Sailing Vacations
A Maine Windjammer

Good morning everyone. We are currently anchored in Burnt Coat Harbor on Swan’s Island. We left Camden yesterday morning, performed under way drills with the Coast Guard aboard, and tacked out of the bay to see the alcids gathered around Seal Island for the second of our 2 annual Maine Audubon trips. The southwest wind was just perfect after 2 days of northwest. The ocean was quite flat and the sun was warm. Seal Island is where nesting puffins have been re-established and they were out in full force along with numerous razor bills (as seen in this photo by Jen), and guillemots. Roseate, arctic and common terns by the thousands protect the nesting alcids from predators like gulls and at one moment we saw them rise from the island in a swarm. Like little kids we just were so excited to be witness to this annual ritual when the puffins come ashore to nest in burrows. The down wind run to Swan’s Island was marked by sighting many immature gannets. A few greater shearwaters, and a (?) so...

Good Morning Everyone. Unsettled weather here in the Northeast for the next few days. The sap flow has slowed down here the last few days, a curious thing since it has been so warm. The crew has survived their first few days of fit-out. They seem willing to tackle anything despite the bumps and bruises and nervousness, mine and theirs. I read about sail training programs and the skills they will teach you but as one crew member and I talked about at the end of yesterday, this whole crew thing is as much about mutual respect as it is hard skills. While I appreciate a competent sailor I also appreciate the human element that makes the difference between good and great. So in this picture is a great sailor in the making. Jennie is willing to tackle head first whatever it is that needs doing, including slushing the mast with grease, as you can see here. I told her she would get a raise. She assumed I was talking about money. But money can't pay anyone for what it takes to be ...

Good morning everyone! You’ll never guess...0 degrees. We are gonna have braggin’ rights here pretty quckly if this keeps us and according to the weather folks we are in for a stretch of cold Arctic air. Our fire department was called out late last night for a minor fender bender (car vs tree on an icy road) and the cold temperature just doesn’t seem to matter when you have some reason to be out. Now heat on the other hand...I can’t do heat. I wilt in the humidity. How you folks from warm climates do it, I will never know. So I guess it just comes down to what you are used. Which makes me think, not that I do that alot but..... I received a phone call from a local teacher yesterday afternoon asking if I might be willing to talk to her alternative high school class about what I do for a living. Just talk about how you got in to the business and how you learned about boats and sailing, she says. Well I grew up around boats as a wee little urchin. I spent the first years of my l...

Good Morning everybody! Clear blue skies here today and the thermometer is reading 8 below. The breeze died down so the wind chill isn’t nearly as vigorous as it was yesterday (15-20 below in the wind!) We spent yesterday morning with the accountant. Jen has been working furiously to get our year end books closed out. I spent the afternoon in the office catching up on correspondence and answering the phone while Jen attended a school meeting and picked up the kids and went shopping for office supplies and food while we were in town. Today we need to get firewood in to the house, a chore that warms us once a week as we make a big stack in the shop attached to the mud room. I have to fix the wood stove in the barn. So where were we….Oh yes, our July 11th 2005 cruise. So Monday was exciting. Here is Tuesday July 12, 2005. “Tuesday morning was sunny and calm so we went ashore at Stonington where we enjoyed the Granite Quarrying Museum and some of the neat little shops. Stoningt...