Friday, July 11, 2008

Sailing to Rockland!

Ahoy mates its me Matt. Today I played my gameboy and read my Star Wars book and finished it. Then I drew for awhile. We saw a lot of schooners on on the way to Rockland and I took a picture of one. After we arrived I started the dink when we went ashore. Then Grandpa got a new depth sounder, yeah. Then I started the motor on the dink again and docked it like I always do. More tomorrow on Matt's Blog.

Well, we did motor a little bit but we sailed the last three hours from Maple Juice Cove to Rockland. We had a glorious northwest wind that was steady at 12 to 15 knots off the land so there was no fog. It was a broad reach all the way up Muscle Ridge Channel, great Maine sailing. We saw lots of schooners in Penobscot Bay as we sailed into Rockland. We took a photo of Owl's Head lighthouse for the benefit of those who were with us last time that didn't see it (due to the fog). Of course the lobster pots were thick but what can you do? Just look ahead for a "fairway" and find your path through them. It gets easier with practice. On the way we saw our first Outward Bounders, a dozen or so stuffed in a small, open boat. It's an outdoor adventure school that's based in Penobscot Bay at Hurricane Island.

We had intended to get a dock but found they were all accounted for due to the Jazz Festival weekend event so we took a mooring instead at Knights Marine Service ($30) and found they had free laundry machines! I went to Hamilton Discount Marine to pick up my new depth sounder. Back on the boat, as I started to undo the fittings for the old display unit, I found the cables for the sounder and speed transducers to be crimped and bound to a post by the installer - to keep them from coming unplugged, I guess. Well, the crimp, over time, affected the depth readout because when I released the crimp in preparation for replacing the display unit, the depth sounder started reading correctly! So now I have a rather expensive Raymarine depth sounder I do not need. I'll watch things over the next few days to see if the problem is really solved and try to return the one I bought. Another rule of sailing: the best way to fix something is to buy an expensive replacement - you'll find that the original item broken suddenly works now!



We plan on sailing east tomorrow, perhaps to Seal Bay, wherever the wind takes us. We have no more schedules, we're here to sail, it's great!

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