation.
Foster was only doing what she always does – laying out the facts as they are revealed by documents found in places such as the National Archives and the Library of Congress – when she wrote her chapter on the preacher. She told the story of a man in the grip of a Napoleonic complex; a minister for whom truth was an inconvenient concept. A man who made up the whole Scottish stonemason story.
And so, she was shunned. But she was proud, too, and to understand why, you have to know a bit about Elaine Foster’s life, starting when she was a child.
Foster is 86 years old. Her work has gone largely unnoticed, in great part due to the limits placed on her during that childhood. But she has taken on historical figures as famous as Benjamin Franklin and Tom Paine and as obscure as a Civil-War-era West Virginia folk hero, and her powerful and entertaining writing in each case tells a far different story than other historians offer.
Foster wades into the same apparently clear stream of history in which more famous historians have created whole careers by reinterpreting the stones that pave the stream bed. Foster is not content to walk on those stones but must overturn each one. The results are “The Truth about Tom Paine” and several other tracts that reveal her electrifying intellect and the ruthless honesty of her investigations.
My working title for the book is Battleaxe, a term from Foster’s earlier life that cuts two ways, reflecting the prejudices that for many years kept her brilliance hidden as well as the take-no-prisoners approach with which she wades into the past.

John Morrison described Bluebird's voyage yesterday in the Burlington Island race this way: Doug sailed and I bailed.
There were five boats in the race. Bluebird finished third. It was a great day for sailing and a good learning experience. Now Bluebird is on land for the rest of the year.
The forecast was for 20 to 25 knots with gusts to 45. At noon, the wind was a steady 14 with gusts over 30. The same was true when the race started at about 1:30 p.m.
No one was familiar with the unorthodox starting regimen: A blast on the horn at three minutes, three blasts at one minute, two blasts at thirty seconds and one blast at the start -- I think.
John and I got aboard Bluebird on its mooring and struggled with the rig, trying to get the boat ready to race. The jib sheets snapped back and forth and tied themselves into a knot. We spent time tying a reef in the mainsail, never before having done that. But we managed to be on the correct side of the starting line when the final horn sounded.
But we were about 200 yards from the line, whereas the smallest boat in the race, being launched from the beach, was right at the line at the start. The other three boats were behind us, including another O'Day Mariner, a McGregor Venture and a Sea Sprite, the only keel boat in the race, painted a dazzling shade of red.
The wind was from the north-northwest, so we were on a broad reach heading upstream against the current. The river heads east northeast for a mile, passing under the Burlington-Bristol drawbridge and then veering north northeast to round Burlington Island. We had a choice to sail around the island or to round a red buoy upstream of the island.
Before we reached the bridge, Bluebird was planing, skimming across the water with the centerboard raised not quite all the way. We were pulling away from the Sea Sprite, which at first had only its genoa raised. The other Mariner and the Venture were at the rear, but within sight all the way.
After passing under the bridge, we were abeam of the lead boat. But now, turning to port to round the island, we were beating into the wind, and the air was coming at us in blasts.
It was now that I made my first mistake as helmsman.
One blast heeled Bluebird sharply. I did not react swiftly to spill the air from the mainsail. The result was that we heeled all the way over and the river came in over the starboard rail.
When you do this on Robin or another big boat, the water may fill the cockpit, but it will drain back overboard. Not so aboard Bluebird, which has no self bailing cockpit.
I handled the succeeding blasts properly, and we rounded the red buoy in second place, about the same distance behind the lead boat, sailed by Paul Zeigler and his big son, as we had been at the start.
But Rich, Mary and Sarah Vishton in the Sea Sprite were closing on us as we tacked back along the side of the island. They finally passed us when we closed in on the bridge.
Now twice in succession I forgot to spill the mainsail when we were hit by blasts and river water was sloshing around in the cockpit and the cabin. John began bailing with a cut-off plastic gallon jug and I tried to keep from having to tack.
John turned 80 last month. Some 60 year olds make John look decidedly younger than they appear. He's in good shape, to say the least.
But what I did to him was obscene. There he was, bent over the centerboard or the port rail, his ass and elbows pointed toward the bright blue sky, his arm working furiously, emptying Bluebid. His was a gallant performance.
We managed to cross the finish line in third place, not more than four or five minutes after the Sea Sprite. I don't think the Zeigler boat was too far ahead of them. And the Frenches and the Rife's in the other two boats were close behind us.
As for poor Bluebird, she is on land. I need to figure out why she is taking on water -- and not the water she shipped during the race. Back on the mooring, I saw a thin stream of water entering at the centerboard bolt.
We had an exhausting but great sail, and we're waiting for next year to do it more often -- in a dryer boat.

The wind has arrived and the grandchildren are here -- Richard and Justin. Bluebird is buffeted and her boom tent ripples in waves of blue. But the rain has gone and it is bright and sunny, with a few lingering clouds.
Richard just assembled a jigsaw puzzle (missing three pieces) twice and now is pushing a folding trike around the house. Justin, no Chauvanist, is pushing a baby stroller. Oops! He's now on the trike and Richard is playing with a truck.
We have a great time on Fridays when they visit. Their big sister, Lindsey, is in the third grade. We pick her up at 2:30 in the afternoon.
By Friday night, my back is in need of orthopedic attention.
Tomorrow I test Bluebird in the Burlington Island Race. (That makes the assumption that she still remains afloat.) The race starts at the boat club on the Delaware River and travels upstream about four miles. Then you have an option either of circumnavigating the island or of going a bit farther upstream and rounding a channel marker. (The leeward side of the island can leave you stalled.)
Any type of non-motorized vessel can compete. There is no handicapping and there are few rules. For years, the most successful racers have been in kayaks or canoes. But a good stiff wind could make a sailboat the favorite.
I won the race two years ago -- the last time it was held -- in Monica's kayak. Once again, there was little wind.
I had entered twice before in consecutive years in our 420 sailboat, a light, round-bottomed dinghy prone to capsizing. Both times I was sailing single-handed. Both times, in good air, I turtled the boat.
My guess is that with John Morrison as crew, I will be able to keep Bluebird upright. But I'm prepared to turn over the trophy to a new winner.

