Massachusetts bound

We are underway southbound in the Atlantic Ocean. As I begin typing, Gosport Harbor, the Isles of Shoals, and the Star Island lodge are off to port, and the Hampton River is off to starboard. We have finally left the thickest areas of lobster floats behind us and I can divert some attention to typing.

Not long after I last posted on Friday, we arrived at the Piscataqua River and headed directly to our familiar spot in Pepperrell Cove, off Kittery Point, Maine (map). It was very comfortable when we arrived, and we looked forward to perhaps spending a few days in that spot, running upriver a couple of miles in the tender to enjoy downtown Portsmouth. We had a quiet dinner on board.

Unfortunately, at the evening turn of the tide, we ended up broadside to a gentle swell that was right at Vector's resonant frequency, and Louise had a miserable night. Things were again tolerable when we awoke, but at the midday tide change the rolling started again, and we decided we needed a different venue.

Normally we would just go upriver to the city docks at Prescott Park, but there is a three-night limit there, and we were still sorting out when we might see my cousins, who were away for the weekend, and my aunt and uncle, who might drive out from Saratoga to see us. We wanted to save our three nights for the visit, if possible.

Instead we weighed anchor and cruised up the Piscataqua in search of an anchorage. The tidal current in the river is wicked, to use the local parlance, and thus most of the riverbed is scoured down to rock. Even the places where sediment and gravel collects are deep, from 30-60' at low tide, making for large swing circles that will inevitably encompass lobster floats or mooring balls.

Upbound on the Piscataqua, approaching the very modern Sarah Mildred Long lift bridge, with the I-95 arch bridge behind it.

Hoping to still be within dinghy distance of the city dock, perhaps three miles or so, I scoped out a couple of possibilities along the industrial waterfront north of town. We requested an opening of the Memorial Bridge just upriver of Prescott Park, passed under the swoopy Sarah Mildred Long lift bridge without needing an opening, and then under the fixed I-95 bridge before reaching the area.

One of the two spots I had scoped out had enough holding and just enough room for us to swing among the pots. But as we were getting ready to snub, an irritable lobsterman came by and started harassing us about being too close to their gear. We never tangle with fishing gear at anchor -- every time we've caught a piece of gear we've been under way -- but this was not an argument I wanted to have in the middle of the river, and especially knowing we would be leaving the boat unattended periodically. We decided to just move along.

That meant going all the way around the corner, past Dover Point, and into the start of The Great Bay. The narrows under the Little Bay bridge at Dover Point has some of the highest current on the river, three knots at max flood or ebb, and we whizzed through with a following current, hand steering. We dropped the hook in a wide spot in the bay with some sand on the bottom (map), in an area marked on Google Maps as "Boston Harbor" (really).

From here it is five miles to Portsmouth, which is a 20-minute ride going flat out. Not something we wanted to do with temperatures in the 60s, so instead we headed a short distance across the bay to Lexie's, a burger joint at the Great Bay Marina. Dinner was fine, and it was nice to get off the boat. It also gave us a chance to check out the marina.

We spent two nights in the anchorage, and it was dark, quiet, calm, and peaceful. Sunday was cold and rainy, a perfect day to work in the engine room, where I replaced the zincs on the main engine heat exchanger. That's a particularly fiddly process on our engine, best done when there is no deadline for moving, in case anything goes awry. We had a quiet dinner aboard.

Monday my cousins returned from their trip, and arranged to pick us up in the afternoon. Our preferred digs at Prescott Park were unavailable for those three nights, and so instead we simply moved the boat over to Great Bay Marina and tied up to the face dock (map). As usual, we filled the water tank and Louise started a round of laundry before we left for the evening.

Last night I had to replace this anchor roller, which the chain nearly wore in two. Note the hole in the middle.

We had a great three evenings visiting with my cousins and my aunt and uncle, who arrived Tuesday. In between visits we kept one of their cars, which we used to make runs to the grocery store, Walmart, and Costco for provisions, Lowes for maintenance supplies, and Goodwill to deposit the last couple of months' worth of superfluous items. I thought I'd be trundling seven gallons of used motor oil, too, but the marina had a collection tank and just took it.

My cousin and uncle dropped us back off at the marina Wednesday night just as the remains of Hurricane Ida landed on us. We had torrential rain all night, swelling the river, and saw winds up to around 30. Not enough for us to notch Ida into our tropical cyclone tally, but clearly it wreaked death and destruction on NY and NJ, where we will be headed shortly.

Yesterday we dropped lines after the worst of the storm had passed and the current was favorable. The freshet was so large that I had to idle most of the way due to the extra current, to avoid station-keeping at the bridge. We arrived at Memorial Bridge at low tide, and I had lowered our tall antennas in the hope of just squeezing under, but again the extra water reduced the clearance to where we had only millimeters to spare, and we asked for an opening.

We continued all the way to Pepperrell Cove in anticipation of today's passage. But once we had the hook set, it became clear we would again have an uncomfortable swell all night, and instead we moved over to a mooring ball at our old friends the Portsmouth Yacht Club, across the river (map). We were comfortable here all night, although there were some wakes in the evening and this morning. Launch service is included in the $40 mooring fee, but we opted to just remain aboard.

As I finish typing, the plotter is projecting an arrival in Gloucester Harbor around 16:30, and if it's warm enough, we might tender ashore for dinner. Tomorrow's passage weather is also good, and so we will make way across Massachusetts Bay in the morning.

Family time.

We are underway northbound in the Atlantic, just passing Cape Neddick, Maine. We had a lovely visit with my cousins while we were in Portsmouth, and got a lot done while we were not visiting. Today we are both a little worn out, so it's a good day for an open-water passage in calm conditions. I am very far behind on answering blog comments, so I am hoping to have a little time left over for that after I get this post out.

After finding a spot to drop the hook near Kittery Point on Tuesday, our good fortune continued, as the dockmaster at Prescott Park called to say they had a cancellation, and we could have all three nights from Wednesday through this morning, on the dock with power. After getting the news, we dropped the tender and headed ashore.

Portsmouth is nothing if not eclectic. This rig was parked not far from the dock. No idea what they did with the engine.

