Wednesday morning, Tom got out earlier than we by perhaps 45 minutes. He was heading for the Isles of Shoals, off the coast six miles from Kittery, ME, and Portsmouth, NH. We were going to visit cousin Carol and husband-in-law Buzzy in York, ME.
Weatherwise, the trip turned out to be a carbon copy of one John Morrison and I made a year earlier, when we left from Boothbay Harbor and stopped in York to visit my college friends, The Old Mike, The Old Flag and The Old Hol. The sun was out and shining brightly in a cloudless sky and the ocean was oily flat.
And just like the year before, the wind finally arrived when we were about five miles north of Cape Neddick Lighthouse on the north side of York Beach. Some say it is the most photographed lighthouse in the world.

By the time we passed the lighthouse, we had a good breeze, enough to motorsail by the cliffs where Buzzy and Carol have their camper. But the sails came down quickly so that we could enter York Harbor. The path into the harbor is bordered by hidden ledges, and there is a spot where you have to make a sudden turn to starboard, crossing a current that seems determined to drive you on a point of land no more than 150 feet away.
We took a town mooring -- there is no room to anchor in York Harbor -- and got showers in the nearby marina. Showers posed a greater risk to life, if not limb, than the navigation into the harbor. There was standing water in the pan of the shower, water that only drained by spilling over the top of the pan, grungy water that one suspected harbored as yet undiscovered life forms. Tom's PhD Candidate daughter, Rosaleen, who is preparing for a disertation in marine biology, could break new ground in that shower.
Buzzy and Carol picked us up after our showers and took us back to their camper, parked on the top of that cliff with a spectacular view of the ocean and the rocks below and Carol fed us a wonderful dinner while we exchanged stories in the cool evening air.
We slept aboard Robin, but in the morning we went to breakfast with Carol and Buzzy at a place on the beach before we caught the last of the ebbing current out of York Harbor.

Tuesday morning we steamed out of Boothbay Harbor and headed for Casco Bay. We knew that Tom Gilmore had spent a couple of nights at Jewell Island, northwest of Portland a few miles, and we decided we'd go there, too.
This was our first return to Jewell Island since our very first cruise to Maine in 2006. Jewell was our first stop then in Maine, and we arrived in a thick fog with almost zero visibility.
At that time, I had second guessed my plotting and decided to redo a critical waypoint where we planned to round the western end of the island. I thought we would be passing between a red buoy on our starboard and a green one to port.
Then, in the fog, I saw the red to port. I steered sharply toward the buoy, which vanished in the fog before I reached it.
Next thing I knew, there were waves breaking over the top of rocks fifty feet ahead of our bow.
That was then. This time, we returned with a bit of trepidation, but also with a chart plotter.
A foggy day had turned clear before we crossed by the first islands of Casco Bay. But then, as the afternoon sun began slipping from its high perch, a wall of dark clouds appeared in the west. Lightning came a bit later, and soon, with the radar on and Jewell in sight, we stopped dead in the water. The radar screen was nearly filled with solid green splotches, indicating thunder storms.
We were about equidistant from Jewell and a rocky outrcopping offshore with a lighthouse. My concern was whether the storm brought winds that could blow us all the way to the rocks -- about two miles to the southeast.
Monica went below while I stood under the dodger with a foul weather jacket on and my eyes scanning through the heavy rain that arrived with the storm.
The wind never built, and in a half hour, the storm had passed by. We resumed motoring toward the east end of Jewell, now accompanied by a pod of mink whales off our starboard beam a couple of hundred yards.
(Mink whales look like dolphins in the way they swim, curving up to the surface in gangs. Their dorsal fins are sharper and relatively smaller than those of dolphins, but the animals themselves are larger than their mammal cousins.)
The sun was sparkling when, at about three o'clock, we rounded the end of Jewell to head into the narrow slit of an anchorage on its northeastern shore. We could see four or five boats already there. One looked familiar.

Cailte, Tom's Creekmore 46 which he built himself, was the first boat inside the anchorage. We circled and anchored off his transom. Soon, he had rowed over in his 10-foot Cape Dory dinghy, and Tom and I went ashore to hike on this historic island, where during World War II submarine chasers were stationed to hunt German U-boats.

First we crossed to the ocean side of the island to see the "Punch Bowl", a lagoon that fills with water at high tide and empties only partially when the tide ebbs. There was the caracass of a dead seal on the bank of the Punch Bowl.

We hiked to the western end of the island and climbed one of two concrete towers used by the submarine hunters to triangulate the position of subs offshore. (I believe Tom told me they never actually intercepted any subs.)
Then we dinghied back to Robin, where Monica prepared dinner.

