aug 25th

wifi too slow for pictures.  pix later

August 25^th

Forecast each day the NE will hit but has not and today it seemed that the winds were E 20-25k. seas 5-8 feet.

I left the decision up to Ben cuz it made no difference to me if we left today or tomorrow especially cuz he is the muscles behind getting the anchor up off the deep thick mud in 20k winds pulling us away from the anchor and that there were no thunderstorms and heavy rains forecast… wind we should be able to set our sails right. 

He thought about it hard.  I was happy to see him weight the pros and cons! He said out loud (which I appreciated cuz then I can get into his head at some of his decisions why he does what he does…), “it’s going to be hard to get the anchor up…(yup, I nodded encouraging his speaking outloud!)) I wish we had one more person… one at the wheel to motor the boat forward, one cranking the anchor chain and one scrubbing the mud laden chain… it is gray and hazy so we won’t see much at Isle Au Haut… we could duff here one more day.” He looked at me for some tipping of his decisions but I was stoic… he can do it on his own.

He was silent and thought… (this was good for me to see too. There have been times he likes to jump ahead and I feel like I’m pulling the reigns in on his thoughts by simply asking questions that cause him to think it through where many times he will change his mind after more thought… or me being the captain I will explain what would make me happy and why… sounds egotistic as I write this… it’s not that way… its about safety for Pam… my comfort zone is way smaller than his… like Ben wanting to go our first night sailing with a forecast of bad weather when waiting one day will make it a nice sail instead of a nail biting sail for our first night sail…He likes to jump in and I like to have more experience so when things challenge us we are ready… I’ve had enough sailing happily and we are increasing our comfort zone with our knowledge base so I was comfortable with whatever.  I thought he was going to say quickly, “K, letz-go!”) He kept thinking then he said… “Let’s try it we can always come back in. and if we can’t get the anchor loose then we stay.”

Excellent thought process. I motored the boat… there is a fine line of keeping the boat into wind and losing way… once the boat get 5 degrees off line the wind will catch her big mass belly and swing us around fast, which happened and Ben looked back at me… I yelled through all the rain and wind noise, “Sorry, I’m getting it…”

I pulled her back into wind and kept more power… he’d yell, “stop.” I let down the throttle but I kept some power on… he never noticed that I did not “stop the engine” but stopped out “way”. We got to the chain part (we had 110 feet of line connected to 100 feet of super heavy chain) it was muddy! I came to help winch… We went slow and it self cleaned as the rushing water helped clean the chain.  At 50 feet I ran back to the motor since we were in 40feet of water.

I pulled forward and slowly edged up and Ben cranked and off the bottom it came.  Here we go.  Never once during the day did I feel like this was a mistake or that we should stay in seal bay.

We motored out of the protective bay and got a glimpse at the wind direction and waves! I turned her around… I think Ben was thinking I was taking us back.  I yelled forward and said, “Don’t worry I’m just going back in the protection of the bay to set the sails.” It was 25k now so it has 10 more knots to go out there… we reefed twice and put up the staysail.  We learned before that less sail is best… is it?... read on.

Oh before I go Ben did an excellent job of tethering on to the jack (safety) line and going up front to reef sails.  This is no small task… you pull up the main to ¾ the way up then fiddle around with re attaching the sail at a shorter size then putting back in fittings and stuff… all while the boat is bucking up and down. I’m concentrating at keeping enough power into wind so as to not get the side caught by the wind to pull us sideways as which time the wind will catch the sails and really tip us over as we speed.