There's nothing ashore at Pepperell Cove other than the harbormaster, a small post office, and a complex of three waterfront restaurants all under the same ownership. We learned that only the casual patio joint is open on Tuesdays, and when we arrived they were fully booked. But our serendipity continued as we almost immediately scored a high-top in the first-come, first-served bar area.

After dinner we strolled for a few minutes, but then the rain that was not forecast for another hour started, and we scrambled home just before the downpour started in earnest. The storm arrived with 35kt winds, and the 137' schooner Roseway just a couple hundred feet from us started dragging. They had arrived after us and anchored too close for our comfort; when I hailed them on the radio to discuss it, they assured us they would be maintaining an anchor watch. True to their word they had all hands on deck during the worst of the storm to re-set the anchor.

Stopping at The Works for bagels. Not quite New York, but better than most.

Wednesday morning after the worst of the ebb had passed, we weighed anchor for the 20-minute run upriver to Prescott Park in downtown Portsmouth, now a familiar stop for us. We tied up to the concrete T-head (map) just before lunchtime. As soon as we were secured, I immediately started work on "dockside" projects that have been piling up waiting for a dock.

The first of those was the leaking dinghy tube, which had to wait for a minimum of a two-day window where we would not need the dinghy and also had the right conditions of temperature and humidity. The leak is a small hole where an improperly-stowed anchor wore through the fabric from vibration, and this is the third attempt to patch it.

The first patch I used the one-part glue that was in the repair kit that came with the boat. When that failed I called for professional help; they were too booked to get us in, but gave the advice that the glue was probably too old and I should try again with a fresh tub of one-part glue, so that's what I did. That patch, too, started leaking shortly after installation. When we were in Port Washington I went into West Marine and dropped the 70 bucks on the two-part adhesive for the next attempt.

Third try, which I hope is the charm. The decorative blue swoosh probably doomed my second attempt; this time I cut the patch around it.

So Wednesday afternoon was spent carefully removing the failed patch with a plastic scraper, removing the old adhesive with chemicals and abrasives, and sanding down a new patch and the damaged area. I put the new patch on with the two-part contact adhesive and then deflated the tube entirely to allow it to cure. This morning I put air back in the tube; the jury is still out on whether or not I succeeded.

I had just wrapped up with the patching when we were whisked away to my cousin's place in Chester. We had a relaxing afternoon catching up and went out to dinner in nearby Derry. They loaned us a car for our stay, and we drove ourselves back to Portsmouth and put the car in the free 72-hour lot a third of a mile from the dock.

Thursday I started in on urgent dockside project #2, which is to reverse the anchor chain. In Gloucester I had picked up 15' of fresh nylon line and a new shackle, and I started by refreshing my skills making an anchor splice (or chain splice) of the new line to the shackle. I was prepared for battle, because that's what it was the last time I did this, using decade-old line that was incredibly stiff.

Chain spice, before docking the tails. I'm sitting in a deck chair on the foredeck. Pardon the stained work pants -- it's grubby in the chain locker.

The fresh line made a huge difference, and making a decent splice was relatively painless and not too time-consuming. I dug out the other parts needed for the project, including the "hammer lock" style chain coupling to connect the anchor, before setting it all aside and heading to Nashua for a Costco run and some other errands. Among other things, we bought steaks for the grill for dinner at my cousins' house.

Yesterday morning I dove back into the anchor project with a vengeance. We had managed to haul the heavy anchor over to the dock the day before, and I started in on the old chain connector with the Dremel tool. These connectors are supposedly reusable, and you are supposed to be able to drive the pin out with a drift. But after four years of saltwater use, the retaining collar is basically fused to the pin, and the collar needs to be cut away before driving the pin out. It took me well over an hour and seven cutoff wheels.

New bitter end, threaded through the spurling pipe. It will end up going the other direction, but first we need to get all the chain out of the locker and off the boat.

The good news here, having now removed two of these after four-plus years each, is that I no longer have the slightest concern about them coming apart under heavy use in salt water. The rings and pin are alloy steel that is not even galvanized, and the retaining collar is galvanized mild spring steel. I was initially concerned the pin might corrode, or the retaining collar would corrode away and let the pin slide out. Now I know it just won't happen.

Once I had the anchor disconnected I brought the chain up on deck and spliced the nylon piece, complete with shackle, onto the end. For those who missed it, this ten-foot (after splicing) section of 3/4" nylon line at the "bitter end" of the chain connects the chain to the "bitts" (which, on our boat, is really a steel ring welded to the frame). It's strong enough to hold the boat to the anchor and chain if all the chain accidentally pays out of the locker, for example if the windlass clutch fails. But it can also be cut with a serrated knife in the event of an emergency where the anchor and chain need to be cut away from the boat, something we've already had to do once and hope never to do again. Splicing the rope directly to the chain is the only way for the connection to pass over the gypsy on the windlass.

New bitter end, freshly attached. The grate material at top of the photo keeps the chain up off the floor of the locker to allow it to drain. It's pulled up to allow me to get the shackle pin installed.

My plan had been to tie the new bitter end, which was formerly the anchor end, off on deck, and then pay all the chain out of the locker, letting it fall to the riverbed. Then I would put the bitter end into the gypsy and winch it all back into the locker. As I was getting ready to do this, Louise pointed out a possible flaw in my reasoning: What if the windlass was unable to pull the front end of the chain out from under the other half ton of chain? Or worse, what if some of it hockled and came off the bottom in a knot?

While I considered this unlikely, I had to acknowledge the possibility. The windlass is rated to lift 2,300 pounds, more than twice the dry weight of the chain, but periodically the chain jams in the locker, stopping it cold. We did not know what was on the river bottom or what it was like here, and the possibility that so much weight could jam some chain into a crevice or something similar gave us pause. We needed a different plan.

110-lb anchor and ~600 lbs of chain on the dock. You can see the chain running back to the boat at right. Anchor is tied to the dock with the black line, "just in case."

