Preparing for a cruise is a major endeavor. There’s always something to be fixed, gear to load and stow, checklists to follow and provisions to buy. We spent Saturday tackling all of the above – loading in clothes, kitchen staples, and food taken from our apartment; getting the small propane canisters for our grill; and doing a major grocery shop, almost as if we were headed to the Bahamas. When I started putting together our list, that’s exactly where my mind was headed but I talked myself down. When we got to the store, though, Chris started down that same road and I was all for it! Sure, this cruise is only taking us down the Maine coast, but our hope is to spend a lot of time at anchor without easy access to stores, and it’s always easier to stock up when you have a car.
While I stowed all the gear and provisions and Jack supervised, Chris got to work on replacing our watermaker’s boost pump. Aside from tearing the boat apart to find tools and parts, the replacement was easier than we feared. That called for a celebratory dinner at Marshall Wharf.
Sunday morning, we had breakfast at The Only Donut – it was the busiest we’ve ever seen it with a steady stream of customers – got gas for the dinghy and dropped our keys with the dockmaster. Back aboard, we ran a couple purge cycles on the watermaker and did a test production run. It looks like we’re actually making good, drinkable water, so with that confirmed, we went into final prep mode. I’ve learned to treat every departure as if we’re headed into heavy weather offshore. That way if the wind picks up, we’re not at risk of things below ending up a mess or, worse, broken. Then it was finally time to slip the lines for the next few months.
We motored through a dead spot and raised sail in about 8kts of breeze. I decided to keep the helm and called for full jib as the breeze continued to build. Soon we were seeing gusts up to 20kts apparent, so we reefed the jib and Windara settled perfectly on her lines. I kept her through our first tack, where we caught up to a boat coming from Islesboro… and now the race was on. (Any sailor will tell you that no matter how unevenly matched the boats, whenever two sailboats meet headed in the same direction, you’re racing). We had both the size and design advantage, plus new sails, so while we were easily the winner, it wasn’t exactly a fair match. But it reminded me once again that Windara was the perfect choice for us. We later found out our friendly competitor got a photo of us under sail (that’s the cover image) – the first one we have of Windara sailing under our ownership!
When we used to sail Silent Sky to windward, our tacking angles were so wide that beating meant a whole lot of work to claw our way towards our destination, but Windara’s tacking angles make sailing to windward reasonable. Since she moves well in light air and can handle heavy air, all of that combined means we get to sail far more often, which is exactly what we were hoping for.
Some days, I hate all the crew work beating entails, but this time I was loving it. As I sat on the rail keeping watch for lobster buoys, spray splashing my face, I was reminded just how absolutely spoiled for riches we are. We get to cruise in so many incredible places and have such a close relationship with nature.
Camden wasn’t really on our cruise plan, but we needed pump out (Belfast has pump out at the fuel dock, but we don’t love going in there as the current gets squirrely in there, and Camden has a pump out boat), and I was excited to go back to Curtis Island Lighthouse. Camden Yacht Club didn’t have any moorings available, but we got the last open mooring at Lyman-Morse, tucked up in the northwest corner of Sherman Cove. It’s actually a much better spot than the yacht club moorings, and we took less of a beating from the prevailing southeasterlies. I do wish we’d arrived in time to climb Mount Battie, but I’m not sorry to have spent the time sailing instead. Even though it was just burgers and corn, I was excited to have dinner on the boat, and even with the wildfire smoke, we still had a pretty sunset.
We dinghied in to Curtis Island before work and enjoyed our coffee sitting in front of the lighthouse. It’s pretty awesome to go out to a little island, pull up a seat in front of a lighthouse overlooking the Penobscot Bay, and have the entire place to ourselves. I was sad to see that they’d replaced the door with a cold, industrial steel door (wonder what prompted that?). We were here just a week later last year, and we noticed some new flowers in bloom that had gone by when we visited last. I think I’m regaining some of my New England cred – when I stepped into the water getting out of the dinghy at the island, it actually felt really nice.
After work, we went ashore to stretch our legs, get an ice cream at River Ducks (the brown butter burbon truffle was amazing), and I was able to find some wild blueberries at French & Brawn, which was my real mission in the first place.
The next morning, we bid an early goodbye to Camden and had a lazy jib-only sail over to Rockland. Last time we were here, we got our butts thoroughly kicked with wake and waves, so we decided to try anchoring behind the breakwater this time, and it was far more settled.
I was hell bent on making a blueberry pie this season. I even bought a pie crust when we were provisioning (I left the rolling pin home). I was able to find a cornstarch-free recipe for the filling but didn’t quite have enough blueberries. I scaled back everything else and since I didn’t have a lemon, tossed in a spoonful of lemon curd. (This is one of my new favorite things – it’s perfect on all things blueberry). Our oven even decided to play nice, and the pie came out great!
Yesterday I woke up early (thanks Jack!) and, half-awake, couldn’t figure out what that flashing light off our stern was. I opened the companionway to a flat calm harbor, the beginnings of morning light in the east, and Orion hanging low on the eastern horizon (hello, my friend!). That flashing light? Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse, of course. It was absolutely beautiful, and I was torn between watching the sunrise and going back to bed – bed won out. When I finally got up for real, we grabbed our tea and walked the breakwater from the dock closest to shore all the way out to the lighthouse and back. During the day, so many people make the trek out and back, but we only passed a handful of people.
After work, we went over to catch up with our friends on Minx. We’re always excited when our paths cross – we met them during the pandemic and they were instrumental in convincing us this whole lifestyle was possible, as he works from the boat and they have a cat (two now) aboard. Peanut came out to greet us, and Bessie even mildly tolerated a pat or two. We’re so lucky to have so many wonderful cruising friends, and I’m so grateful for the incredible community we’ve found.
It feels so good to be cruising again. Even though we had fun and took advantage of our time in Portsmouth while Chris settled into his new job and we waited for parts, I couldn’t wait to be sailing again. The possibilities feel endless, and I know the next couple of months are going to be incredible.
