And the Vacation Begins

I spent four intense days at the National Congress on Science Education in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Along with my colleague, Susan, we discussed opportunities and challenges in science education with our colleagues around the country.  And, believe me there are plenty.  With the Next Generation Science Standards out and likely to be adopted by many of the states, we see an opportunity to further the cause of science education.  We also attended workshops related to running our organization.  We have many ideas and resources to work with now.

But now it’s time for my summer vacation to begin.  I flew from San Juan to Boston to meet up with George and our friends, Lynn & Steven.  We traveled to South America with them on our last big adventure in 2006.  This year, the adventure started in Bucks Harbor, Maine, and continues into New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and ends in Quebec, Canada.

From Boston, we drove to Belfast, Maine, where we spent the night.  The next morning, after provisioning up, we boarded at 38 foot, double-masted, wooden sailboat called Cygnet.  Captain Steve briefed us all on the features of our home for the next four days.  We motored out to the Eggamogin Reach, then set sails.  After about 20 minutes of sailing, the wind died.  Bummer, we motored on and set anchor near the end of the reach in the lee of Torrey Island for the night.

 

 In the morning, it was raining.  But, after breakfast, we hauled anchor, and set out for Stonington.  It was raining, but that’s what rain gear is for.  But wait, there’s more…no where in the guide books did it say anything about the thousands of lobster pots out in the cruising grounds.  I guess we should have known….Maine….lobsters.  Ok, so George stood on the foredeck directing whoever was steering the boat through the lobster pot buoys.  If only that was the only little snag….  Once the rain stopped, the fog rolled in.  Thankfully, we had trusty Captain Steve and the charts along with the GPS navigation system on board to get us to Stonington. 

Once there, we tied up at what we thought was a public dock, but was, in fact, a private one.  And if that weren’t bad enough, the owner of the slip showed up and asked us to move.  We moved the boat forward, and after talking with the owner, he took some pity on us and said we could use his mooring ball in the harbor and gave us a small bag of crab claws.  Unfortunately, it was still pretty foggy, and we couldn’t really figure out where the ball actually was, so we made our way (still in the fog) to Billings Marine were we rented a spot in their marina for the night.

We walked into town and had a twin, soft-shelled lobster dinner.  There, after dodging the obstacle course of the lobster pots, we were able to take some revenge by eating some of them.  Great dinner!

The next morning, it was still foggy.  However, for brief moments, it would clear up, and we could actually see the surroundings.  By about 11am, we decided to make our way to Vinalhaven Island, which was across Penobscot Bay from where we were.  With a carefully plotted course made by Captain Steve, the GPS navigation system running, into the fog we went.  It was pretty eerie, but we finally made it out and when we got closer to Vinalhaven, it cleared up.  We even set sail and had some fun sailing and admiring some of larger sailing vessels sailing around us. 

That lasted all of about an hour until we saw the clouds amassing.  We decided to make our way to Pulpit Cove where we would spend the night.  After a couple of passes, we finally set anchor (or so we thought) between two other boats for the night. Although we felt the anchor set, Captain Steve worried about the placement and about the length of the anchor chain; was it enough?  So, he briefed us on what we should do in the event that the anchor slipped and prepared the deck for that scenario. 

Thankfully he did, because during the night the wind really picked up, and even though the cove was protected on three sides, the wind came directly from the entrance and broke our anchor hold and we drifted almost into one of the boats we were next to.  Luckily, both Steve and someone from the other boat were on deck when they almost collided.  Steve called us up on deck and we were able to keep the boats apart, while he started up the motor, George and Lynn hauled up the anchor, and we made our way to a mooring ball not far away.  On the third attempt, we were able to hook it and secure the boat to it.

In the morning, we had a visit with the owner of the other boat.  Luckily, we were able to keep the boats apart and there was no major damage to his boat.  We had some scrapes on the gunnel of the boat that we thought were a result of the incident.  But, when we returned the boat the next day, it turns out that that was damage from a previous charter. 

It was a beautiful morning, and our last on the boat.  So, shortly after breakfast, we motored out on our way back to Bucks Harbor, but with the intent to get some actual sailing in.  We set sail and sailed around for about an hour.  It was glorious.  And, as an added bonus, very few lobster pots to avoid.

At Bucks Harbor, we de-boarded Cygnet, took showers, packed the rented car, and headed toward Canada we went.

Next stop: New Brunswick, and the Bay of Fundy!