Sailing Vacations
A Maine Windjammer

Good morning everyone. Wow… did it blow Tuesday night. An intense low pressure system passed in land from the coast and brought a good southeasterly wind with it. Seas to 21’ and wind gusts to 67 knots were observed offshore. Rockland had sustained winds in the mid 40s with gusts to 53 mph. Here in Camden harbor the swell kept the windjammers rocking and rolling all day long. Jen took these photos at low tide late in the afternoon and the wind picked up even more through the early evening. She had everything she could do just to stand against the wind and keep the camera somewhat dry. We worked aboard the schooner painting and varnishing in the galley on Tuesday. Have you ever felt the land moving under your feet after a day on a rocking boat? That happened for both of us when we got home. What a peculiar sensation. The bay was feather white. At high tide that night the swell came roaring over the outer ledges and tossed the schooners about even more than we experienced aboa...

Good morning everyone. We had a fabulous weekend with the kids playing tourist in our own backyard. Guests always ask what we do during the winter and this weekend was “Courtney’s Pick.” We were celebrating her 8th birthday and she wanted to go visit Fort Knox (no gold here) and Fort Point State Park. Just a 45 minute drive from home and with a few friends in tow we explored the coldest day of the season. Wow, was it cold! See what I mean about bragging rights. It was so cold… well, you get the point. Fort Knox is a small state park built around the largest granite fortification in Maine. Built between 1844 and 1864, long after the Revolution was over, the fort protects the narrowest section of the Penobscot River, the key to the highly valued timber resources up river in the deep Maine woods. I can’t imagine the amount of energy it must have taken to cut, move and build the fort from the tremendous number of granite blocks that are still as intact as the day they were placed. I...

Good morning everyone. We are in the midst of an early cold snap here in Maine. Temperatures are about 10 degrees below normal so what should be lower 40s during the day are just barely breaking freezing. Every little snowflake sends the kids into their own flurry of excitement. I don't mind the colder temperatures. As I have said in these blogs before, cold temperatures give us 1) bragging rights, and 2) bananas left out on a cold day may turn brown on the outside but they are still good to eat on the inside. So to my delight I found bona fide ice on Camden harbor filling the entire northeast corner. Most of the ice around the windjammers melted away in the heat of the day. The local boat yard sent out a skiff with an outboard and 2 fellas (one up forward as ballast) to break up the ice around their pilings, some of which have been lifted out of the mud in the past by clinging ice and rising tides. I shook my head and thought that these fellas are in for one long winter. By...

Good morning everyone. Nothing can be stranger than the weather around Camden. Temperatures have been extremely warm these past few days. Fog was hanging heavy on the harbor on Saturday morning and I just couldn’t resist getting my camera out to photograph the windjammers and the ducks that were hunkering down at the head of the harbor. We had a strong blow on Saturday night that took down a long deceased wolf pine here in the dooryard. Oddly enough we slept right through it never hearing the crash over the howl of the wind in the trees. Thankfully the leaf reefing process is done and the windage on the limbs has mostly been alleviated. We had a spring tide on the fourteenth that was quite a phenomenon with water lapping at the flukes. The moon was at perigee and also full (the full Beaver Moon) within a day of each other causing the tide to rise high above the wall as the leaf line tells. I am amused to see duck heads bobbing along at eye level with the wall and to see the dock...

Good morning everyone. The weeks have been flying since we stopped sailing. Crunch time is here before the docks are taken out and we are forced to stop working aboard the schooner. Deckhand Rob has been diligently picking away at numerous small projects all of which add up to a tremendous jump start on the fit-out process for next spring. The weather has been quite warm, relative to the state of Maine. I know you folks from south of the Mason Dixon line might shudder to think we consider anything over 40 degrees to be varnish weather. We look at the directions on the varnish can as just guidelines. All of the cabin houses have been sanded and numerous repairs to the aging fiberglass are made. Whoever said fiberglass is maintenance-free must have been kidding. Yesterday we laid down a second coat of oil on the deck to seal things up for the winter and to guard against the inevitable small drips of paint that come with new hands painting each spring. As you can see, Rob gets the...

Good morning everyone. I was in New Hampshire yesterday and the top of Mt Washington has a heavy dusting of snow. The view across the Mt Washington Valley was just beautiful and afternoon snow flurries confirmed the coming of winter. I attended a day long recertification workshop for my wilderness EMT credential. We spent the better part of the day practicing scenarios outdoors. I attend many of these kinds of workshops and trainings all winter long. Next week I will be attending the local EMS seminar here in Rockland including a day long intensive in pediatric issues. So it is busy, busy, busy. Today we will be spreading another coat of varnish onto the spars while the weather is warm. We are trying to get the deck oiled as well. I will continue vacuuming the bilges and cleaning the nooks and crannies below decks. Even the anchors on the wall get a coat of winter protection in the form of 50/50 gloss black paint and Penetrol. Penetrol is one of those sakes oils that helps s...