2008 Cruising

8/1 to 8/15/2008

This is our log for 2008; the 2007 East Coast and other voyages are now in Prior Voyages.

We plan to post and update at least weekly. We move the older portions of the log to secondary pages accessible at the bottom of the page. Join our voyage!

Updated on 01/28/2011

8/1/08 - Brand new morning, new month, old fog. It was really heavy at 6am - to the point it muffled the fog horns. It took me a while to confirm we were still where we'd anchored. A couple of new boats came in during the evening and messed up my references given I could only see about one neighbor each way in the morning. Where there were sailboats next to me at 8pm there were power boats at 6am. My first cup of coffee didn't change that one bit. By 7am the fog had lifted enough to reveal P-town off our bow. We were planning on meeting Kenny G in Situate today, however they have a special event this weekend and the harbor is already fully reserved. It is a mooring only harbor. We'll have to find a harbor nearby and arrange to pick up our packages. We threaded our way up Nantasket Roads and the Weir River to World's End, a beautiful nature conservatory. After a few tense moments in shallow water during a falling tide (the last foot of a 12 foot tide) we found a place to anchor just off the channel. There are private moorings in a horseshoe bay by the park (don't get me started on those again) that someone mentioned we might want to try to squat on. The harbormaster said go ahead though there may be a fee. The Coast Guard Auxiliary noted there wasn't enough water at low tide. We elected to anchor. World's End is a unique piece of undeveloped real estate in the middle of Hingham, MA. It dodged developers' bullets several times to become a natural retreat within 20 miles of Boston. Ariel headed on to Salem, MA where they had arranged for a mooring. It is a return visit for them but they liked the activity of the city and looked forward to being there. We'll reconnect on our way to Portland, ME. 8/2/08 - The fog horns were singing their lamented tune again this morning though it was more hazy than foggy. Kenny G brought our packages down to the town dock at noon. A special treat he took us to the Fruit Market where Ruth was able to pick up produce we needed. He was having a hectic time right now, one of his plant managers just died and they are trying to cover the bases (Ruth and I had both talked with Jerry several times as we arranged loads). We jointly decided that we'd get together on the way south rather than try to squeeze something in right now. After returning to the boat we headed to Gloucester for the evening, anchoring deep in the harbor near the Cape Ann canal. This was the port the Andrea Gale of Perfect Storm sailed from. Even though it was raining lightly Ruth went glassing... what a mother lode. I replaced the stanchion damaged at Oak Bluff and started installing the new shore power switch... no joy, after pulling out the old switch I found that the new one was broken in shipment. One step forward, two back. Tuesday I'll be talking to the dealer and figuring how we get a replacement. Fired up the grille and did a steak for dinner. The rain had stopped enough for us to cook. 8/3/08 - The storms forecast for last night went north and south of us again. We heard the thunder and saw flashes but got no winds or heavy rains. Dawn was heralded by fog horns though they quickly fell silent as the sun burned higher. Talked to Miles, they are still in Salem and having fun. He was ambivalent about heading on today as the weather is forecast to be better Monday and Tuesday. We can't gamble on not making a day for fear of missing our pick-up of Bill & Jill Wednesday.  We're off to the Isle of Shoals.  Sounds kind of intimidating but we heard it is beautiful. With t-storms forecast for the evening, and dark clouds stacking up west of us, we elected not to anchor or pick up an "at your risk" mooring in the Isles and headed into Portsmouth where we knew we could get a good anchorage, At 2:30pm we had our hook set at N43° 04'.795, W070°42'.429 (the precision is for Miles tomorrow). It started sprinkling just as I tied off the anchor spring line... great timing. We have to come back to the Isles when the weather is favorable for a visit. Ruthie hit the beach in Kittery like a marine going for a purple heart. Again she hit the mother lode. These New England beaches are her glassing Mecca. When she returned I fired up the grill and did a couple of chicken filets to which Ruth added a green bean, potato and rice mix... very nice dinner. We both put very good spices on both of our offerings.  Buddy begged for his /her share of the carbs - loves potatoes. After dinner we watched the sun set between showers and blew the conch, blowing the minds of the locals. Another day in paradise ends. Too bad we have only one life to live... unless we come back as a cat (disdain to all)  I want to be a porpoise with a mate... I can envision living life with a porpoise. (note-they are the only other mammal known to have sex for enjoyment, not just for procreation. Humm, some married men might argue that dolphins are the only mammal...) 8/4/08 -  Day came with the sun breaking through light scattered clouds. I pushed off for Portland at 7am, working my way through a mine field of lobster pots - must be Maine. We motor sailed most of the trip; not enough wind to just sail and get there in daylight. Late morning we had a few misty showers. Ruth saw a couple of northern dolphins, her treat for helming while I did a few boat projects - little things like polishing stainless, pull ties on pelican hooks and modifying a pelican hook so it could close past a stanchion. We got an e-mail from the Cranes, they were in Portsmouth and Portland last week; just missed us. By 2:30pm we were anchored off Peaks Island with Portland about 2 miles off our starboard side. We've used this spot before and love it. Our masthead wind indicator should be at the Post Office, we'll pick it up tomorrow. As we completed backing down on the anchor Miles called, they were on a mooring in Portsmouth. They should catch up tomorrow, weather looks good. Ariel catching up???? We took a down day. I napped for an hour while Ruth posted expenses in Excel. Then it was my turn to update job costs and handle e-mails. After that we did a bunch of little tasks getting the boat ready for guests. Tomorrow will be the big work day so AA is in good shape for Bill & Jill. Got to get the heater fired up, mount the wind indicator and clean the interior. Tomorrow's first job is to get the replacement switch for the shore power coming; not that we use it a lot but we want to keep all system up to snuff (where did that term come from?). 