I'm experiencing the nautical equivalent of having a teenager out on a date with the family car.
Bluebird is back on her mooring on the Delaware River, with a storm with 45-knot winds bearing down on New Jersey.
I've sailed Bluebird once -- as reported earlier. Then the centerboard cable broke and it has taken this long for me to install a new cable and a new winch. Part of the problem was the leaking that commenced when the 160-pound steel board fell from the raised position, pivoting on the centerboard bolt and wrenching the bolt sufficienty to undo the caulking we had smeared around the ends.
I launched on Monday, and the new caulking swelled as water seeped under it and stretched it like a balloon. John Morrison, who had come to the river for a sail in Bluebird, was recruited to fix the leak. He removed the caulk and used another type, which seemed to stop the leaking around the bolt.
But more water entered the boat from unknown perforations.
Oddly, when the water reached a certain level, still well below the cockpit floorboards, it stopped flowing in. I kept Bluebird moored to the boat club dock for two days and it did not sink.
So this morning, I started the outboard and towed the old, aluminum dinghy, steering against the current and wind to tie up to the mooring, less than 100 feet from the shipping channel.
And that's where Bluebird is tonight. It began raining around noon, but the wind won't arrive until tomorrow, I think. There is a blue Sunbrella boom tent over the cockpit, so I don't expect her to sink as a result of rain.
But I do worry about the integrity of the mooring line and Bluebird's ability to withstand tomorrow's blast. And I am concerned by the repeated seeping of water, despite the fact that it stops before sinking her.
Meanwhile, I've paid no attention at all to Robin. I stayed aboard her one night last week in the hopes of getting a jump start on traffic in nearby Washington D.C. the next morning. I had an interview for the next book I hope to write. I arrived at 11 p.m. and left at 6 a.m. and didn't even attempt to adjust dock lines, I was in such a rush.
By the way, in two weeks, I'll do my first book signing for Eight Survived. So far, I've seen no reviews. But my old employer, the Philadelphia Inquirer, has scheduled a review. I'm crossing my fingers.
The first signing will be at the boat club -- the Red Dragon Canoe Club -- where some of my friends and fellow sailors have asked for copies. That should be fun. I like to tell the story and hope there are a lot of questions from the audience so I can appear smarter than I am.

Ten copies of Eight Survived arrived last week and I've given away nine to family and to people who helped with the book. So far, I've managed to hold on to one copy, and I'm generally happy with it.
Now I'm looking for audiences for book readings/signings. I think that submarine veterans organizations would be a natural and I'm trying to contact some of those to offer speaking programs.
Meanwhile, Soundings Magazine has run my piece on the writing of the book in the November issue, which just arrived in our mailbox yesterday. They devoted three pages to the story. That was very nice of them. I'm hoping that will generate some interest in the book.
On Thursday, I'm driving to a suburb of Washington, D.C., to interview Elaine Foster, my friend who did so much of the research that resulted in Eight Survived. I'm hoping to write a book about her -- a biography that would reveal what a national treasure in hiding she is. Elaine's mind sparkles like the fuse on a firecracker. I just have to figure out what book marketers would think would sell.
Meanwhile, I'm making (very) slow progress rewriting the youth novel, have made no efforts at completing the cupola and am heading north with Monica this weekend for my 50th high school reunion -- the first reunion I've ever attended.
I think I'll take a nap.

Two things have happened since we returned from Maine.
Dodge Morgan, whom John and I visited on August 15 and who told us of his planned surgery in early September, never recovered from that operation. He died in the hospital on September 14.
I am talking with Dodge's friends and have been asked by Soundings Magazine to write a remembrance of him. That is a privilege, albeit a very sad one. Dodge was one of a handful of individulas I've met over the years that I wanted to get to know better, and never really did. He was a unique human being.
The second event is minor. Bluebird, the Mariner, was launched last Thursday and I got to sail her on Friday. She sailed exquisitely.

It was still dark when we arrived at the entrance to the Cape May Inlet. There was a commercial fishing boat waiting outside the inlet, and we slowed and waited to to see how the seas were breaking on the Inlet. That would give us some idea of how conditions might be if we rounded Cape May Point.
Another fishing boat arrived, and we listened to their radio conversation. The first boat had a steering problem, and the skipper asked the captain of the second boat for some advice.
Meanwhile, dawn was breaking and I was edging Robin slowly toward the point.
There appeared to be a couple of safe routes between the Inlet and the point. The one closer to shore seemed quite narrow when viewed on the chartplotter, and quite shallow. So I chose the one that started a bit farther from the beach and zig-zagged in toward the point.
There was no sunrise on this morning, the sky overcast as we edged closer to the surf line. At about 6:30, we were travelling parallel to the sand in about 15 feet of water, with no problems, when we reached the outer end of the point. If there had been bathers on the beach, we would have needed a bullhorn to talk with them, because it was a few hundred feet away.
I punched in a waypoint well up the Delaware Bay and we turned Robin toward that goal, some wind coming now from the south, and we motorsailed north.
I decided that I'd never go through the Cape May Canal again if the seas were calm. The experience had been bland and without problems.
We motor-sailed up the bay, running with the current until we were past Ship John Light.

A catamaran that had apparently come through the canal slanted toward us from starboard, slipped across our transom and finally edged ahead of us when we neared the Salem Nuclear plant. The boat entered the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal just ahead of us and it was tied to the town dock in Chesapeake City when we arrived. For the first time in our collected experience, John and I were able to moor at that dock behind the catamaran.
The crummy weather that had threatened us all day coming up the bay cleared to the north, and Engineers' Cove was lit at dinner time with billowing cumulus catching the late afternoon sunlight.

We showered, dined, and after a good night's sleep, we motored and sailed down the Chesapeake Bay to Robin's slip in Cambridge on the Choptank River, arriving in daylight, restored from a fine nine days on board.

Robin left Newport Harbor just behind Puma, the Volvo Ocean Race 70-footer. By the time her crew had her mainsail up, we were just beginning to raise Robin's.
But there was little wind, and what wind there was was on our nose. So we began motoring on a southwesterly slant out of Narraganset Bay, aiming toward Point Judith and the western side of Block Island ten miles beyond.
We had delayed our departure until 11 o'clock because we knew the favorable wind were not forecast to arrive until later in the day. If they did not arrive, we could always bail out and head down Long Island Sound, to the west.
Some place past Block Island and, to the west, Montauk Point, Robin's mainsail did begin to flutter, and soon, we were enjoying a westerly breeze.
The wind built and came around to the northwest, and we began sailing without the engine.
Then the wind veered to the north, as predicted, and we were on a broad reach. As the wind speed built, so did the weather helm -- the tendancy of the boat to steer up into the wind.
In fact, the weather helm became so strong -- despite our trimming of the sails to counter the effect -- that we were no longer able to steer the boat with the autopilot.
Being thoroughly modern sailors -- which translates into "too lazy to steer the dang boat ourselves" -- we doused the sails and returned to motoring. It was, by now, well into the dark of night.
I was on watch in the early morning hours as we crossed the shipping lanes from Europe to New York. I saw several ships before the one that, on the radar, seemed to be heading our way.
I saw it first at ten miles. Then I saw it (on the radar screen) at six miles. It was about two miles west of another ship, but I physically saw that ship and saw that it was not headed for us.
(You tell the direciton that a ship is traveling by two white lights on masts. The shorter mast is on the front of the ship, the taller one at the rear. If the shorter one is to the left, the ship is traveling from right to left. If the two lights are one directly above the other, it is headed for you.)
When the second ship was two miles away, its lights were one over the other. I radioed our position and asked the ship what it wanted us to do. The master called back and said he saw us and was turning to go to our rear.
The next photo is of that ship, whose lights can be seen if you really strain.

You can see the first light of day seeping into the picture to the right, which, of course, was the east.
It was some time later in the morning that we first began to discuss in honest terms my desire to sail outside of Cape May. I'd heard a couple of professional captains tell of doing this -- of ducking inside the shoals that sit offshore of Cape May Point and taking a narrow channel that leads very close to the beach. One captain told of talking to the bathers on the beach as he passed.
The alternative is going through the Cape May Inlet into Cape May Harbor, then running the four or five miles of the Cape May Canal with its shoal banks to get out to the Delaware Bay.
I thought that if we could take the outside route, we'd save ourselves the stress that the inlet, harbor and canal involve.
John wasn't too sure of my sanity.
"It's your boat," he said, suggesting that if I wrecked my boat, he would be happy to swim ashore.
So John got out the Eldridge tide charts in an effort, I think, to dissuade me.