Another storm cell threatened and Tom woofed down his meal before rowing back to Cailte. When the storm passed, the scenery in the setting sun was unbeatable.

Not so fast.
The fog had lifted in Seal Cove, and there was almost no current when we got outside and passed through the narrows.
But we found fog farther down the Damariscotta River. There was a little visibility -- one hundred feet, perhaps -- so we could see the lobster pot buoys ahead, and we could see the lobster boats before we were immediately upon them. Because we were motoring, it was no problem to turn on the radar.
Boothbay Harbor was in the next notch west along the Maine coast. John Morrison and I stopped their in 2010, and Monica and I had visited one rainy summer day by land several years ago. But this would be Monica's first visit by sea.
The fog was relentless, and on the radio we heard chatter between boaters and the Coast Guard about a 26-foot sailboat that had run aground on a rock entering Boothbay Harbor. Between the chartplotter and the radar, however, we were able to reach each of the navigational buoys on our route outside, and soon we were turning in toward Boothbay.
Now, however, we became disoriented, at one point heading on the wrong side of an island. When we determined our actual location, we once again found the right buoys and, after calling ahead, tied Robin to a mooring at the Carousel Marina. The showers were clean and inviting. And then we took the dinghy across the harbor to have dinner in town.
Monica had her first lobster of the cruise in a waterfront restaurant, and I was able to sample that most delectable of deserts, orange-pineapple ice cream. I got the five-scoop dish, which came with a warning from the cashier that I was attempting an absurd feat.
I ate the whole thing.

The rocky edges of Seal Cove were there the following morning, August 1, as were the fragrances of pitch from the spruce and pine that grew above the rocks. But the blue sky was gone, replaced by a low cloud that blew from the south, curling over the trees at that end of the cove and dipping down closer to the water, flowing above all like a magic carpet. We put the dinghy over the side and, with our morning coffee in hand, we motored south, toward the seals we knew to expect.

I kept the outboard quiet in hopes of blending in with the exquisite scenery. In minutes, the fog swirled around Robin, wrapping her in its gauze until we no longer could see her at anchor a few hundred yards away.
At the head of the cove, I stopped the outboard and we watched the fog lift and dip and felt a faint breeze that pushed us toward the ledges on the western shore.
The tide was rising, filling in the several mud-bottomed smaller coves that slit the edges of Seal Cove, in the middle of which were two clusters of rocky islands.
On the larger island, there was what could have been a stump. But as we drifted, we realized it was a bald eagle, standing motionless.
We drifted closer and the eagle spread its wings and flew toward the far, eastern shore, dipping toward the dark water and then rising in one powerfull swoop to perch part way up a pine tree.
It was a few quiet minutes later when we noticed another bump on the smaller of the rock islands. We looked through the binoculars and saw what appeared to be a face -- a white face -- just above the rocks.
We drifted closer.


The white face was that of a seal, staring directly at us. We waited for movement, and it came when the seal felt the tide rising around its fat flanks and wriggled a bit.
There were other bumps, in time revealing themselves as two seal pups, apparantly hanging close to Mom.


In time, the tide rose enough to float "Mom" off her rock. We drifted past the two "islands" which were rapidly becoming submerged. As we floated, the seals came up to port, dove, then came up to starboard. They rose at twelve o'clock and then at seven, always 100 feet or more away but clearly not startled to have human visitors.
Robin was back in view and the fog appeared to be lifting, so we returned to her to see what the morning would bring. If we timed it accurately, we could pass through the "boiling" narrows at slack tide around 11 o'clock and be on our way to the next stop, in Booth Bay Harbor.

On Sunday, July 31, Monica and I filled Robin's tanks at a Rockland marina and headed toward Owl's Head Lighthouse, on the point of land reaching out from the southern side of Rockland Harbor..

We had decided to chance going through an inside passage to save a few miles leaving Penobscot Bay and to see some new territory. The passage runs between the mainland south of Rockland and Owl's Head and a string of rocky islands just offshore. The chartplotter made us more confidant than we'd been in the past, and just the day before, Tom Gilmore had negotiated the same passage.
Sunday morning was picture perfect -- temperature in the 70s and a clear, blue sky and bright sun. There was no wind should our engine fail, but we were pretty confident.
I'd taken John to the Manchester, NH, airport on Friday morning in a rental car and met Monica's flight there that evening. We'd spent Saturday provisioning Robin and getting settled in. Now we were aiming to get as far as Monica's two week vacation would allow.