8/5/08 - Overcast this morning and cool. I took a hour and got the diesel heater faults cleared, primed and started it. Working great - Buddy is safe; he won't turn into a parrotsicle. A quick trip to the Post Office and I had our new masthead wind vane, but Raymarine forgot to ship the auxiliary alarm... argghhhh! I'll have to keep trying to find one in a store. Oh well, after a short trip up the mast we now have wind speed again... we still need to do a couple of circles to teach the system where the bow is. My brother sent me an e-mail explaining where "up to snuff came from". Very interesting; yes it was from tobacco. Amazing, someone reads this dribble. We also were forwarded an e-mail by Miles from BJ and John on Don't Look Back, they are within a day of us. If they'd been looking back they'd have seen us sneaking up on them. Hope we meet up in Maine! By noon the sun was out. It was still relatively cool but it was a beautiful day. The scattered clouds were dark but didn't do anything other than menace while we basked in warm sunlight. Ariel showed up around 2:30pm after motoring from Salem. It was good to connect with them again. Their trip wasn't quite as nice as our voyage was yesterday. We spent some time aboard catching up with their adventures of the past few days in Salem. Back to AA for pork tenderloin off the grille for supper... never ate like that at home... whoa, this is home, I take that back, we do eat like this at home. 8/6/08 - During the night the rain swept in... dawn revealed low clouds and wet windows. Must be having guests arrive today. The boat felt cold and damp when I got up so I turned on the heater, shortly everyone was toasty and happy. Glad I worked on that baby yesterday! At 11am we moved to a mooring to get closer to a dock for picking up Jill & Bill. They called around noon, indicating they were in Portland and would catch the 2:15 ferry to Peaks. I went down to ferry dock in pouring rain, didn't see them disembark and returned to the boat. Ruth was waiting, they'd exited thru the terminal and were waiting at the ferry dock. I took the dinghy to the ferry dock and picked up two drowned rats. It was bedlam when they got aboard. I hadn't seen them since the Bahamas in in 2007 and Ruth had been looking forward to their visit all spring. Buddy saw Bill and quickly made it known she had no tolerance for anyone else... fickle bird! We grilled supper, had a couple of drinks, talked and crashed early - they'd been up since 4am. 8/7/08 - If this was California the Chamber of Commerce would call this stuff liquid sunshine. One look out the ports and you see a repeat of yesterday coming up. Surprise, it refrained from raining all day, though it threatened. Provisioning and laundry took up the morning. That was okay with me as we needed to wait for the tide to come in so we could get to the fuel dock. At 11am we inched in only to find that... yes, they have a diesel pump and no, they don't carry diesel. We settled for filling our water tanks. We took the 2:15 ferry to Portland where Ruth and I shared our knowledge of the downtown with Bill, Jill, Laureen and Miles. Portland remains one of our favorite cities with it's old seaport flavor. I love the two and three story red brick buildings, the hills and the cobblestone streets. I could live here, Ruth agrees. After leading the gals from fem-store to fem-store we guys took off for Hamilton's, a super sized marine retailer. From there we found a men's store, and Irish Pub called Feeney's. The gals caught us, so we all had dinner there before catching the ferry back to Peaks Island. 8/8/08 - During the night we were awakened several times as wave after wave of heavy rain swept over the boat. We are definitely getting a good fresh water rinse. Looking at the internet weather radar today is to be another wet one. Whoops... this is where we lost the computer. 8/29/08 - We seem to be back. I'll catch up on the log over the next few days. 8/8/08 - We moved to Jewell Island, anchoring in it's small harbor. The winds were 15-20 knots but we were well protected in the crowded little anchorage. Weather wise, overcast and 63. Not a warm welcome for our guests. 8/9/08 - Ruth, Bill, Jill and I hiked Jewell, searching for the watch towers and gun placement from WWII. We found the ruins of barracks, roads, a water system, boilers, gun placements... essentially a small encampment designed to protect Portland from German subs. We climbed one of the towers where spotters watched for enemy vessels and directed the guns. It was a very interesting glimpse at our history. Leaving Jewell we motored and sailed to Snow Island where Ruthie scored 6 fresh lobsters for $30.00 right off the boat. Miles and Laureen joined us on AA for a lobster feast. Laureen was nursing a small cold but put it aside and enjoyed the lobsta. 8/10/08 - We woke to heavy fog. As it rose we motored to Boothbay. By noon the sun was out and it was a beautiful day. We took a mooring (no anchoring allowed in the harbor) and rode the free trolley around town. The trolley driver was a font of knowledge, filling us in on the history of the town. Then we returned to town on the trolley and did the shops. It is a pretty town with a lot to see as well as a great grocery store and mini mall, alas, no computer guru for the laptop. 8/11/08 - We stayed in Boothbay as it was foggy, raw and rainy. It was a good day to read and everyone did to the accompaniment of the fog horns. Hey, every vacation has it's rainy day. The Cher-cold-sky was checking out Jill, did seem like it was winning. 8/12/08 - Heavy rain all night continued through the day. The cold had spread to Ruth. We tired of reading and played Gin 13 all day, learning that Jill was a card shark. I called Kyle to see if he could do anything with the laptop. He said send it and he'd take a look at it. 8/13/08 - Sun!!!! At 7am we pulled up to the marina dock for fuel and water. We needed a pump out but they didn't have one... AA was getting constipated! We sailed and motored to North Haven and Pulpit Harbor making a loop to get out of the 3 mile limit so we could macerate. Pulpit was a great place to spend the night. We bought 4 lobsters off a boat and enjoyed them for dinner. I also was able to visit and photo the Camden Knockabout again. 8/14/08 - Another sunny day. We sailed to Camden, taking a Wayfarer Marina $40.00 mooring for the night. Then we jumped on the water taxi and went to visit the town. Camden is one our our favorites. Bill and Jill decided they could live there. The cold had spread to Bill by now and he planned on laying low to help shorten its span. 8/15/08 - On to Rockland, a short 7 mile hop. We took a mooring for 2 nights and picked up a car for driving Bill and Jill back to Portland (Jill's rental) on Sunday. We used it to take the Laptop to a UPS Store to ship it to Kyle. Then we parked the car at the harbor masters and walked the town.