Later, when John was taking another nap and I was on watch, Robin hooked a bluefish. I discovered this fact when I looked aft and saw a gaping jaw dragging behind us. When I began to reel, the fish fought. But it must have been on the line for a while, because its strength was low.
I finally hauled the 31-incher aboard, thanked it for its meat (acknowldging that we, too, would be meat for some species in time) and then butchered it on deck. I took the picture to prove to John the nature of the meat that I would serve him that night.

We sailed along the Rhode Island Coast to the mouth of Narraganset Bay and then sailed part way in toward Newport before turning on the engine and furling the sails. Opting not to contend with the difficulties of anchoring in a crowded harbor, we called ahead and were assigned a mooring by the Oldport Launch service.
It was about five o'clock when we called the launch for a ride into town. We had our shower bags packed with toiletries and a change of clothes, and we anticipated warm showers at The Seamen's Church Institute, a favorite stop near the waterfront.
But the church was closed except for the nightly AA meeting, so I devised Plan B.
We walked a quarter mile around the harbor to Long Wharf and the Newport Yacht Club, which hosts the Bermuda 1-2 race. I've taken several showers there before and after the race, and I guessed that we might talk our way into two more.
It did take some talking, but we got clean and clothed and then I phoned Capt. Mr. Louie Lagace, my friend who owns a commercial clam boat. He and I had talked about getting together for dinner when we were in town.
Louie met us at Yesterdays Restaurant, where we enjoyed a good meal and some fine conversation.

John, left, and Louie bonded as old sailors will. Then John and I caught a launch back to Robin. The forecast was still good for a departure at noon tomorrow and a straight sail toward Cape May.

Provincetown, even at five in the morning, shed enough light to make slipping our mooring easy. Quietly, we motored out of the harbor and headed for the entrance to the Cape Cod Canal, twenty-one miles to the southwest.
The air was still and the temperature a bit less chilly than we had experienced farther north. When we were half way across Cape Cod Bay, the sky began to brighten with the new day.

The water was flat calm. Only our wake disturbed the reflected image of the sky above.



We were on time arriving at the fuel dock in Sandwich and were heading south on the canal at 8:30 a.m. At one point, Robin hit 9.9 knots, not quite as fast as on the way north.
Out on Buzzards Bay, there still was no wind. Motoring was better than battering against seas kicked up by a Buzzards Bay southwesterly.
By early afternoon, we had turned the corner south of Cutty Hunk, and now the wind had arrived -- eight to ten knots on the port bow. We began sailing.
It was about now that Captain John struck a commanding pose.

The decision where to go next was complicated by the timing of the current change in the Cape Cod Canal. We could make it to several ports along the way during daylight. But none of the ones we considered was very close to the canal entrance.
The distance from York Harbor to Scituate, MA, was not bad. But we would still have 40 miles to go to make it to the canal. The fact that the current turned in our favor at 6:30 in the morning meant we'd have to leave Scituate at about 2 o'clock in the morning.
Plymouth, MA, is about 20 miles closer to the canal. But to get into the Plymouth harbor requires an hour-long detour in some pretty swift currents passing through treacherous shoals.
Then we thought about Provincetown, MA, on the tip of Cape Cod, about 20 miles from the canal. We would arrive there after dark. I'd sailed from Provincetown once before with Tom Gilmore, but my recollection of the layout was hazy.
So we studied the charts and, as best we could see, entering the well-protected harbor posed no serious problems, even after dark. I phoned the owner of the mooring field in Provincetown and learned that we could arrive any time and would be met by a launch, directing us to a mooring.
This became the plan, and we aimed Robin's bow for Race Point.
It was a long day of motoring. We passed outside Isle of Shoals off of Portsmouth, NH, and then steamed at a leisurely pace, seeing the shoreline fade away in the western distance before returning toward us at Cape Ann and Gloucester, MA. We saw the Boston skyline in the hazy distance as we crossed Stellwagen Bank, an area known for whale sightings.
We saw no whales nor much else of interest, but before dark we could see the hazy shape of the Provincetown lighthouse. And then we saw the sun setting, molten, across Massachusetts Bay.
It was ten o'clock in the evening when we rounded the last buoy outside of Provincetown Harbor. With the help of the chartplotter, we lined up the correct red lights and called in for the mooring launch.
Before 10:30, we were on a mooring and bunked down for a five o'clock departure.
During the day, we had received a promising weather forecast for the next few days. It appeared that in two days, the wind would turn around to the northwest and then the east. If that forecast held, we would be able to sail straight from Newport or Block Island to Cape May, NJ. Taking the offshore route, we could avoid an extra day on Long Island Sound, as well as the traffic that that route -- going down the East River by Manhattan -- would include.
We crossed our fingers and hoped.

It was raining at five o'clock in the morning when I awoke. Rain was tapping on the cabintop, and there was fog when I finally looked outside -- fog so thick you couldn't see land in any direction.
I wasn't sure if we'd be sailing this day. I wanted the trip to be easy, not stressful, and wouldn't think of heading out in bad weather.
But by seven o'clock, the fog had lifted a bit and the rain had stopped and within an hour, we were under way.
Lobster boats were heading out with us. Some times you knew because you saw them. Other times, you only heard their diesel engines. The radar was on and we limited our speed, both because of the poor visiblity and also so we could hear other boats.
But by the time we reached the mouth of Quahog Bay, we had enough visibility to see a few hundred feet, so we could motor with some speed.
Quahog Bay is on the eastern end of Casco Bay, which is a serrated coastline of narrow peninsulas and ragged islands that extends east northeast of Portland, Maine, the biggest port on the Maine coast.
We set our first waypoint so as to evade a congestion of buoys that mark the outer reaches of the Portland harbor. And we set the radar for about three miles, since the foge came and went with varying degrees of severity.
Our destination was York Harbor, where I hoped we would arrive in time to have dinner with old (and I mean old ) college friends. If we could arrive in York Harbor by late afternoon, we'd be in time for the meal.
Due to the thickness of the fog off of Portland, we were making constant checks with the radar as well as standing steady watch -- John to port and I to starboard.
I came up from checking the radar screen above the chart table and, ducking out from under the dodger and letting my gaze sweep forward, I was stunned.
There, off the port bow, was a huge yellow steel crane above the fog bank!
I immediately turned Robin to starboard, to John's surprise, I think.
The ship was anchored, making no sound, and it had not appeared on the radar screen, at least in a form I recognized. But as we passed, the fog lifted enough near its stern that we could see its massive shape and know we had nearly rammed its side.
I sey "nearly" although perhaps we had several hundred feet between it and was when we saw it. I still don't know.
In time, the fog cleared and we were able to see Nubble lighthouse on Cape Neddick in York (see photo) and to motor into York Harbor with no problem.
The dinner that night was fun. I was happy that John got to meet my friends. (In the photo, from left, John, Guy Hollingworth, Ann Hollingworth, Nina Hollingworth -- Guy's mom -- Kathy Flagler -- hidden -- Barbara Michael, Curt Michael and Charlie Flagler.)