The last two times we did this, the boat was on the hard and we were able to lay all the chain out on the ground. This also allowed for inspection and to paint length markings on it. And had we planned for this ahead of time, we could have been docked in a different spot where we could get the anchor roller more or less over a dock. But here, I would have to haul the chain over to the dock by hand as it came off the roller, a lateral distance of perhaps a dozen feet.  Allowing for catenary, that meant hauling 30-pound handfuls of chain hand-over-hand. With the old coupler already cut from the anchor, we were committed.

We tried to move the boat back a short distance along the dock to make this easier, but all that did was cause the current to push the boat another four feet off the dock. I piled 250' of chain on the dock before we decided that the remaining 150' could be done according to the original plan, letting it drop to the bottom. We left a couple of chain links in the gypsy while I descended into the anchor locker to unshackle the bitter end of the rope. The very messy anchor splices I had made four years ago were intact and strong, so much so that I had trouble cutting them away from the chain and shackle.

I tried to saw through the old chain splice with our emergency line-cutting serrated knife, center, and electric hot knife, top, before giving up and using snips to cut it strand by strand.

I had to be down in the anchor locker as the chain came back in to ensure it distributed properly, which meant Louise had to be on the dock to marshal the piles of chain back into the water. After most of the chain was back aboard, I fastened the anchor with a shiny new coupling, pushed the heavy beast off the dock back into the water, and we winched it aboard. Tonight will be the first test, wherein we will see if changing to the less-worn end of the chain has it feed through the gypsy more smoothly. The other end was so worn the link spacing was off -- our motorcycle friends would know this phenomenon as "chain stretch," which is not stretch at all but wear -- and the resulting poor fit in the gypsy pockets was causing it to jump.

We were both pretty beat by the time we finished, but we still found some energy to make a quick run to UPS, Walmart, and Home Depot while we still had a car. In the evening my cousins arrived in their other car and we had a nice dinner at downtown Portsmouth eatery The District, where we celebrated the youngest one's birthday a few days early. It was a great three-day visit, and we're very grateful for the two extra trips to lend us a car.

New coupler freshly installed. With the hammer used to drive the pin home.

In stark contrast to last year, when all was closed down, this season Prescott Park has a full slate of events on its summer stage. We were away during the performances, but we saw lots of sound checks and even dress rehearsals; over the course of our stay there were two music concerts and a children's stage performance based on Frozen. Downtown Portsmouth was also very busy, with lots of summer visitors walking about and enjoying the many shops and restaurants.

As much as we like downtown Portsmouth, and would love to have spent another couple of days, the dock has a three-day limit, and there is really no place to anchor anywhere within a mile or two of town. Thus we dropped lines at checkout time this morning and headed out to sea. Our plan was to anchor in Biddeford Pool, as we did last time, and maybe get ashore. But our reciprocal yacht club there wants forty bucks to land a dinghy, and the only dining in town is a lobster shack. Instead we pressed on to Seal Cove, at Cape Elizabeth, where we've dropped the hook (map) just as I wrap up the post.

Working on our night moves

We are under way across Bigelow Bight in the Gulf of Maine. It's already almost cocktail hour, and we are on track for an uncharacteristic after-dark arrival at Rockport, Massachusetts, having made a late afternoon departure from Portsmouth.

We had a very pleasant night at Stage Island Harbor; a little bit of swell came in at times, particularly at high tide when it could cross one of the ledges, but it was otherwise very comfortable and serene. We weighed anchor early yesterday morning to be in Portsmouth for lunch time. That had us racing up the Piscataqua with, at times, three knots behind us. We were tied up to the Prescott Park docks (map) by noon.

Vector at the old wood docks at Prescott Park. Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in background.

My cousins arrived at 12:30 as scheduled, bearing grinders from the local top-rated sandwich shop, and Italian pastries (my weakness) from a bakery in town. We won the weather lottery for the day, and it was warm enough on the aft deck to sit comfortably in shirt sleeves or light jackets. We had a great time catching up, and they stayed until a little past four.

Shortly after my cousins left, a small dinghy pulled up to the dock. It turned out to be our neighbors from Stage Island, Grace and Drew of the sailing vessel Juliana. We chatted briefly at a safe distance; they are new cruisers who've recently wrapped up their landlubber lives and are headed for points south. We exchanged contact information and hope we'll see them again along the way.

One last look at Portland as we departed, with Fort Gorges in the foreground at left.

Between the enormous sandwiches, a bag of chips, and too much dessert, we were well-fed for the day, and so at dinner time we just had a light snack on board rather than braving the Saturday crowds (it's still tourist season here) to get into any of the dozens of nice eateries in town, all of which now have outside tables.

We made up for it this morning by going out for brunch. It was a bit too crowded in the center of town for our sensibilities, so instead we had a surprisingly good meal at the Hammer Pub and Grille, formerly the iconic Rusty Hammer bar. In the mid-day sun it was very comfortable.

The seas were so glassy on our cruise out of Portland Friday that we were able to spot this pod of dolphins by their wake.

The choice to go out for brunch and also to put the e-bike on the ground for some fresh provisions meant that we missed the morning ebb. Rather than push our way out on the flood, we asked the dockmaster if we could just stay tied up until the tide changed this afternoon at 3:30. He had no one coming in and said it was no problem.

Our plan had been to drop lines at 3:30 and run downriver to Pepperrell Cove, which is actually in Maine, to anchor for the night. That would let us launch on the morning ebb, headed for Gloucester. It was a great plan, but when Louise re-checked the weather after brunch, tomorrow's forecast had deteriorated significantly.

Sunset over the Massachusetts coast from sea.

Rather than have an uncomfortable four hours to Cape Ann tomorrow, we decided to make a run for it in today's relatively benign conditions. That meant leaving the dock at 3pm with the last of the flood still against us, and arriving at Cape Ann well after sunset, at "nautical twilight." Coming in in the pitch dark is a bad idea, even though we've been there before and have a good track, because it becomes next to impossible to see the lobster floats.

It also meant heading for Rockport rather than Gloucester. Running the canal after dark would not be a good idea, and going around on the outside would put us in much later. As I am wrapping up typing the sun is beginning to set, and we still have over an hour to the anchorage.

The view from our anchorage on arrival: Rockport at night.

