The two cold days of wind driven rain in Tanner Cove turned out to be the high point of the trip thus far. Strider swung securely on a stout mooring while my wonderful hosts provided superb dinners and appropriately fueled conversation well past what they call “Cruisers Midnight” (9:00 pm).
I slipped off the mooring early on what was forecast to be a beautiful day with the first hangover I can clearly recall. That’s what I get for hanging out with young people. I didn’t feel especially bad, just enough to make me seriously wonder what I was doing out in the tide driven, left over chop from two days hard blow and low visibility that looked a lot like the previous days. However, Mahone Bay is the Penobscot Bay of Nova Scotia and I really wanted to be there if the forecast turned out to be correct.
Is there any greater thrill in cruising than rounding the last headland into a bay full of islands that you have never seen?
The fog began to lift a bit as I entered the town of Mahon Bay. I picked up a mooring long enough to have lunch and photograph the three side by side churches at the head of the harbor. The sky was clearing and it was warming up nicely, but calm, so I motored up inside the islands to mysterious Oak Island, site of the famous “Money Pit”. I could see the large clearing around the area where fortunes have been lost trying to dig in the booby trapped well where it is believed Captain Kidd hid his treasure.
I passed through the nearby marina to see if any diesel was available and asked a fellow on sailboat. He said, “No. say, are you Roger?” After my admission to the fact, he said that he was following my blog. That’s a first for this trip.
I went up to the head of the bay to the marina suggested and was coasting up to the fuel dock, fenders rigged, just returning to the cockpit after setting my docklines, and a powerboat pushed alongside, did a sharp turn right in front of me, and grabbed the fueling spot. He needed a lot of fuel and his wife needed something ashore so I grabbed a mooring right off the dock to wait. Eventually, he started his engine and I cast off the mooring just to have another powerboat zip right in through the gap for another 500 gallon fueling. Canadians I have found far more courteous than I am used to but I guess power boaters are pretty much the same everywhere.
Spending half the afternoon at the fuel dock was not entirely wasted because a perfect wind was springing up out of a clearing sky just as I emerged from the cove where the marina is located. I had a beautiful 10 mile sail tacking out through the islands that I now could see clearly and anchored in a nicely protected cove for a very quiet night.
Next morning, I motored into Gold River to pick up a friend for a daysail. It was a very unpromising beginning of heavy skies and dead calm. We motored out and around Tancook Island setting the sails just before heading back towards land between big and little Tancook. That killed the breeze, as it often does, so we ate lunch with the knot log reading 1.0 and the GPS reading 0.0.
The wind began to come on solidly though after we had sailed slowly along the landward side of the famous island. We were quickly sailing right at the edge of needing a reef, closehauled across to the entrance to Mahone Bay (Town) harbor. It’s race week in Chester and the whole fleet was charging upwind at us. I managed to direct us through the fleet with out annoying anyone which made me feel a bit like a racer myself.
The fog was starting to blow in but it never settled as it usually does in Maine. Instead, the day turned into a fantastic mix of bright sun, puffy clouds, and swirling, sunlit. fog patches sprinkled with spinnakers. This 45 mile day sail turned into as visually stunning a day as I have ever seen on the water.
We arrived back at the marina to find that race week overflow had taken every available spot. The river was too narrow for anchoring so I regretfully had to decline dinner and motor out to a beautiful little cove sheltered from the swell by a small beach that let me look out across it at the returning race boats before the fog rolled in heavily and I sat down to write this.
I slipped off the mooring early on what was forecast to be a beautiful day with the first hangover I can clearly recall. That’s what I get for hanging out with young people. I didn’t feel especially bad, just enough to make me seriously wonder what I was doing out in the tide driven, left over chop from two days hard blow and low visibility that looked a lot like the previous days. However, Mahone Bay is the Penobscot Bay of Nova Scotia and I really wanted to be there if the forecast turned out to be correct.
Is there any greater thrill in cruising than rounding the last headland into a bay full of islands that you have never seen?
The fog began to lift a bit as I entered the town of Mahon Bay. I picked up a mooring long enough to have lunch and photograph the three side by side churches at the head of the harbor. The sky was clearing and it was warming up nicely, but calm, so I motored up inside the islands to mysterious Oak Island, site of the famous “Money Pit”. I could see the large clearing around the area where fortunes have been lost trying to dig in the booby trapped well where it is believed Captain Kidd hid his treasure.
I passed through the nearby marina to see if any diesel was available and asked a fellow on sailboat. He said, “No. say, are you Roger?” After my admission to the fact, he said that he was following my blog. That’s a first for this trip.
I went up to the head of the bay to the marina suggested and was coasting up to the fuel dock, fenders rigged, just returning to the cockpit after setting my docklines, and a powerboat pushed alongside, did a sharp turn right in front of me, and grabbed the fueling spot. He needed a lot of fuel and his wife needed something ashore so I grabbed a mooring right off the dock to wait. Eventually, he started his engine and I cast off the mooring just to have another powerboat zip right in through the gap for another 500 gallon fueling. Canadians I have found far more courteous than I am used to but I guess power boaters are pretty much the same everywhere.
Spending half the afternoon at the fuel dock was not entirely wasted because a perfect wind was springing up out of a clearing sky just as I emerged from the cove where the marina is located. I had a beautiful 10 mile sail tacking out through the islands that I now could see clearly and anchored in a nicely protected cove for a very quiet night.
Next morning, I motored into Gold River to pick up a friend for a daysail. It was a very unpromising beginning of heavy skies and dead calm. We motored out and around Tancook Island setting the sails just before heading back towards land between big and little Tancook. That killed the breeze, as it often does, so we ate lunch with the knot log reading 1.0 and the GPS reading 0.0.
The wind began to come on solidly though after we had sailed slowly along the landward side of the famous island. We were quickly sailing right at the edge of needing a reef, closehauled across to the entrance to Mahone Bay (Town) harbor. It’s race week in Chester and the whole fleet was charging upwind at us. I managed to direct us through the fleet with out annoying anyone which made me feel a bit like a racer myself.
The fog was starting to blow in but it never settled as it usually does in Maine. Instead, the day turned into a fantastic mix of bright sun, puffy clouds, and swirling, sunlit. fog patches sprinkled with spinnakers. This 45 mile day sail turned into as visually stunning a day as I have ever seen on the water.
We arrived back at the marina to find that race week overflow had taken every available spot. The river was too narrow for anchoring so I regretfully had to decline dinner and motor out to a beautiful little cove sheltered from the swell by a small beach that let me look out across it at the returning race boats before the fog rolled in heavily and I sat down to write this.