We weren't rushing home, but we were not dawdling. So in the morning, we slipped out of Boothbay Harbor in a drizzle with an ominous overcast and a sail-snapping southerly wind. Heading into the wind with the mainsail raised, we motored until we got well clear of land and then turned west.
At first, we were protected from whatever was out to sea by some small islands. But once clear, we found steep, black waves advancing on our port bow.
Robin turned around one red buoy and bore off, enough to use the wind. Ahead on the charts and chartplotter were more rocky obstacles. And then we had to choose whether to go through a narrow pass between a point of land at the eastern end of Casco Bay and the pile of rocks offshore or to steer a more southerly, offshore coast to evade the rocks entirely. That would add miles to our travel toward our next destination -- Quahog Bay and Snow Island.
We decided to go for the short route. I don't know about John, but I was almost holding my breath when we entered the shoal passage.
Then, on the far side, we noticed a universal Maine navigational aid -- a steel rod or pipe, bent either on purpose or by rough seas and ice, poking up above the four to five-foot waves. It marked a rock that may or may not have been exposed at low tide but certainly was very close to the surface.
We gave the bent steel a wide clearance before turning north into the mouth of New Meadows River and then striking a course slanting to the northwest, toward the narrow fairway of Quahog Bay. The boundary between New Meadows and Quahog is marked by small islands and rocks on which the waves were crashing.
Robin rode well in the following sea, and the chartplotter helped us find the deep course. Soon, we were motoring between the steep evergreen walls of islands on either side, with Snow Island coming into view ahead.
My plan was to visit Dodge Morgan free of the crush of a picnic for 140. I had emailed in advance and Dodge said he and Mary Beth would be home.
So we anchored off the southern point of Snow Island, launched the dinghy and went ashore.
We spent an hour talking with the Morgans. But they had come home around midnight from the airport and we assumed they had had little sleep. So we cut the visit short and hiked around the island before returning to Robin ahead of the coming rain.
For the first time in sevral days, I prepared dinner -- chicken breasts, potatoes and a vegetable -- and we settled in for the night. The long, rainy night.

John Morrison and I drove the rental car back to Rockland, where we stopped at a supermarket and provisioned for the trip back to the Chesapeake. It was Saturday evening, and when we had the stuff stowed aboard, we went out for dinner.
Sunday morning, Robin slipped her mooring line and returned to Penobscot Bay, motoring into a moderate headwind. Our destination was Boothbay Harbor.
The route took us south to the mouth of the bay and then west along the coast. Once we'd made that turn, the wind came off the port bow and in time, we were sailing with no engine.
From time to time, we would see a megayacht ketch closer to shore. It had tucked behind some islands south of Rockland when we chose to go out on the bay. It appeared to be huge.
We were taking a direct, offshore route, but there were islands inshore, the first of them Burnt and Allen Islands. John and I had visited these islands on our first trip from Maine, when we helped Tom Gilmore bring his 46-foot cutter home to New Jersey.
The mega-ketch squeezed behind the islands and we lost sight of it for a while, but it reappeared on the other side, still paralleling our course.
The charts and the chart plotter told us of several rocks that we must avoid, but in time we were sailing a straight line on a beam reach.
After the two weeks Monica and I had spent cruising, I was feeling much better about sailing. And because John and I had no mandatory schedule for our return trip, this first day at least was relaxing.
Neither of us had entered Boothbay before and when we turned a corner to do that, the layout was confusing. We called ahead (using the cruising guide as a reference)and reserved a mooring, having learned there was not much of an anchorage. The wind was fresh. So we lowered the sails rather than taking the more heroic path of sailing up to the mooring. We called ahead (using the cruising guide as a reference) and reserved a mooring. The guide said there was not much of an anchorage.
Ashore, we got showers, paid for the mooring and then walked into town for dinner, passing a large Catholic church with a heavenly sky for a backdrop. I capped off the evening at the local ice cream store, where I found my favorite flavor -- orange pineapple.

We departed Belfast on another sunny, windless morning and headed south toward Rockland. Monica's time with me in Maine was drawing to a close.
With the throttle level only partially depressed, we motored slowly between the western shore of Penobscot Bay and the western shore of Islesboro island.
The autopilot was doing all the work of steering. There were scant lobster pot buoys in this reach and few boats to dodge.
We did not have time to make any long stops, but I wanted to enter the harbor at Camden, just so we knew what it looked like from the water. So we took a back-door entrance, marked by several red and green day markers and buoys, and, followed by a windjammer schooner, nudged in close to the inner harbor.
Camden is a tourist town if there ever was one. The inner harbor is filled with floating docks, where you can moor your boat (for a fee) and then dinghy to shore or get a water taxi.
We did not venture into that crammed harbor but turned and steamed back out to the bay. I don't foresee a time when I woul want to return to Camden by boat. There are many more places where you can spend a pleasant night, without the traffic jam.
We arrived in Rockland at mid-afternoon and, after showering on shore, had an exotic dinner at a fine restaurant.
The following night, Friday, we were invited to dinner at the home in nearby Thomaston of Peggy and Peter McCrea, fellow Bermuda One-Two veterans. Peggy, a professional water colorist, gave me some pointers and some magazines and served us one of the best meals we had all our time in Maine. Peter and I caught up on each others' sailing adventures.
Then the vacation was over, and I delivered Monica (by rental car) to the Manchester, New Hampshire, airport, were John Morrison arrived in the terminal just as the wheels of Monica's flight left the ground.

It seems the best harbors in Maine are so popular that the available anchorage space fills with moorings -- private some times, rentals other times.
So it was in Castine and so it was across the Penobscot Bay to the west in Belfast.
We phoned ahead to the town harbormaster -- or mistress, as was the case -- and were assigned a mooring even before we arrived some time in early afternoon. Our mooring was on the far side of the harbor from the town. But with the engine on the dinghy it was little trouble to get ashore.
I had visited Belfast alone once before. Indeed, I came here from Castine that day three years ago and was met out on the water by another Westsail 32, Heron, skippered on that day by her owner, Don La Coste, who like I was singlehanding.
It so happened that Soundings Magazine had hired pro photographer Billy Black to get some shots of Robin that day, and, on a rented power boat, he met Robin out on the bay at about the time Don arrived on Heron.
Once Don had his sails up, Heron and Robin sailed together, all three sails up on both boats, and Billy took photos of the two, looking like dance partners. They are the best pictures we have of Robin by far. And that sail, with Heron and Robin absolutely synchronized, was a dream.
Once I had Robin on a mooring, Don and I went ashore and shared a good burger meal and a couple of hours of excellent conversation.
This time in Belfast, the time was winding down on our cruise together, so Monica and I went to town but returned to Robin for much of the afternoon, for reading and water color painting.
Then we had one more meal ashore. Monica had already had enough lobster, so this time she chose shrimp. It was excellent, she reports.
It should be noted that the harbormaster was the most accomodating of any we encountered in our cruise. She was friendly on the radio and in person, prompt and efficient.
And the town of Belfast was ideal of a "cute"-starved sailor like Monica.
If we'd had time, I would have liked to poke my nose into French and Webb's boatbuilding operation to see what was going on there. They create exquisite boats in wood, some traditional and some modern. We can try that next time.
There had been no wind on the trip over from Castine, our second day without sailing. But we always had tomorrow.