Heavy weather moves in tomorrow afternoon and will keep us pinned down for a few days. So in the morning we will weigh anchor first thing, and either head around the point to Gloucester Harbor, or else a little further south toward Massachusetts Bay, and hunker down someplace by mid-day.

Update: While I had hoped to just get this posted under way, it got dark enough that I had to stop typing or I couldn't see the pots. We're anchored in Rockport Harbor (map), more or less where we were on our last visit. This time there is an annoying swell that we did not predict based on the forecast. It was mostly dark when we arrived, but we managed to get all the way in without hitting any floats.

Adios, Isaias

We are under way in the Gulf of Maine, after a lovely stay in Portsmouth, NH, only slightly interrupted by a tropical storm. We had a nice visit with my cousins, who were kind enough to receive our new batteries and other items for us, and I mostly finished the installation and cut-over of our new lithium battery system. I will have an entire post dedicated to this latter subject out soon.

Saturday we arrived at the mouth of the Piscataqua at an inopportune time in the tide cycle, and we had to battle our way upriver against a knot or two of current. It is particularly fierce around Fort Point, where the river makes a sharp turn. The ebb current, though, did make it possible to tie port-side-to at the face dock at the Portsmouth Yacht Club to offload a scooter. We also filled the water tank so we could get a couple weeks' worth of laundry done.

It was a slow spigot, and we were at the dock for over an hour and a half. As soon as the tank was full, we shoved off and headed for our assigned mooring in the river (map). That had us picking up the ball at exactly max current, not the easiest of tasks. Complicating matters, the pennant (or pendant -- I've never gotten a definitive answer on which is the preferred term) was very short, barely enough to reach Vector's forward hawse-holes.

Portsmouth's "on street" dining areas are protected by these water-filled temporary barriers. If you draw eyebrows on them and a vertical line for a nose, they look like faces; someone made a mask for this one, inspiring Louise to pose in hers.

Picking up a mooring on Vector involves coming alongside the ball and bringing the pennant up to above deck level at one of the large freeing areas forward of the Portuguese. The bulwarks at the bow are just too high -- some ten feet or so above the waterline -- to reach a pennant eye. So we normally loop our line through the pennant eye at the freeing area, then walk it forward to the bow as the boat drifts back.

In the strong, turbulent current, I just could not keep the boat directly alongside the ball long enough for Louise to get the eye to where she could loop it. In the process of trying, we lost one of our expensive collapsible boat poles overboard (once the hook is in the eye, it's almost impossible to release, and you can't hold the force of the whole boat hanging onto a pole). They float, but the current was so swift the pole was too far downriver to retrieve before anyone could get it.

Ultimately we conceded defeat, and had the yacht club dockhands come out in the launch, take our line, loop it through the pennant, and throw it back to us. We settled in, enjoyed our cocktail hour on deck, and decided to eat aboard rather than try to find patio dining in a tourist town on a Saturday night.

Vector at Prescott Park, in the calm before the storm. Someone erased the river, and Maine.

With my various parts at the local Amazon counter, and the batteries already sitting at my cousins' house, Sunday I tore into the battery project, doing the carpentry work to fit the new batteries under the saloon settee. It was dirty work in a cramped compartment, and took me a good part of the day, in part owing to some unanticipated structure right where the batteries needed to go. The oscillating tool got a good workout right along with me.

We had planned to take the launch ashore for dinner and to pick up my parts, but by dinner time I was feeling crummy and the weather was uncooperative, so we ended up never leaving the boat. Instead I headed ashore stag first thing Monday morning to ride to the Amazon counter, in a local Rite-Aid store. I also walked to the Hannaford grocery right next door and picked up a backpack full of fresh provisions.

Parts in hand, I spent the rest of Monday running and terminating battery cables, installing other parts, and generally getting as close to ready as I could for the actual arrival of the batteries. Even on a Monday evening, the restaurants downtown were so booked up for outside dining that the best we could do was a 7pm reservation at the Old Ferry Landing. That meant splashing the tender, as we'd arrive back at the club after the launch service ended at 8pm.

The tide here runs ten feet, with current to match. Several buildings around town have these "tide clocks" on them. This one was more or less correct when I passed, but I've no idea if it even moves.

This is a fried-seafood-and-sandwich joint that would never be our first choice in Portsmouth, but our dining now revolves around the availability of outside tables, and they had one. The food was fine, and we enjoyed people-watching and strolling around the downtown waterfront area. I was surprised at just how many tourists were in town on a Monday. We made note of which restaurants now have previously-unavailable outside dining, due to takeover of on-street parking spaces.

We decked the tender as soon as we returned to Vector, in anticipation of the arrival of Tropical Storm Isaias, which was being forecast as a direct hit throughout much of the day. That forecast gave us second thoughts about our initial plan to spend the storm on the beefy PYC mooring. Not because we thought it would be unsafe, but, rather, because we experienced some uncomfortable motion when wind was opposed to current overnight, and we figured to be absolutely miserable aboard when the winds ratcheted up to TS force.

Rather than secure everything against that kind of motion and resign ourselves to perhaps eight hours of misery, I booked the T-head at the downtown Prescott Park dock (map), where we had stayed on our last visit. I was a bit surprised it was still available. Tuesday we dropped our mooring just as the flood began and headed upriver a couple of miles to the dock. We left the scooter at PYC.

Another one for our many UU friends: South Church.

Most of the morning was given over to running through our windstorm checklist. The storm was going to ace us out of walking someplace nice for dinner, one of the main attractions of this dock, and so we instead walked over to the Gas Light Company for a late lunch of wood-fired pizza di parking-space. While we were eating, my cousin Lori called to say she wanted to drive up from Chester with our packages, rather than wait on plans for the whole family to gather for dinner Wednesday. I was happy to have the batteries in hand while we could easily load them at the dock, and continue the project with shore power available.

This is a Honda Ruckus; as 49cc scooters go, they are rather uncommon ...

Isaias ended up being a non-event. Our anemometer just barely registered tropical-storm force winds for one brief moment. We got some rain, and hours of wind in the mostly 20-30 range. We've had worse thunderstorms come out of nowhere. Still, we were glad to be at the dock rather than bouncing around on a mooring ball. I spent most of the storm making bus bars and installing batteries, and now we have another notch on our named tropical storm belt (six, and counting).

