Easy sailing
For the past couple of weeks we have been sailing around the local area. It is an ideal cruising ground, with lots of bays and islands creating sheltered waters with no real swell. You could cruise here for months and still not run out of anchorages.
There is deep water for the most part but plenty of rocks scattered around to keep you concentrating on your navigation. Not to mention the hordes of lobster pots – we haven’t caught any yet!
There are some great names around. We have been through the Fox Island Thorofare, the Eggemoggin Reach and up the Somes Sound (the only Fjord in North America outside of Alaska). We have anchored in Mackerel Cove, Pulpit Harbor and Stonington (home of the pink granite used to build many buildings in New York).
We visited the home of the Wooden Boat Magazine which also houses a wooden boat-building school. When we arrived they were running a ‘family’ course where parents and children together build an Optimist dinghy in a week.
We caught up with friends on a boat called ‘Long White Cloud’, who had just sailed down from Nova Scotia, and we joined them on their boat for the Wooden Boat Regatta. They didn’t win any prizes but were awarded a bottle of rum for coming the furthest distance (from New Zealand).
We have been planning to sail up to the Canadian border but first of all waited for a high enough tide to ground out again in Belfast. Here Dave took off the ‘V’ on the back of our rudder and welded on a foot-long plate of steel, the idea being that an increased rudder size may give us better steerage under sail. The following day we went for a test sail in very gusty conditions and managed to crack the bowsprit as a squall came through.
So we now need to make a new bowsprit before we can go anywhere. Luckily there are plenty of trees around!
There is deep water for the most part but plenty of rocks scattered around to keep you concentrating on your navigation. Not to mention the hordes of lobster pots – we haven’t caught any yet!
There are some great names around. We have been through the Fox Island Thorofare, the Eggemoggin Reach and up the Somes Sound (the only Fjord in North America outside of Alaska). We have anchored in Mackerel Cove, Pulpit Harbor and Stonington (home of the pink granite used to build many buildings in New York).
We visited the home of the Wooden Boat Magazine which also houses a wooden boat-building school. When we arrived they were running a ‘family’ course where parents and children together build an Optimist dinghy in a week.
We caught up with friends on a boat called ‘Long White Cloud’, who had just sailed down from Nova Scotia, and we joined them on their boat for the Wooden Boat Regatta. They didn’t win any prizes but were awarded a bottle of rum for coming the furthest distance (from New Zealand).
We have been planning to sail up to the Canadian border but first of all waited for a high enough tide to ground out again in Belfast. Here Dave took off the ‘V’ on the back of our rudder and welded on a foot-long plate of steel, the idea being that an increased rudder size may give us better steerage under sail. The following day we went for a test sail in very gusty conditions and managed to crack the bowsprit as a squall came through.
So we now need to make a new bowsprit before we can go anywhere. Luckily there are plenty of trees around!
posted by Katie at 4:09 PM
1 Comments:
It sounds great and there We are stuck with hail stones and thunder storms ;-( ,sorry We didn't see You later Month Nikita say's thank You for the sweets .Take care love Jill & Nikita xx
p.s I'm now getting Friends to see what My Big Bro & Sis in law are up too
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