Leaving Northwest Harbor in a sunny dead calm, we headed for Castine. We motored slowly -- no rush here -- and in about an hour or so, we completed a loop that we had begun ten days before when we left Pulpit Harbor.
What had seemed in the months before we reached Maine to be a challenging and perhaps treacherous collection of islands and rocks had turned out, in reality, to be, if not simple, at least pleasant.
We watched a number of sailboats with their sails raised edging along Eggamoggin Reach to the north as we slanted northwest toward the main body of Penobscot Bay. Ahead lay Islesboro, a long, slender island that bisects the bay between Camden, to the south, and Belfast to the north.
In Castine, there was a good anchorage. But it was well away from the town, and we hadn't been ashore in three days. So when we got close to mouth of the Bagaduce River, we phoned the Castine Yacht Club and got instructions for tying up to their dock.
The price was right: A required donation of $20 for the night, plus $3 each for showers. We walked ashore -- no dinghy necessary -- just after noon and walked a block to a place that made great sandwiches.
A young man eating his sandwich on the rooftop deck at the shop had a yellow lab puppy on a leash and the pooch was sound asleep, the picture of contentment. He wasn't roused when a woman diner crouched with her camera to take his picture. He wasn't roused by the aroma of the food. He didn't open his eyes when his belly was rubbed, just sighed.
The local ice cream counter had run out of all but five flavors, none among my top ten, but was expecting a shipment tomorrow. I couldn't wait and bought a pint of coffee ice cream at the small grocery store across the street.
Then we did some reconnaisance for our dinner meal and decided on a waterfront restaurant. We went back to Robin and rested for the exertion of another meal ashore.
At about six o'clock, we arrived at the restaurant and were seated on the deck under a canopy. I'd heard someone mention approaching electrical storms. They arrived with our entrees, and we got to watch people scrambling in from the uncovered part of the deck.
The meal was great and the rain stopped by the time we were ready to head back to Robin in the dark. It was certainly nice to not be faced with a long dinghy ride.
Normally back in Cambridge, if we were tied to the dock, we would have plugged in to shore power to use the air conditioning. That wasn't necessary because, although it had been a warm day, the night once again was cool.

The next morning, retracing our path, we left Seal Bay and headed north on East Penobscot Bay. One boat left just behind us and turned west, heading for the Fox Islands Thoroughfare. We skirted North Haven and soon were sailing at about 4 knots in fog that shifted from very limited visibility to a half mile.
It was one of those mornings when the fog was shallow and you could see the sun's glow just overhead. That lighted our spirits as well.
At one point, a gray shape appeared off our port bow and crossed our path ahead. It was a schooner, and it tacked toward us and then sailed down our port beam.
It was the Lewis R. French, launched in 1871. Soon, its form disolved in the fog off our port quarter.
After perhaps a couple of hours, the fog lifted and we began to see the islands we were passing, some bald rocks and some forested, few developed. They made you want to paint a picture.
Our leisurely sail -- it was our ninth in ten days -- brought us to Northwest Harbor on Deer Isle. Like Seal Bay, it was a well-protected anchorage with gorgeous scenery and very little reason to go ashore. There was a village with a church steeple to the south, but at low tide, you would have had to leave your dinghy far from the high-tide bank and wade ashore probably through mud.
We took a dinghy ride around the end of the harbor and past some moored boats. But then we returned to Robin for dinner, reading and another cool night of sleeping.
The sun set over the purple mountains to the west as we thought about the next day's journey -- to Castine, home of the Maine Maritime Academy, a place with facilities and restaurants.

Stonington was a nice stop and had we had more time, we might have lingered a bit to explore the area. But when a clear morning dawned, we headed out onto East Penobscot Bay and the north end of Vinalhaven, one of the most southerly islands that, like Isle au Haut, fronts on the Atlantic Ocean.
We had studied the cruising guide and found that the major harbor on the island's south, while intersting, offered less than ideal anchoring or moorings. In this our first extended cruise in Maine, we chose to aim for the north side of the island and two anchorages that appeared to be closer to ideal. But we still hadn't selected in which of these we would drop anchor.
We were following a couple of sailboats when we left Stonington and headed west. The path to Seal Bay and Winter Harbor, the two destinations we'd chosen, is the same route from Stonington as the passage to Fox Islands Thoroughfare, a fairway between Vinalhaven and its neighbor to the north -- North Haven. The thoroughfare is the quick way to get from Stonington to Rockland.
So these boats ahead of us might have been going to Rockland. We didn't know. But iwth their white sails raised, they made a pretty man-made detail on the dark evergreen forests of the rocky islands ahead and on either side.
Once we passed the lighthouse at Mark Island a mile or two west of Stongington, the wind came up for our sailing comanions and us. We were able to beat into this southwesterly breeze and, as it built, turn off the engine.
Before long, the wind direction had turned more to the south, and we were flying. Robin was knocking over the growing waves at seven knots and well before noon, we were close to the shore of Vinalhaven. At this rate, our sailing would be over for the day, so we came about and sailed back, toward Isle au Haut. Half way there, we doused the genoa. The wind was now really piping! Then we came about and shot across East Penobscot Bay.
By now, mulling our options -- Seal Bay and Winter Harbor -- we had come to a conclusion.
To enter either harbor, we would first sail into a cut along Vinalhaven's edge. Winter Harbor would be straight ahead, a long, thin piece of water that went from the northeast to the southwest. The forecast was for stronger southwesterly winds, and the cruising guide said in that situation, you could be in for a rough night anchored in Winter Harbor.
Getting to Seal Bay involved sailing into the same notch in the edge of Vinalhaven but then making an immediate left, avoiding the rocks to starboard while dealing at times with a cross current. That seemed dodgey.
But Seal Bay promised a more tranquil night once we'd made it past the entrance, and we had the chartplotter to guide us, so we went for it.
By now, the puffy white clouds of morning had joined hands overhead and the sky had become overcast with gray. We motored in to a place where we could anchor in about 15 feet of water at mid tide. There were a half dozen boats there before us, but when the hook was down, the nearest boat was 200 feet away or more.
This would have been an ideal place to go ashore and explore. There were no homes along the rocky banks, and there was an unhinabited island to the east, where some boaters with their dogs were playing.
Instead, Monica read a book and I fished and read and we both ate more than we should have.
Undisturbed, we watched the clouds lower on our anchorage, felt Robin swing on her anchor in the wind and settled in for a good night's sleep with no worries at all.