... owing to their rugged industrial look that is anything but "Vespa."

Yesterday morning I finished up the battery installation and cutover, glad to have been able to do this final item while still on shore power. In the afternoon I had a nice stroll around town, replenished the beer supply, and walked in to a nice Italian joint downtown to make a dinner reservation for five of us later in the evening.

With such a tiny share of the scooter market we seldom see these ...

We dropped lines at high slack and headed right back to the same mooring ball at PYC. They were happy to have the ball free while we were at the dock, as they got a last-minute request from another boater seeking a secure mooring for the storm. Arriving at slack, we had little trouble picking up the ball this time, although Louise did grab it at the boarding gate, even further aft than usual, owing to its very short length.

... except in Portsmouth, where by law, there is one on literally every street corner.

We splashed the tender, headed ashore, and rode the scooter right back downtown in the evening, meeting my cousins at Massimo's Ristorante, where once again we dined in a parking space. We enjoyed catching up, and celebrating an important birthday milestone: my cousin Joe turned 16 yesterday, and soon will be driving. It was great seeing everyone, and we'll try to swing back by on our way south later in the season.

I got chastised for parking like this one, and was told instead to park on the sidewalk (really).

With nothing else calling us to stay in Portsmouth, and especially with nothing in walking distance of the yacht club, we decided to continue north this morning. We dropped the mooring at the tail end of the ebb, so we could again come port-side-to at the face dock to load the scooter back aboard. By 9:30 we were back underway, leaving the Piscataqua on the last of the ebb.

Did I mention there are a lot of Rucki in Portsmouth? Here we see a family of three.

We passed Kennebunkport a short while ago (probably a nice stop, but at $7 per foot, we're not dying to find out) and we have our sights set on an anchorage behind Fletcher Neck. We're in Maine now, and as a welcoming gift, I have been dodging lobster floats all day. Our reward, soon enough, will be inexpensive lobster rolls.

As near as we can tell, there is a Honda dealer in town pushing these things. I took all these pics in the span of just a few city blocks. We saw dozens more walking around town.

Update: We are anchored in Woods Island Harbor, near the community of Saco, Maine (map). I had to knock off writing a good half hour out because the lobster floats got thick and I had to thread the needle between rocky islands to get here. We should have a comfortable night, and in the morning we will continue north.

As I was on the bridge getting ready to pull away from the dock I notice even the dockhand has one. I missed my chance to ask him why they are so popular here.

A note about the blog: Blogger has changed its editing interface. I have resisted moving to the new system because there are many, many complaints about the inability to control formatting as in the past. But starting this month, I have no choice. This is my first post with the new system, and I hope it will display as intended for most of you. I may have to make some adjustments as we move forward. Please let us know in the comments if the formatting is weird or the links do not work.

Maine touch-and-go, and 14th Nomadiversary

We are under way southbound in the North Atlantic, en route from Kittery Point, Maine to Rockport, Massachusetts. We had a very nice five nights in the Kittery/Portsmouth harbor, but with perfect passage weather we are answering the call to be heading back south. It is very nearly glass calm out here today.

Seas had also calmed down considerably as we reached the Piscataqua River entrance Wednesday afternoon, a welcome relief after a somewhat bumpy passage. As we approached the harbor, passing the Isles of Shoals to our starboard, an LPG tanker was just weighing anchor offshore and preparing to head upriver. We need to keep 1,000 yard separation from such tankers; fortunately he finished weighing and headed upriver well ahead of us and pulling away.

Once in the harbor we set our sights on Pepperell Cove, an anchorage in Kittery Point, Maine. As we approached, though, it appeared there was no place to anchor outside of the mooring field without running into lobster pots; reluctantly we called the harbormaster and requested a mooring. I'm sure we could have fought our way through the pots and found a spot to anchor eventually, but with the river running two knots and after a long passage, we did not want to expend any more energy on it.

Ironically, the harbormaster was in Florida when he answered the phone, on some kind of family visit. He assigned us a ball and gave us directions to our spot (map). Since we were not planning on going ashore, he asked for my email address, and after some back and forth he is sending a bill for the $30 to our US mailbox. Only in Maine, where sometimes the moorings have jars attached for you to drop your money on the honor system.

There is a large dinghy dock in Kittery Point, and one small restaurant/store with some nice outside tables, but we were too bushed to fiddle around launching the new dinghy to get ashore. We thought we might stop back here on our way out, but with little to offer, this morning we opted to bypass it. It was scenic, though, in the way that Maine often is, and we enjoyed our one night on a mooring. We were even rewarded with a double rainbow over the lighthouse.


Kittery Point from our mooring. Whaleback Lighthouse at right.

In the morning we dropped lines on the flood and whizzed upriver to Prescott Park. As we came around the bend abreast of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, four or so knots of current nearly spun us around in a swirling eddy, reminding me a bit of our trip down the lower Mississippi. Fortunately, the docks at the park are far enough off-channel that we barely had any current to negotiate at the dock.

We were secured alongside by 9:30 (map), and I texted my cousins to arrange a meeting time. We took advantage of nearby trash and recycling to offload quite a bit of both from the boat, and I spent a little time investigating our surroundings there at the park.

I won't bore you with the minutiae of a family visit. Suffice it to say we very much enjoyed catching up with my cousins on the last couple of days of their vacation. School started for the 14-year-old this morning, and his dad also went back to work, so Thursday and Friday were their last two weekdays off.

Originally we had planned to only spend those two days, and we booked those two nights at the park, which nominally has a 72-hour stay limit. But Thursday we learned that, even though my cousin and his wife were busy all day Saturday, my uncle and my other cousin would be driving over from their homes in Saratoga and Albany for the day. And so we extended our stay another two nights via the web site. We took the fact that they accepted our reservation as permission from the dockmaster to stay beyond the 72 hours.

It's about a 45 minute drive from the dock to their house in Chester, and we started the first day with them hauling us back and forth. But with the stay extended, Friday we just borrowed one of the cars to drive back and forth on our own, and I found a free city parking lot good for up to 72 hours about a half mile walk from the dock, where parking is limited to two hours.

