Cruising Passamaquoddy Bay

We are under way northbound along the Western Passage, just about to cross the western end of Passamaquoddy Bay, headed for the St. Croix River. It's blowing 30, and has been since the middle of last night, making our anchorage at Lubec untenable and tendering anywhere inadvisable, so we figured we'd just get out of Dodge and let the stabilizers keep us comfy for the day. We're actually in Canadian waters right now, just a couple hundred yards offshore.

All my planning for Lubec Narrows paid off, and the fretting I did about it anyway proved unnecessary. We arrived at West Quoddy Head with considerable current behind us, but most of that continued eastward into the Bay of Fundy, with only a portion of it following us around the corner through Quoddy Narrows. Quoddy head is the easternmost point in the US, and we got a nice view of the historic lighthouse there. Long-time readers may remember us stopping there in Odyssey, after a romp through the solar system.

Approaching Lubec from Quoddy Narrows, with the "sparkplug" lighthouse marking the Lubec Channel.

Arriving considerably ahead of slack, we considered dropping a lunch hook in the bay, behind Quoddy Head, to wait for slacker water. But as we approached the channel I could see all the way to the International Bridge, and there was little turbulence around the bridge piers. Also, two lobster boats blew right past us and headed up the channel, so we just followed suit. We had just a knot or so behind us, and 18' of extra water underneath us, and it was an easy ride.

We curled around the town of Lubec to port, passing the town dock and through the mooring field, and dropped the hook in Johnson Bay just northwest of Lubec Neck (map). I called around a bit and found one open restaurant, the Fishermans Wharf at the Inn at the Wharf. We splashed the tender before dinner time and headed ashore to explore a bit.

Vector anchored along in the enormous Johnson Bay. Best shot I could get across private property from the street.

We had expected to find a few restaurants and a couple of businesses along the main drag, Water Street. Everything was closed, some perhaps for good. One restaurant sported a sign saying they would reopen when they could do so safely and profitably. Three others are open only on the weekends. The nice hardware store, at least, was closed for the evening but was open daily. We walked by the post office, where most of our deliveries were already waiting. The post office and CBP share a building at the foot of the bridge.

We had a short wait for one of only three outside tables at the Wharf, but at least they let us have a nice local draft beer out front while we waited. One of the restaurants only open on the weekends is actually the local brewery. The food was decent, but the deck was right above a working lobster wharf and a faint smell of rotting fish permeated the air; we won't be back.

Lubec as seen from our anchorage.

I returned ashore stag yesterday to swing by the post office and get our packages. I then hoofed it down to the tiny IGA grocery store to load up on provisions, pretty much whatever I could fit in my backpack. I made it back to Vector just minutes before a thunderstorm arrived; we used those few minutes to pay out more chain and dog everything down. We had a nice dinner aboard.

We had figured to return ashore today, when precisely one other restaurant might be open, and maybe get a few more things. But these forecast high winds moved in over night, and by the time we got up this morning, it was clear we were not going ashore. The wind was actually pulling us over the shallows near the lee shore, and with little purchase in the rocky bottom we were actually dragging slowly and had to recalibrate the anchor alarm overnight.

Sunset over Johnson Bay.

It was uncomfortable enough this morning, and also a bit nerve-wracking moving closer to the rocks as the tide ran out, that we weighed anchor and moved across the bay, dropping the hook in a protected cove behind Rodgers Island (map). By this time we already knew we'd be headed to the St. Croix, and so we scoped for a lunch hook while we waited on tide.

Cruising up here is governed by tidal currents, some of which can exceed Vector's top speed. Around the corner from where we were at Rodgers Island is the Reversing Falls of Cobscook Bay, which I wrote about way back when we stayed at the state park nearby. There is even a turbine on the seabed in Cobscook that generates power from the tides. And so we weighed anchor at a time when the tide predictions said we'd have decent conditions for the run. Predictions are just that, and we've had some current against us most of the ride so far.

Best shot I could get of the enormous Old Sow whirlpool. This is close to slack tide.

That, at least, made for interesting sightseeing as we passed The Old Sow, the largest whirlpool in the western hemisphere. We passed just a few hundred yards away, and while it would have been perfectly harmless for Vector to take the short detour to run through it, we've been in strong eddies before (on the Mississippi) and it's more work than fun.

The St. Croix runs all the way to Calais, which here is pronounced CAL-us (c.f. my previous posts on Cairo, Madrid, Thames, et. al.), but the last few miles is unnavigable for us at low tide. The Coast Pilot suggests an anchorage just a couple miles from the town dock, and we'll go at least that far today, run a big circle at close to high tide (25' here), and see if there is enough room to anchor. If so, we can do the last two miles to town by dinghy.

The resort town of St. Andrews, NB, Canada. Tantalizing -- it would have made a lovely stop.

If we can get ashore, there are many more services here than any of the nearby towns, including a small Walmart. We need more provisions, dinghy fuel, motor oil, and hardware (Lubec did not have what I needed for the anchor roller). We'll be right back this way in a couple of days.

We are indeed fortunate to be here in the remote reaches of Maine right now. But our hearts are on the Gulf Coast, where Hurricane Laura is taking aim at some of our favorite places along the Louisiana and Texas coasts. We are expecting destruction exceeding what Rita did in 2005, and our longest readers may remember our descriptions of the devastation there while we spent three months working disaster relief. We're hoping that this time, evacuation orders will be heeded. Please stay safe, everyone.