We agreed on a double reef and staysail.  Out we poked our nose.  Big rocks on the left, wind at 20… we were moving into the wind 35 degrees, the boat moved 45 degrees then 53 degrees toward the rocks… Still we were only going 2 knots, we had opposite of weather helm (weather helm is having too much sail and our boat keeps pulling us up into wind hard – this was opposite?) I had the wheel all the way up into wind and we kept falling off toward the cliff like rocks… I had not enough sail to get us through the wind… I had not turned off the engine yet… I like to make sure all is happy before cutting the engine… here it seemed we had too little sail to pull us into the wind so we could not turn the other way and tack away from the rocks… (that would be into the wind, thru the wind and end up on the other side)… I gave the motor extra power and motored into the wind on a port tack. (this whole thing had me baffled and I was not understanding what just happened and why we lost steerage and why we could not get thru the wind… I scratched my head. And thought… duh we might had too little wind.

Now on a port tack… the same thing happened where I did not have enough power to steer through the winds.  Ben and I looked at each other still not sure what the problem was cuz before we thought too little sail is better than too much… He said, “Let’s shake out a reef.” I was reading his mind or he was reading my mind… He went up front again now in the full 20k winds with waves about 4 feet.  The  moment he set the first reef I could tell this is the right thing to do.  He came back in the cockpit and I feel off beautifully into away from the wind.  We were perfectly balanced.  Still only going about 3 – 3.5 knots.  Impossible with all this wind.

The wind picked up… 22 … 23 … 25… 26 … 26 … 26… 26 was perfect for our boat with this sail configuration. We were going 5 k… she was balanced and by that I mean the wheel is pretty much in one spot, “top-dead-center” no fighting, no wrestling just fun sailing…

The rain picked up and it did sting my face yet I was warm… the boat was happy… the seas were only 4ft… we were not healed way over … harmony and balance… our boat can teach us that about life… too much or too little of a good thing is not really good….

We sailed and then 26k… 29… 30… 32… 32… 32k… Our sailing was out of balance again.  Well not too bad the problem was lobster pot lines!!! I’m beginning to hate them…. Oh to back up remember when we were near the rocks we had also just ran over a lobster line I cut the engine quickly and looked underneath and sure enough it was hooked on our keel.. this time all I had to do was turn the wheel and it feel off.  At that moment both ben and I were racing in our minds what to do…. We could not start the engine… we were heading for the rocks in 69 feet of water… we would quickly drop the anchor and let out 200 feet of line… then deal with the line… but we were spared that crisis and that would have been a think fast crisis…  one we think we would have been a little prepared for since we knew how to get the line off the keel from before… I digress…

32… 32… 32..  ahh that is where I left off.  32k 32 k and rising.  Now we had weather helm  each time I had to move off my perfect 38 degrees to wind to miss a lobster line the wind would take the boat flying to a beam… the boat would heal way over and the bullworks (those are the walk ways around the boat) would plough into the water as we would lay almost on our side and weigh us down the bow would dip low then jump up as I steered us back on course…) see why I’m not so fond of lobster lines anymore.  32k… 35k… 36k… ok we are way out of balance again.  The rain still hurt my face it is like sleet coming down sideways in the winter time in MN, but it was not freezing. I had been steering all day and not once did I get cold.

We were close to our desination… so we put head into wind and dowsed the sails and motored on into a quaint old fashion lobstering town. We pulled up a mooring ball.  (I love mooring balls in this condition!) We were happy to be set… I was soaking wet even though I had long underwear, jeans, turtle neck, sweatshirt with hood, rain coat with hood, bib-overall rainpants, mittens and scarf.  Once moored I got out the scrub brush and scrubbed the deck. Why not? It was perfect rain to give it a good rinse.

We went down below to pick up anything that flung on the floor and made supper… read books… talked about our day… saying at no time did I feel scared, tired, upset, fearful yet most of the day was exciting… fun… like a ride at valleyfair… physical…safe..  and a good experience and learning curve went up another notch…

Now if I can just learn about electricity I’d be happy. Ha ha ha

Got to get some work done tonight … I’m responding to emails even though we have no internet… I’m writing them and when we get wifi at Mt Desert Acadia national park (if we get it) I will send them out.

All in all a blessed day that the Lord hath made.