As we were driving home Friday night we were surprised to see signs a mile out of town directing visitors to a lot there with a shuttle bus, and I was worried my well-planned parking spot might be full when we arrived. We lucked out, with a few spaces left. I dropped Louise at the boat first, and spent an extra hour walking around downtown after parking.

I didn't know it when planning to dock here, but downtown Portsmouth has become something of a tourist destination. There are numerous bars, clubs, and restaurants, many of them right along the riverfront. We enjoyed lunch at one of them Thursday, and we had dinner last night at another. But Friday and Saturday nights the whole town was abuzz; I was out walking around close to midnight and many restaurants and all bars were still doing a brisk business, and the clubs were just starting to heat up.


Vector at Prescott Park docks. Memorial Bridge upriver of us.

It was comfortable shirt-sleeve weather both evenings and I very much enjoyed walking around the vibrant downtown. Perhaps we will return some day and spend a little more time getting to know the place. It's even possible to walk across the bridge to a couple of good lobster places on Badger Island in Maine. This is the very same bridge that stopped us in our tracks in Odyssey when we came through here in 2009; since then they replaced the entire bridge with a new one that looks a lot like the old one.

One evening we returned home to find outdoor movie night in full swing in the park, showing Wonder Woman. And another evening a band was playing live music on the stage. Portsmouth has a full calendar of summer events in this well-used park, and elsewhere throughout the city.

My aunt, uncle, and one cousin left yesterday mid-day to return to New York, and after a quick stop at Best Buy for a new Chromebook for school, my cousins drove us back to Portsmouth where we had one final meal before saying goodbye. It was a very nice but very full visit; we've both been collapsing in bed early each evening.


Passing Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on our way downriver.

This morning we had a chance to relax a bit before the 11 am checkout time. As much as I'd have like to spend perhaps another day or two anchored in the Piscataqua to visit Portsmouth and Kittery, this flat calm two-day passage window was just too good to pass up, and we dropped lines and steamed out of the river. It was slow going, with two knots against us, but once in open water we picked up speed quickly.

Tonight we should be anchored just off Rockport, Massachusetts, on the north side of Cape Ann. We thought we'd try something different since we'd been to Gloucester twice already, and this stop is best only in settled weather.

This will be our first chance to use the new tender since picking it up a week ago. We've been so busy with family that I've had time neither to re-position the chocks nor to load any of our gear, let alone install the plotter/sounder. We'll throw in the minimum gear to get ashore tonight, and the rest will have to wait till Boston Harbor. We should be anchored there tomorrow afternoon.


Leaving New Castle Light and Fort Constitution to starboard departing the Piscataqua.

We were so busy with family that we missed our 14th Nomadiversary, which came and went during the visit. It was 14 years ago Friday that we closed the door behind us on our last fixed dwelling ashore to live this nomadic life. We'll celebrate tonight at dinner ashore in Rockport.

Gloucester to Isles of Shoals

We are under way off the coast of Maine, en route to Portland. Today's passage is a little over seven hours, affording me time to catch up on the blog. We are offline, a bit over three miles off the coast in a fairly remote area (if that term is not redundant for Maine itself).

Tuesday morning we weighed anchor in Boston Harbor in time to make it past the south end of the Logan runways and around the corner to the east of the airport and out of the small boat channel, so we could watch Air Force One land.


Old North Church (one if by land ...) over the Paul Revere monument on our last night in Boston.

We hovered in the deep area outside the airport's security zone but west of the Governors Island Flats; it's a fairly large basin so we could just drift. They were late, but eventually we got to see uhh, wait, what's that?


Air Force One arrives at Logan.

I'm not on the Secret Service distribution list, and so I missed the memo that Obama would be traveling on the smaller Boeing C-32 executive transport, rather than the customary Boeing VC-25 that most of us associate with Air Force One. The later is derived from the civilian 747 and is unmistakable; the C-32, while painted in the same "United States of America" livery, is derived from the much smaller 757.

Two identical aircraft landed, but we were too far away to get a good photo (we saw them fine through our binoculars). Even the bigger VC-25s always travel in pairs (so a backup aircraft is always at the ready); I would guess here that the first plane down was Air Force One and the second was the backup, with some of the press corps aboard. But we were not sure this wasn't just an advance party, with the VC-25 to follow, until we saw commercial flights resume after about a half-hour hiatus (presidential travel is a nightmare for everyone else - if you had a flight in or out of Logan Tuesday morning you were probably delayed).

Shortly after the planes landed, the USCG closed Boston Harbor. Ferries, tour boats, pleasure craft, tugboats -- everything stopped, until the presidential motorcade had cleared the tunnel under the harbor that carries traffic from the airport. We were already past the closure and unaffected, but there was a certain amount of grumbling on the marine radio.

Once we realized that no 747 was coming out of the sky, and that we had already seen the President land, we continued on our way, arriving in the port of Gloucester, Massachusetts, in the afternoon. Our cruise, though, was not without some drama of its own.

I had to hand steer out of our viewing location, around a tight corner and into the very busy Small Boat Channel, a shortcut between two shoals used by many fast ferries and other vessels arriving and departing the harbor. Just as we made our turn into the channel, we heard a call on the radio about a boat on fire off one of the nearby Harbor Islands.

Now, we've heard many distress calls over the past couple of years, including fires, and generally you are lucky if even a single police, fire, or Coast Guard boat is deployed in response. But on this day, every Boston Police, State Police, Boston Fire, MassPort Fire, and Department of Environmental Protection boat in Boston Harbor was already manned, on the water, and just wrapping up with the whole Presidential arrival fiasco. In short order we were passed in the channel by two police boats, a fireboat, and a USCG small boat, all on full plane with sirens blaring.

The fireboat, at least, stood a chance of helping, with giant "rocket launchers" -- high-volume water canons -- mounted on deck. Everyone else was, IMO, just using the opportunity to go really, really fast and play with the siren. In the end, it was all for naught, as the culprit turned out to be black diesel exhaust from a boat having some minor engine trouble.