Click on the photos for an 8" x 10" view. Use Back to return to the site. Ruth's favorite, P-town wharf-side snack shop - she likes the floats. Don't drag into this Gloucester beach Sundown cruising in Gloucester harbor Ruthie's Gloucester glass keepers Light at Isle of Shoals Looking back at the green lighthouse, Portsmouth Ruthie's Portsmouth glass Junk we anchored next to, Peaks Island Googled to death I was searching for information on 12V burglar alarms on the 8th. In response to a Google search the list appear center screen along with three premier sites in the upper right hand corner... folks who paid Google to spotlight their sites. I click on one of these. The site started loading its header and background color (Maroon) and posted a notice that the site required special anti-virus software which it began to download. I bailed out, pull the wireless card and shut down the computer. I thought I'd been fast enough... nope, the computer started slowing down when rebooted. Then it froze in the middle of launching the wireless card. We sent the unit to my son, Kyle, a computer guru. He was able to save our data and programs' returning the computer to us the 29th. Hopefully we're out of the woods. We still have to get a remote hard drive for our data and a second computer for internet work. High tide at Jewel Island Jill, Ruth & Bill on Jewell trail Gunners' observation tower on Jewell Local lobster boat off Jewell Island Jill with dinner at Pulpit harbor Bill with a matching pair Camden inner harbor

Visit earlier portions of our 2008 voyage...

Boca Raton to Miami, FL - Jan 1 to 15, 2008	Miami to Key West, FL - Jan 16 to 31, 2008
Key West to Marathon, FL - Feb 1 to 15, 2008	Marathon, FL to Nassau, Bahamas - Feb 16 - 29, 2008
Norman Cay to Georgetown, Bahamas - March 1 - 15, 2008	Georgetown to Royal Island - March 16 - 31, 2008
Royal Island to Green Turtle Cay - April 1 - 15, 2008	Green Turtle Cay to Fort Pierce - April 16 - 20, 2008
Fort Pierce, FL to Savannah, GA - May 1 - 15, 2008	Savannah, GA to Norfolk, VA - May 16 - 31, 2008
Norfolk, VA to Deltaville, VA - June 1 - 15, 2008	Deltaville, VA to Cape May, NJ - June 16 - 30, 2008
Cape May to Point Judith, RI - July 1 - 15, 2008	Point Judith to Gloucester, MA - July 16 - 31, 2008