We left Burnt Coat Harbor on another spectacular morning and, with the mainsail raised, passed a windjammer schooner that had come in after us the night before. They were about to leave as we went by. Next, we rounded the lighthouse on the point to the east and kept well clear of submerged rocks on our starboard side.
By the time we cleared the last island, we had a steady if light breeze and were able to turn off the engine.
Our destination was Stonington on Deer Island, one of the larger towns on these Maine islands. To get to Stonington, we had to traverse Deer Island Thoroughfare, which on the charts appeared to be a narrow path through dozens of islands and submerged rocks -- enough challenge for one day. The thoroughfare would take us from east to west.
But we had decided to make a lunch stop north of the thoroughfare in a long, skinny bay that the cruising gide said was a decent anchorage. So we sailed to the northwest in wind that built steadily to perhaps 12 to 15 knots.
Steadily, the breeze turned us farther and farther north, toward a rocky shore, and for simplicity sake, we took down the sails and motored into the bay.
The wind was southwesterly or perhaps westerly and, when we reached the narrow entrance to the bay -- pinched between large boulders to port and a ledge shore to the north -- the wind was blowing on Robin's nose and some velocity.
No way we were going to anchor in that stiff breeze. It was too much bother, although as always, the scenery around us was wonderful.
So we turned and left the bay, steering south toward the thoroughfare.
Again, we had to pick our way through shoal water and random rocky outcroppings, a chore made easier if not simple by the chartplotter.
The wind now was no help, blowing as it was straight at us from Stonington to the west about five or six miles.
In unknown waters, caution mixed with fear keeps your attention focused.
We had been told by the cruising guide that the municipal anchorage in Stonington was not a good option, so without trying it, we went a mile beyond the town and found a mooring at Billings Diesel and Marine on an island connected to the main island by a causeway.
After dinghying to the boatyard and paying for the night, we began walking to town. The cruising guide said the hike would be more than a mile, and so we were pleased when, approaching the boatyard property line, a lobsterman stopped his pickup and offered us a ride. He was probably our age but looked ancient, and we had a great conversation with him and later took his advice where to dine: Not the ritzy restaurant but "The Fisherman's Friend" restaurant, where the fish chowder was incredibly good.
When we headed back to Robin, we learned that our conversation with the lobsterman had blinded us to the terrain and distance we traveled to get to town. There was no taxi available in Stonington, and the hike was up and down hills through neighborhoods neither of us could remember.
In the restaurant, we had a window seat and this gave us a chance to observe a gentleman whom we had noticed before we entered the restaurant. He was sitting on the edge of the quay wearing a yellow slicker and a nautical cap. He looked homeless, with a beard as shaggy as mine, and I thought he might be trying to get tourists to take his picture for a fee. While he looked sort of salty, it was a somewhat phoney look.
Now, in the restaurant, while we waited for our food we saw that he had an old Ford van which he visited from time to time. He seemed to be cooking his dinner in the van.
When our server returned, I asked her if she knew anything about the man.
"Oh, that's Sid. He prowls through the Dumpster and feeds the seagulls," she said.
My guess about his employment was off base. He was simply a peculiar man who chose to hang out near the docks all summer long.
We determined that anchoring or taking a city mooring directly off town would have been a better option than where we had settled. But once we had hiked back to Billings and dinghied back to Robin, we passed a relaxing night aboard, ready for the next morning's adventure.

The availability of wifi at our various stops in Maine was zero, so I couldn't post to the blog. I'm home in New Jersey now and Robin is in her slip at Cambridge, MD.
But I want to tell the rest of the story of our Maine cruise, so I'll do it in installments, from memory, trying to get the highlights.
It was a wonderful two weeks with Monica on board, perhaps the best vacation we've ever shared.
Next -- we resume the cruise.

We left Northeast Harbor with 200 feet maximum visibility and, employing the chartplotter, turned west and north, into the mouth of Somes Sound. We couldn't see the shore until we were well into the mouth and approaching a choker passage, and then the fog never lifted much higher than 100 feet, so we motored the entire way to Somesville and never saw the imposing and legendary cliffs and mountains on either side.
For the first time in three days, we anchored, this time in a mooring field, and settled in with onboard activities. Monica read. I sketched a nearby downeast boat and its backdrop of rocks, forests and a landing with a floating dock. Then I attempted to fill in the drawing with watercolors, hoping this time the picture would be a little less muddy than the last effort.
Late in the day, a sailing megayacht arrived and took a large mooring between the sound and Robin. Shrouded in fog, she looked mysterious, her dark hull turned so as to obscure the name on her transom. Her lines were exceptionally beautiful and I guessed she was a Ted Fontaine design. Every curved line blended perfectly with adacent curves, a Fontaine hallmark.
In the morning, the fog lifted and the sun came and went. There was a seal in the harbor and there were numerous kayakers. And there were many interesting boats in the harbor, in addition to the megayacht.
By nine o'clock, we had weighed anchor and begun motoring toward the sound, which we've been told several times is North America's only fjord. As we passed the megayacht, I hollered to the owner, who was having breakfast with several others and reading a newspaper in the center cockpit. "Who's the designer?" I asked. I think he said Chuck Paine, the man who has designed many of the Morris yachts. We'll never know for sure. I was unable to readthe yacht's name on the transom, in shadows.
Finally, as we headed through the sound, we got to see the magnificent scenery, the cliffs and mountains.
Out in Western Way, the entrance from the ocean to Northeast and Southwest Harbors, we raised the sails and for most of the morning, we tacked in light breezes toward Long Island and Frenchboro, where we hoped to anchor for the night. But after passing some rocky islands with ocean waves bursting on their stone chests and reading once again the description of the anchorage in Frenchboro, we thought again and went on to Burnt Coat Harbor on Swan's Island near Toothache Bay, where we took a mooring for the night and spent another good afternoon, reading and sketching aboard Robin and, with the binoculars, snooping on our neighbors and the local lobstermen who, in the afternoon, returned with their catch to the fishermen's coop.
Just before dinner, the sky darkened as if to blow up some electrical entertainment. But the clouds moved on, leaving only a beautiful sunset with oranges and purples and cool air that blew into the V-berth hatch and made for a pleasant sleep in a secure harbor.