After exiting the Small Boat Channel we turned north, hand steering through a sea of sailboats taking advantage of the last of the warm weather on a holiday week. After we cleared the last of them, I engaged the autopilot to settle in for the three hour or so cruise to Gloucester.

The autopilot dutifully worked for a few minutes and then started blaring an alarm. A quick check of the display said it had lost rudder control, and things did not sound right, either. I quickly took manual control of the helm, and we did what all techno-geeks do when computers screw up -- we power-cycled it. That did not clear the problem; we'd get a rudder control error within a few seconds of engaging the unit, and it never made the sounds we've come to expect.

I immediately checked behind the helm console to make certain we had not blown a hydraulic line, which would mean even manual steering would fail imminently and we'd need to heave to and drop anchor. This was unlikely -- a failed hydraulic line would have led to loss of manual steering much earlier, but it had to be checked.

Once I was confident our manual steering hydraulics were intact, I turned the helm over to Louise, stripped out of my street clothes, and squeezed through the cabinet behind the helm console to dig into the guts of the autopilot pump. Non-followup steering commands to the autopilot sounded to me like they were operating the hydraulic solenoids, but the pump was not running, more likely an electro-mechanical problem than a failure of the electronic module.

While I was in there poking at the thermal circuit breaker and the pump relay with a voltmeter, the whole mess started working again. I have no idea what the original problem was, and I'm pretty sure my poking did not cure it, so I can only guess the self-resetting thermal breaker had tripped, and taking the cover off the box let enough heat out for it to reset. We're keeping a watchful eye on it now, since we don't know why it tripped in the first place.

The autopilot took us all the way to Gloucester with no further issues, and we did not have to hand steer the whole way. That would have been a great port, however, to repair it if needed, as there are lots of working boats there along with the concomitant chandleries and marine repair businesses.


Approaching Gloucester.

The USS Fort McHenry, LSD-43, had been anchored in Gloucester Harbor for the holiday, I think just on a regular port visit, or possibly in town for the Schooner Fest over the weekend. We had to give it a wide berth; they'd been making Naval Security Zone announcements on the radio all weekend. As we passed, a tour boat was pulling up to their landing craft dock at the stern (looking a lot like a giant swim step), presumably chartered to ferry crew ashore for leave and visitors and vendors aboard. Clearly not the pride of the fleet, LSD-43 made me feel a bit better about Vector's rust issues.


"Warship 43," as they call themselves on the radio, with their "tender" coming up behind.

We dropped the hook in 20'-30' of water just outside of the city mooring field at the inner harbor (map). From there it would be an easy tender ride to the town dock for dinner, and to Three Lanterns Marine Supplies where our new snubber was waiting. It was quite tight in the anchorage, and after setting the hook we shortened up to a 4:1 scope, which kept us less than a boat length from the sailboat behind us.


Vector in Gloucester Harbor, as seen from the town dock, after most other boats had left.

That proximity proved handy when, shortly after we splashed our tender, the skipper of that boat lost his grip on his own tender's painter. He started stripping down to go swim after it, but we were able to cast off quickly and I wrangled it and towed it back to him before it could do any damage to any other boats in the anchorage. They left the anchorage before we even returned from dinner.


Dinghy rescue operation.

We went ashore and strolled along Main Street, hoping to find a nice dinner. Most of the well-rated places were dark on Monday, and we ended up at Jalapeno's Mexican of all places, which at least had more stars than the handful of touristy waterfront joints open on a Monday. It was acceptable, but we are a long way from Mexico.


The quintessential view of Gloucester, from our deck. Notwithstanding the spill boom around the trawler.


This classic Romsdal trawler yacht lives here. We looked at one of these during our search. Gorton's plant in the background.

In the morning we tendered up the channel to Three Lanterns and picked up the new snubber we had ordered custom-spliced a few days earlier. It was a well-stocked chandlery with decent prices, and we picked up a couple of other items as well. The snubber came in well under their estimate; a major fishing port is a great place for marlin-spike work. Afterwards we tendered back to the town dock and walked to the well-stocked hardware store for a few items before heading back to Vector.


These rocks were submerged when we passed them inbound, hence the sign. Lobster floats in the foreground.

While I had not planned on it, when we got back to the boat we realized the harbor was so calm and protected that this was an ideal place to try to change the snubber, which involves some gymnastics from the tender to access the shackle on the bow eye. It took a really big wrench, some elbow grease, and a liberal application of PB Blaster (along with sorbent "diapers" to keep the latter out of the harbor) to get the pin out of the shackle, but I did manage it after 15 minutes or so of prodding.


The view from above as I affix the new snubber.


The old snubber, replaced just in the nick of time. It's nearly worn through where it contacts the chain.

I shackled one end of the new snubber to the bow eye and we lashed the other end on deck, reasoning that the recalcitrant shackle on the chain-hook end could be coaxed out under way in the workshop, with help from the vise. We finished weighing anchor and steamed back out of the harbor, bound for New Hampshire.


Passing Eastern Point Light, at the SE entrance to Gloucester Harbor.

We opted to go around the eastern side of Cape Ann, which is stunningly beautiful, rather than take the tricky canal and Anisquam River route, which saves three miles but would have had enough current against us for the first half as to nearly negate that. The outside route brought us close aboard Thatcher Island, with its famous twin lighthouses that date back to British colonial times.


The Twin Lights, as seen from the NE after we passed them.

After rounding Thatcher Island, it was a straight line to our next stop, Gosport Harbor in the Isles of Shoals. We had hoped to anchor there, and I did have the chain hook attached to the new snubber on arrival, but it was clear after a quick circuit of the harbor that we'd need to pick up a mooring ball or else drive around the islands to a different anchorage.


Passing Isles of Shoals Light, on White Island.

The harbor is deep, some 80' in the middle, with steep sides of solid rock. All of the area in 40' of water or less is chock-full of moorings, many private and some belonging to yacht clubs along the New Hampshire and Maine coast. Even if we thought we could get a bite on the rocky bottom (unlikely), there was simply no place to veer out enough scope without swinging into another boat or mooring. Making matters worse, only a small handful of moorings in the harbor were beefy enough and had enough swinging room for Vector, and most of those were already occupied when we arrived.


Approaching Star Island.