And so we headed down the passage with the foreboding name Muscle Channel. I was glad to have Monica aboard and not all that sad that we were heading home instead of cruising north past Bar Harbor. The stress of the trip to Rockland was still gnawing at me, and although I'd dropped some earlier thoughts about selling Robin, I wanted to complete this voyage before determining the extent of our future together.
We had tentatively chosen to head for Seal Cove this day. Tom had spent a couple of days there and recommended it highly. On an earlier trip to Maine, I'd sailed up the Damariscotta River as far as a small cove without a name on our nautical charts. Seal Cove was a couple of miles upriver from that cove, and the cruising guide said it was also past a narrows where, on the ebb tide, the water "boiled" around a red buoy.
Once we were out on the ocean, around Burnt and Allen Islands, we picked up some wind, and we had a strong breeze when we rounded into the Damariscotta. We also had many, many lobster pot buoys. I wanted to sail up through them to avoid the risk of wrapping a line around our propeller, but Monica was concerned with the threat of the boiling water ahead so we doused the sails and began motoring.
About three miles up the river, we rounded the point near the cove where I'd stayed once before. In another mile or so, we were approaching a big, red buoy and the current was swift. And then we were beside the buoy, which leaned downstream under the thrust of the river pouring through a narrows just above.
Robin's speed dropped rapidly. Beside the buoy, we were making about 2.5 knots. With it off our starboard quarter, we were down to 1.5 knots.
We stayed at that speed almost all the way through the narrows and were still very slow when we were abeam of the point of land to starboard which marked the entrance to Seal Cove.
And then, quietly, we were in the cove, where the cruising guide warned of all sorts of hidden rocks and ledges. Emotionally exhausted, we set the anchor -- we had a debate concerning how far down the cove to go, and Monica won the contest. We knew there were seals to be seen near the head of the cove, but we put that experience off until morning and settled in for a quiet evening.

Jonesy arrived by launch about 9:30 a.m. Thursday but he didn't board Robin immediately. Instead, he got out a clipboard and began sketching.
I looked down from Robin's rail, with John and Tom Gilmore peering over my shoulder, as Jonesy, a man in his 30s, I would guess, drew a diagram of the wires connected to our Beta Engine. Here, he said, is where he expected to find our problem. Here, in the harness with the two plastic connectors that I'd already, at Stanley Fiegenbaum's suggestion, inspected.
I don't recall if it were at this precise moment, when Jonesy was declaring his expectations, that I emphasized my desire that he check every possible point where our problem could originate. It probably was.
I remember Jonesy saying that in the vast majority of cases matching ours that he encountered, the problem was corrosion in those couplings.
Jonesy wonder aloud whether the engineers that designed electrical systems for boats ever were aboard boats. If they were, he thought they should know about the moisture in which their elecrical systems had to function.
In any case, Jonesy assured me that he would check everything, even if he found what he expected in the wiring harness.
He explained that a poor connection that didn't allow the current to flow where it was designed to go could actually result in the current finding another path -- one that could, in essence, confuse the alternator, making it work too hard. Enough bad connections and reversing currents could drive the alternator mad, burn it up.
He drew these reversing currents on his clipboard
John and I had unbolted the cockpit sole and removed it before Jonesy arrived, so he had complete access to the Beta engine. Once he boarded Robin, Jonesy settled in the cockpit, at the rear of the engine where, as I could have told him, the harness coupling was thoroughly corroded.
I took up a position inside the cabin, where I'd removed all of the companionway ladder steps and could watch all his movements.
I'd imagined that Jonesy -- his name is so close to Jonesport, a Maine harbor -- was a Maine native, so I asked. No, he said, he was from California. Grew up in Wassila, Alaska.
John and I had the same thought simultaniously.
"You and Sarah Palin," one of us must have said.
"Yeah, and I'm a conservative, too," Jonesy said. I don't know if it was a warning or a challenge.
Jonesy kept up a constant patter as he worked, so at this point he told us that Palin was a year ahead of him in high school and was in the glee club. "I was in the 'Don't tell my parents' club," he said.
We laughed.
Having seen the corroded connectors in the harness coupling, Jonesy began hard-wiring them together, bypassing completely the coupling, one color-coded wire at a time. First, he snipped one wire free from the coupling and trimmed the insulation back about a quarter inch. Then he crimped on a connector before snipping and trimming the end of the wire on the other side of the coupling. After putting on a piece of shrink-wrap tubing and sliding it down the wire, he crimped this second end into the same connector as the first, then melted the shrink-wrap over the whole crimped assembly with a butane lighter so that no moisture could penetrate the crimping.
Jonesy repeated this process until every wire was removed from the coupling. Then he wrapped the whole assembly with black electrical tape.
Jonesy worked methodically, steadily, occasionally having to relieve a cramped muscle as he crouched in the cockpit. Then he moved into the cabin and replaced the alternator with one that I had ordered from Beta, explaining as he went why he made each move.
I'd like to report that I'm such a fine student I remember every detail of Jonesy's instructions. He was a fine teacher, but I don't.
In the end, I felt Jonesy was the finest boat mechanic I've ever encountered. He was confident of his analysis. That's not particularly unusual. What was rare was that he went beyond the first thing that worked -- and would have even had I not insisted he do. He was systematic in his diagnosis and when he finally left Robin, she was in shape to complete her voyage.
He left initially so that I'd have two hours to run the engine and charge the batteries. He returned and performed what I believe he called a load test and found that the batteries -- they are four years old and their condition had to be questioned -- were strong.
At one point, he noticed the new pump I'd installed in Robin's air conditioning system and remarked that he had one just like it back on his bench that he'd removed from a boat that was changing AC systems. When he came back for the load test, he brought the pump, almost new, with him and gave it to me, along with instructions to get the old alternator rebuilt and keep it as a spare.
Compare Jonesy's time on Robin -- about three hours in all -- to the time the mechanic in Cape May spent -- maybe one hour. Jonesy's bill was less than $150, compared with $462.24 in Cape May.
You can guess which mechanic impressed us more.
Which is not to say that I wouldn't worry the whole way back to the Chesapeake.