Yesterday began overcast and grim but grew into a brilliant, sunny day by the time we reached the mouth of Blue Hill Bay. The wind, mostly from the west, was light to moderate, but by the time we had to turn east and make our way around Bass Harbor, there had been some stiff gusts that prompted us to reef the main an douse the Genoa.
Normally, we wouldn't have shortened sail. But we had to cross a stone bar only 13 feet deep right off the point east of BassHarbor,and we didn't want to place ourselves in the position where we could be overpowered in tricky waters.
There are two buoys, one to the west and the other to the east of this bar -- red and white buoys which normally mark the entrance to a body of water. In this case, they marked the entrances to the shallow channel across the bar.
As we approached the western buoy, we sailed Robin to a point where, when the buoy was a couple of hundred feet away, it lined up with the eastern buoy. At that point, as we had planned, Monica hauled on the main sheet and I steered Robin into a gybe (or jibe. I've seen it spelled both ways.)
Now we were on a run, the wind behind us, the reefed main out to starboard, the staysail out to port.
As we approached the bar, a Catalina 30 fell in line behind us. It looked to me as though the skipper was taking advantage of what he supposed was our superior local knowledge. Of course, we had never crossed the bar before, so he was following us with misplaced trust if that were the cdase.
The distance between the two buoys was about a quarter of a mile, and the water, rising up from the depths on one side to wash across the rocks, was choppy. We made 3.5 knots the whole way, watching the chart plotter and the depth guage intently as a ticket holder on a long-shot horse watching the race.
The bar is just off the coast from one of the most popular light houses on the Maine coast.
Tourists were scuttling over the brown, rust-stained boulders and ledges as we passed. A large seal surfaced to visit near the eastern buoy.
The passage was otherwise uneventful, and the Catalina made it through without incident, just off our stern. It was another two-mile sail to the green buoy that marked the entrance to Western Way, a passage between the mainland of Mount Desert Island and Great Cranberry Island, to the east. Ledges come out from either shore when you turn into Western Way, with waves breaking over them and thundering like surf on the New Jersey shore.
Now we had about three miles to go to reach the mouth of Northeast Harbor, our destination, and we were on a reach in moderate winds, making about five knots. Our hope was to find Lou and Astra, our young friends, in town. We had called Lou and knew he was busy all day sailing the Friendship Sloop with tourist passengers and Astra was working at the little museum in Bar Harbor.
But when we cleared the end of Great Cranberry, I saw the destinctive sail shape of a Friendship Sloop a mile ahead off our starboard bow. It was aiming away from us and for the harbor.
I got on the radio on Channel 16 and tried to hail "the Friendship Sloop entering Northeast Harbor." No answer, so I tried channel 9 and channel 68. Still no luck.
It was clear as the distance to the harbor shrank that we wouldn't catch the Friendship, whether it was Lou's or not.
Then the sloop came about, and when the sails luffed, I thought they were dousing them to enter port.
But no! The sails trimmed themselves and the sloop headed directly toward us.
It was, of course, Lou, who had recognized Robin, although he had only seen her before in photographs. He sailed past our starboard beam as we took pictures, then came about and, as we stalled our sails, passed us close by to port.
Later, we took Lou and Astra to dinner and had a wonderful time learning about their lives in Maine.
But that sail-by! That made my whole cruise to Maine.

A note:
We were without internet connection several days, so I wrote my blog entries in Microsoft Word. But I couldn't find a way to cut and paste them into the blog. So I'm transcribing, word for word, blogs written several days ago, trying to catch up. Hope this works in the long run.
Doug

We are becalmed just south of Long Island in Blue Hill Bay. There is a lobster boat in front of us, loaded with lobster pots, going from buoy to buoy. There are evergreen-encrusted islands to the east and south, like the mainland to the west, their sawtoothed silhouettes various shades of blue, the closest with a hint of green.
Cadillac Mountain or one of its sisters is draped in clouds to the east.
Oooh! The jib is flapping as if there were wind. There is! We're sailing -- a bit.
Last night, we stayed in Blue Hill, north of where we are now, where we met Rusty Duym (sounds like dime) from the Bermuda One-Two. Rusty grew up in Blue Hill where, we learned last night, he split his teenaged time between the locals -- with whom he attended school -- and the summer people, the wealthy whose estates are tucked into the evergreens and are -- unlike waterfront estates on the Chesapeake -- inconspicuous when viewed from the water.
Rusty gave us a tour of the town in a borrowed car. (His is too small for three people.) Oh, to have a friend like Rusty in every port! As we left this morning, we could see the estate of the 40-year-old heiress whose 120-foot motor yacht is moored in front of her property. We recognized the town dock (not the one in town but the one created for locals) where the town folk have constant battles with their neighbors who own an adjacent launching ramp -- battles about who owns what real eastate.
The details of this pretty little town, as related by Rusty, suggest the background for a good novel. No doubt one has been written.
We chose to go to Blue Hill because we knew Rusty lives there. For the same reason, we rented a mooring near the local yacht club, the Kollegewedgwok Yacht Club (pronounced just like it appears.) Blue hill has an outer harbor (where the yachtg club mooring is,)and an inner harbor with good holding. But the inner harbor is a long dinghy ride from the landing. Thus we rented a mooring.
Rusty is a member of the local steel drum band (he never played a musical instrument before joining the band.And he doews paragliding, in which the participants run and jump from a precipice wearing a parachute. Blue Hill, the mound for which the town is named, is a good location for that sport because it has a large cliff near the top. Rusty, when the spirit moves him, jumps from that cliff.
The night before last, we anchored in Benjamin River, as mentioned before.It was a gloomy morning when we left, but we raised the sails just outside the mouth of the river, in Eggamoggin Reach, and sailed all the way from there to Blue Hill, going East and then North to reach our destination. It was a slow sail. At one point, when the wind died near the end of the reach, we started the motor to make it through a grove of lobster pot buoys thick as pigeons in a park.Once there was a faint breeze, we shut down the engine and sailed the rest of the way.
Now we're making 4.2 knots along the eastern shore of Tinker Island. The clouds left over from the rain during the night are burning off and the sky to the south is pale blue with puffy white clouds.
I just phonedl the Northeast Harbor harbormaster and learned that we can't reserve a mooring there. We'll have to hope one is available when we arrive.
Once again, we are planning a visit with some young friends from home who are working in northeast Harbor. We met Lou Gallagher and Astra Haldeman when they attended sailing school at the Red Dragon Canoe club. They were 14 then. Now married after graduating from college and their separate fellowships -- he in South Africa, she in New Zealand -- he is captain of a Friendship Sloop sailing ouit of Northeast Harbor and she, when she is not serving as first mate on Lou's vessel, is working at a small museum in Bar Harbor.
So of course we want to stop and say hello, and that means taking a mooring. We'll probably arrive in mid afternoon. With luck, we'll see the sloop under sail when we make landfall. Lou says he is working non-stop.
Tough job.

The meals on this trip have been varied. Today I had to dispose of four grilled chicken breasts that Monica had made before we left because we didn't have time to eat them.
John Morrison and I ate out the first two nights, in Annapolis and Chesapeake City.
Then John jumped ship in Cape May, Tom Gilmore came aboard and a half hour later, we were out on the Atlantic. We were unable to land the first two bluefish that we hooked, so for dinner we ate two of the pieces of chicken along with boiled white potatoes and peas.
The next night, the seas were choppy as we approached Long Island, so I heated a can of Dinty Moore beef stew for Tom and a can of chicken noodle soup for me. We then ran into a line of thunder storms, and the chicken noodle never actually settled in place.
The following day, we finally landed a blue and that night, we ate it fried along with home fries and onions and another can of vegetables. It was a great meal.
The next night, I decided once again that I wouldn't cook. We'd been nibbling all day, so I made peanut butter and raisin sandwiches. Tom leveled a charge of crew abuse. Too bad.
The following night, we were at Dodge Morgan's party, where Tom ate lobster and I cheeseburgers.
Sunday night, we were finally on a mooring in Rockland and I treated Tom to a restaurant dinner
Monday, I finished as much as I could of the bluefish.
Last night, I ate three mackerel that I'd caught the night before.
Tonight, I could catch a couple more mackerel. But I'm bored with the way I cook fish. I need my resident chef on board before I justify taking more fish lives. I think it'll be pasta and marinara sauce.