Fortunately, we arrived near high tide and could motor around the edges of the harbor in relative safety, checking out our options. Reluctantly, we settled for a mooring that was plenty big enough but very close to shore (map); my chart said we were in water that was from zero to 18' deep, and Pythagoras and I spent twenty minutes with the depth sounder and the range finder trying to figure out if we could swing into someplace where the rudder or keel would contact rock at low tide.

Ultimately we decided it was acceptable, barely, for the anticipated conditions, and we set the depth alarm to 14', which I figured to give us at least eight feet below the rudder for any reasonable guess at the slope of the basin. As luck would have it, we swung to that end of the circle at low tide around 3am, and the depth sounder woke us up. I headed to the swim step with a 12' boat pole and could not find the bottom, so we judged it to be a non-issue and went back to bed.


The rocky shore of Smuttynose Island is a bit close for comfort here...

I will make a parenthetical note here that we disdain moorings, much preferring to anchor using our own well-understood ground tackle. Seldom are they big enough for our 55' length, and almost never are they made for 110,000-pound boats with some 20-odd feet of windage above the waterline. In all the time we've been cruising, we've only ever "picked up a ball" twice, and those were places where we could ask in advance about how they were attached and rated. Here there was no one to ask.

All was well over night, and we could easily have moved on yesterday morning and that would have been the end of it, except that I wanted to go ashore on Star Island, and we could not do that and still make Portland in one day. The forecast said a system would move in during the evening with steady winds of 20 knots and gusts to 25 or so, and we were not at all comfortable staying on this mooring in those conditions. For one, we'd heard that the moorings here sometimes drag, and for another, if it parted we were so close to the lee shore that we could not possibly react in time to avoid ending up on the rocks.

Fortunately, by the time we were finishing our coffee, the harbor was clearing out, and we decided to move over to another mooring that was still large enough for us, but considerably further from the lee shore (map). It looked to have a lobster float nearby that we would just clear on our swing, and we judged that acceptable.

It was only after we were safely moored that I went back to check on the lobster float and realized it was a pennant float for another mooring ball; it was near high tide and the ball itself was five feet under water. While it's conceivable someone installed a mooring with too little tether, it's more likely this mooring was originally set in shallower water and got dragged here by another boat. It came all the way to the surface at low tide, and we were relieved to find we still cleared it by a half dozen feet or so.


This ball was so close that Scalar bumped it if we trailed her. It was submerged when we arrived, with only the green float on the surface. Or as Ed Norton said, "Hello, ball."

Putting that in perspective, a Krogen 48 (more or less the same size as Vector) came in later in the day and picked up a ball on the other side of the harbor; we had judged those balls to be too small for us (not enough swing room). He kept banging into the (fortunately vacant) ball next to him, about midships on his starboard side, throughout the afternoon. There were still at least two larger balls closer to us, so I'm unclear why they stopped where they did.


Krogen 48 Whaleback, alongside a ball they kept bonking into.

After we were well secured on our new mooring, we splashed the tender and headed ashore to Star Island. This island once held the town of Gosport, long since subsumed by the municipality of Rye, New Hampshire on the mainland. Now it is a conference and retreat facility, owned and operated by a consortium of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) and the United Church of Christ. We are members of the UUA and had never even heard of it until we arrived.


Louise on the porch, with the harbor and Vector behind.

In addition to spiritual retreats, the center also hosts such diverse workshops as yoga, photography, nature, marine biology, local history, and even "personal retreats" when space is available. Guests mostly stay in what used to be the Grand Hotel, with double-occupancy rooms and communal showers. Three meals a day are served family-style in the dining room; cruisers in the harbor are welcome to purchase a meal from the front desk when space is available. Dinner is $18 and must be booked by 4pm.

Outside of meal times, the dining room hosts a "snack bar" with breakfast and lunch items, and we enjoyed tasty bagel sandwiches as a brunch at 11:30. Bagels are a special treat for us, and they were delicious and quite reasonably priced. We spent some time on the porch and then walked around the historic buildings on the grounds, including the stone chapel which was outfitted for a UU service.


One for our ministerial friends, the chapel. Complete with antique quilt and UU chalice.

After a nice dinner on our aft deck, I was hoping to return to the snack bar when it reopened at 8pm for an ice cream. By then, however, the promised winds had arrived and the harbor was too churned up for the return visit. It was also too windy to hoist the dinghy, so we hip-tied it for the night to keep it from hitting the submarine mooring ball behind us.


Sunset from Gosport Harbor.

Since the dinghy was still in the water this morning, we tendered ashore to Smuttynose Island to have a look around. Today's cover photo is the view of Vector and Star Island from Smuttynose. While Star Island is in New Hampshire, Smuttynose is in Maine, with the state line running through the middle of the harbor (we were moored, it turns out, in Maine). Smuttynose is connected to both its neighbors, Malaga and Cedar islands, by man-made breakwaters, and Cedar is also connected to Star by a breakwater, giving Gosport Harbor its excellent protection. The islands are all private, but Smuttynose is open during daylight hours under a conservancy agreement, and we were met by one of the stewards, who gave us a little tour.


Scalar at Smuttynose. The private Lunging Island is in the background; Malaga Island is on the right.

We weighed anchor after returning to Vector, and headed out of the harbor. We enjoyed our two nights there, with the backdrop of New England out-island history, and the clang of the sea buoy and moan of the foghorn from the nearby Isles of Shoals Light to lull us to sleep.


Hard to see, but all those dots in the water are seals, and a few lounging on Duck Island.

This morning we rounded Appledore Island, close by but not connected to Malaga Island, with its handful of private homes and the Shoals Marine Laboratory. A few miles north we passed Duck Island, which is home at this time of year to thousands of seals. We were too far away to get a good photo.


Boon Island, five miles offshore, with its lighthouse.

So far under way we've passed two enormous pods of dolphins, the Boon Island Lighthouse in the distance to the east, and more lobster floats than I care to recount. I would gladly swear off lobster forever if it meant I would never have to dodge another pot, but sadly it does not work that way. In a short while we should round Cape Elizabeth on our way into Portland harbor, where we will drop the hook someplace protected from tomorrow's weather system.