There was wind from the east at 6 a.m. Tuesday when I climbed back on deck. To the west, we could see Monhegan Island, a gray specter under dense clouds.
We turned Robin to fill her jib and resumed sailing into Penobscot Bay, where the wind seemed to turn to the northeast and make sailing straight toward Rockland a matter of pinching, of squeezing as much as we could out of close hauled sails.
We placed phone calls once we were within cell phone range. Monica was glad to hear from me and, I think, hadn't been too worried. But she issued an ultimatum. She would fly to Maine on Friday, as planned, only if I would agree that instead of cruising north as we'd planned, I'd agree to head back toward the Chesapeake with her as my crew. She didn't want to spend time frivolously cruising and then leave the stressful chore of the return voyage to me alone. And at that point I had no other crew.
I didn't know what awaited me in Rockland as far as mechanical assistance, so I agreed.
Tom Gilmore, up ahead in Rockland, was relieved, having expected us the night before. He warned us that we faced a thicket of lobster pot buoys. But thanks to the fact that we had no engine, I didn't need to concern myself with getting the propeller snagged on a buoy line.
At one point, we came up behind a lobster boat tending its pots directly on our course. Because we were squeezing every bit of northerly way from the wind, I didn't want to fall off to go around the boat, but I was certain I would have to.
In this instance, we were engaging a thoughtful lobsterman who noticed our predicatment and, when he'd deposited his baited pot overboard, moved his boat out of our path with a smile and a wave.
A bit farther up the bay, we saw a ketch coming from our port through a break in the chain of small islands there, and as it drew nearer, we saw that it was not just a ketch, but a magnificent example of classic yacth design, with long overhangs bow and stern that tapered exquisitely. It reminded me of Cotton Blossom, the William Fife-designed 72-footer on which my friend Richard Griffiths once served as captain. This prompted me to call Richard in Oxford, MD.
When I described the boat, Richard named it -- Belle Aventure, an 82-footer with a solitary doghouse cabin amidships.
We watched he sail past our transom and then were able to remain on a starboard tack all the way to a point about three miles west southwest of the Rockland jetty, off of Owls Head lighthouse. Then we began steering toward the harbor. I had decided that we needed to get a mooring in order to have a mechanic come aboard. I've found anchoring in Rockland Harbor tricky due to an unpredictable bottom.
But I didn't think it would be wise to sail into the vast mooring field to take a mooring. Robin is a cutter, which is a fine offshore rig. But in close quarters, it can be difficult to tack the Genoa around the inner forestay -- difficult and slow. And sailing with the staysail alone, which can be tacked easily, is best done with a steady, strong breeze.
I didn't want to risk either method, so I'd called TowboatUS and they had arranged for a local towing company to bring Robin to a city mooring once we had sailed into the harbor.
The tow cost $150 and took us perhaps 500 yards to a mooring. The towboat operator was a bit rough, banging into Robin's hull twice, roughing up her cosmetics.
Once we were secured to the mooring, I called the local Beta Marine dealer, Johanson Boatworks. Stanley Fiegenbaum at Beta had told me they were good people, and that their mechanic, Jonesy, was excellent.
I scheduled Jonesy's visit for Thursday, his next available opening, and John and I settled in for a couple of days of decompression. All the while, I reminded myself to make sure this Jonesy didn't settle for the first solution he found to Robin's problems.
Make him check everything became my mantra.