The second part of the voyage to Maine began in Hadley Harbor at 4:30 a.m., first light. We motored north two hours and caught the current flying through the Cape Cod Canal. By 8:15 a.m., we were on Cape Cod Bay, motoring north toward Casco Bay, Maine.
Dodge Morgan in 1986 set a world record for circumnavigating the globe singlehande. Now, every summer near his private island in Maine, he hosts a party that includes a regatta that "celebrates the spirit of non-competitiveness."
The regatta has a starting gun, and this year, when the gun went bang, a record number of vessels began sailing in a light to moderate breeze out of Quahog Bay toward the ocean.
Robin found her self in the wake of a Morris 36 daysailor, a gorgeous and, no doubt, swift boat that costs over $400,000.
Tom Gilmore and I had the main and staysail up as we prepared for the start. Once the gun sounded, we rolled out the genoa.
And the competitive juices.
Taking aim at the transom of the Morris, we began gaining on it.
Now the Morris wasn't doing too bad. It was right with the rest of the fleet, which included Dodge's beautiful 30-foot schooner, a Mariner 42 (I think), a Cape Dory 33, a couple of Rhodes 19s and several other sailboats, kayaks and canoes.
We were about 20 feet off the Morris transom when one of the kids on board pointed back at us with an odd expression.
A Westsail 32 is surpisingly capable in light winds. I knew that, and I steered accordingly and was able to get upwind of the Morris, whose skipper no doubt believed the "Wetsnail" nickname that suggests Robin is a dog.
In time, during this non-competitive event, we passed the Morris to our sheer delight.
The race is called the Bang and Go Back. The second gun sounded, and everyone came about and headed back toward Snow Island, Dodge's private retreat. When Robin crossed the finish line, every boat except the Mariner 42 was in her wake, and she was nipping at the Mariner's transom.
We and the Mariner circumnavigated Snow Island and then we all attended the lobster picnic on the island. The next day, Sunday, we motor sailed to Rockland, our destination, in 11 hours, a pretty good trip with no disquieting events but much gorgeous scenery.
Now Robin is on a mooring in Rockland and I'm entertaining myself (in a coffee shop right now) while I await Monica's arrival on Friday.
I ate the rest of the bluefish last night. Tonight, I have three mackerel in the freezer that I caught after dinner last night.

Robin is on a mooring in Rocklaond (ME) Harbor. Tom Gilmore went home yesterday morning on a Grayhound. Now I'm waiting for Monica to arrive. I pick her up at the Manchester, NH, airport Friday night.
The trip up was interesting. John Morrison helped Robin get to Cape May, NJ, in three days. Those were uneventful passages.
Tom got on when John left, and we headed out immediately for Buzzards Bay and the Cape Cod Canal. I had decided to forego the passage east around Cape Cod due to the kidney stone attack the day before we left Cambridge.
Four events marked the crossing to the canal. The first was a fish -- about 18 inches long -- that walked on water. Clearly he was being chased by something. He shot up out of the water vertically and, to avoid being dinner, tilted his body forward and, thrashing his tail furiously, managed to run on that tail perhaps 100 feet before energy gave out or gravity prevailed. When he fell beneath the surface, we lost contact. Don't know whether he managed to escape.
The next event was a commercial fishing boat about 50 feet long that approached us from our port side about 50 miles offshore. He drew closer and closer until it seemed that we might be on a collision course. He crossed our bow about 50 feet ahead -- with no one on the bridge or on deck -- in fact, no one in sight.
The third event was a line of thunderstorms off Long Island that caught us just inside the shipping lanes. We couldn't run away. They slammed us for a couple of hours, but we emerged the other side untouched.
Fourth was the time when, in 20 t0 25 knots of northwest wind that came at daylight following the storm, we hooked a bluefish. We landed the 27-incher, and that night, on anchor in a peaceful Hadley Harbor, we had a feast.
There is more, but it is lunch time and I need to get back to Robin for nourishment.

Monica and John's wife, Fran, were set to take us to Robin this morning, leaving home at 8 a.m. But at that time, I was in a local emergency room.
A kidney stone that I didn't know existed decided to strike at 5 o'clock this morning.
I'm fine now, and I think I may have passed the stone. So tomorrow morning at 6:3o, we'll go get John (and maybe Fran) and try to get to Robin early enough that we can make it from Cambridge to Annapolis as we had planned.
But there is an unfortunate new wrinkle. John will stay with me to Cape May, where Tom comes aboard. But John has to stay ashore when Tom boards. A daughter in California is having medical problems.
Monica and I have been reading a Maine cruising guide, and she is getting more and more excited about the two weeks we will cruise there.
The refrigeration did seem to work yesterday when I tried it. But I was unable to resolve the issue with the battery charger.
That's no big loss since I don't expect to have much chance to plug into shore power for the next six weeks. I'll have someone who knows about marine electrical stuff -- maybe Josh -- to examine it when Robin returns.

In the morning, it will be two days until Robin leaves Cambridge, headed for Maine. This is anxiety time, the place before an extended voyage when you are trying to assure that you are ready, that the boat is ready, that the crew is ready.
And nothing ever is completely ready.
Today I got a call from Josh, the electrician, who said he had fixed the refrigeration but that he noticed the battery charger didn't seem to be working. He had to run Robin's engine to get enough juice to run the refrigeration.
I don't have time to ask someone to look at it, so in the morning, I'll do my best to troubleshoot the electrical system. My hunch is that it's the same problem that nearly kept us from the starting line in St. George's, Bermuda, a year ago -- a corroded ground lug under the engine. I'll clean that lug in the morning and cross my fingers.
We don't need the battery charger to go to Maine. It only works when you are at a dock with electricity. But we do need the batteries to charge reliably, so cleaning the lug would be a good practice in any case.
It is 9:45 p.m. The air conditioning is on, blowing cool air over the starboard settee, which tonight will be my berth.
The water around Robin is alive right now. There are thousands and thousands of menhaden rippling the surface of the marina like a hail storm. Beneath the schools, slightly larger fish flash their bright silver sides as they streak up from below to feast.
Under a sidewalk lamp that shines out onto the water, you can see jelly fish with translucent gray bulbs and long tendrils. And you can see crabs swimming this way and that. I had never observed crabs before, but now I know why they are called "beautiful swimmers". They do the side stroke!
They pull with the legs on one side and then glide some distance before repeating the stroke. When they see food or a predator -- maybe a larger crab -- they dart at an acute angle. There are tiny swimmers and larger ones. Under the light, the action is similar to the adolescent excesses found in a mosh pit.
Today, I loaded most of the edible supplies aboard Robin and stored the clothing in the designated compartments. I bought jugs and bottles of water and bottles of green tea and stored that, too. Then I replaced some rotten plywood in the deck box that I was modifying to move the propane out of the cockpit.
In the morning, I'll paint the plywood. But Josh is unable to complete the relocation of the propane tank from the cockpit, so everything -- the gas tanks and the life raft -- will remain where it is.
I see by the National Hurricane Center web site that there are two areas of interest in the tropics -- one in the western Caribbean and the other much farther east. I'll be keeping an eye on those systems from now on. If they develop, Robin will stop in the nearest safe spot and await their passing.
Now, it's time for sleep.