Eggemoggin Reach and GOB

Ever since Cilantro was launched, we've talked about doing man-overboard (MOB) or crew-overboard (COB) drills, using a boat cushion or other floatable, so that we'll be prepared for a true emergency. But of course, we haven't done any. Until August 23, that is: while sailing up wonderful Eggemoggin Reach, we had the perfect opportunity to practice our GOB – gear overboard – technique.

Curtis had been reading in the cruising guide about Eggemoggin Reach – a 10-mile long, 1-mile wide passage between Jericho Bay at the southeast end and the top of Penobscot Bay at the northwest end. (It's called a Reach because you can sail its entire length on a reach in the prevailing southwesterly winds.) He had also been keeping an eye on the forecast wind directions and schooling himself in Maine tidal currents, which, depending on when and where you are trying to go, can be a tremendous help or a tremendous hindrance. After our experience fighting an ebbing tide into Blue Hill Bay, August 23 looked to offer the right confluence of factors: southwest wind and a flood tide starting in late morning. From our anchorage next to Opechee Island in Jericho Bay, it was only a few miles to the southeast entrance to Eggemoggin, and if we hit the flooding tide right, we might have as much as a one-knot boost for the three or four hours it would take to sail northwest to the other end.

View toward Mount Desert Island, with fog bank. "Gone!"
says Curtis. "It could close in again!" says Sue. 

Fog clings to Opechee Island. Curtis would say it has
"dissipated."

August 23 dawned, but we were completely fogged in at Opechee. “Can you see the shoreline?” Sue asked Curtis, who was up and making coffee before 6:00 a.m. “Nope,” said Curtis. “How about the other boats?” “Nope.” “The lobster buoy just off our stern?” “Yup.” It was about thirty feet away and looked to be at the edge of the world. We busied ourselves with chores and activities, and by 10:00, the fog had mostly dissipated. That is, Curtis felt it had dissipated; Sue's interpretation of the word dissipated, however, was more along the lines of "gone," "absent," or "vanished." She looked at the wisps clinging to Opechee Island and the fog bank offshore between us and Mount Desert Island and said, "Uh uh, diminished but not yet dissipated." We negotiated, which took long enough that the fog really had become a non-issue, then we weighed anchor and headed south around Opechee and west into the Casco Passage, where we found ourselves motoring against a 1.0-knot current. (Will we ever learn?)

Current in Casco Passage riffles past a
red nun.

Once through the Casco, however, it was a short hop north to Eggemoggin, where we picked up a freshening southwest wind and started sailing – on a reach, of course. It was lovely, one of our best sails so far, with good wind, cool sunny weather, and wonderful surroundings. We had enough wind at one point that we considered reefing the genoa, but just as soon as we talked about it, the wind settled back down. Around noon, we were even in a lull (Curtis called it a “lull for lunch”) and just drifted along in the current while we munched.

Approaching the Deer Isle Bridge in Eggemoggin Reach

As we neared the two-thirds point of the Reach, the towers of Deer Isle Bridge came into view, which is the only link to the mainland for Little Deer Isle. Sue was at the helm and Curtis got the camera out to photograph Cilantro sailing under the span, which is noted on the chart as having 85 feet of vertical clearance at its midpoint. Curtis stepped to the stern to frame the shot and accidentally knocked our solar lantern out of its wimpy mount. Away it sailed, or away we sailed while it bobbed unhappily in our wake.

Solar lantern, after its GOB plunge and rescue;
note droplets inside the globe

“Gear overboard!” one of us could have shouted. Instead, Sue shouted, "It floats!" and Curtis said, “Come about!” Sue tacked, while Curtis trimmed the sails to slow our progress. When we reached the lantern, however, we still had too much speed and zipped right past it. Sue turned downwind in a controlled jibe to come back to the lantern, and Curtis stood at the bow with the boathook. There was nothing for the boathook to grab onto, however, so Sue left the wheel, crouched along the port side lifelines, and reached down to the water to grab the lantern. Saved! Our technique wasn't perfect, but it was sufficient for the circumstances. The entire rescue took five minutes, plus about fifteen more to disassemble the lantern, dry it out, and reassemble it. And it still works, albeit with a residual fog of moisture in the globe. We hope an overboard crewmember (may it never happen) would have a similarly happy fate.

After all this excitement, we sailed under the Deer Isle Bridge for real, complete with photographs. We continued to the end of Eggemoggin Reach, turned south past the abandoned lighthouse on Pumpkin Island and entered upper Penobscot Bay. We anchored that night in the Barred Islands, between Big Barred and Little Barred to the east and west, respectively, shoals and reefs to our south, and Escargot and Bartender Islands to the north. A 10-knot SW wind was whipping up waves as we entered the anchorage, which was unnerving to Sue, but the winds were predicted to lighten up in the evening and turn out of the north by midnight.

Pumpkin Island with abandoned lighthouse

GPS track showing our 10-mile sail up Eggemoggin Reach
and anchorage between the Barred Islands

It was the windiest anchoring we had attempted, and the deepest (about 32 feet under our keel). But we took our time and followed what has been our method so far: reviewing the charts and cruising guide, motoring through the anchorage to choose the spot (this is a shared decision), heading upwind to it until we are dead stopped, dropping the anchor, and letting the bow and boat drift off with the wind while Curtis gradually pays out chain and nylon rode. He works at the speed of our drift, so that our rode is laid down in a reasonably straight line rather than heaped in a tangle. Once we have enough scope out for the depth and tidal change, we sit patiently until the boat has drifted all the way back and the rode is taut, and then Sue runs the engine up to 1500 or 2000 rpms in reverse while Curtis holds his hand against the nylon rode to feel whether it is jerking and bouncing (bad, suggesting the anchor is skipping across hard mud or rock) or just stretching (good). Then we shut things down, take a few bearings on nearby objects or ranges and keep checking our position over the next half hour. So far this has worked well. We feel fortunate to be learning and practicing in benign weather and with good holding in every anchorage we've visited so far.

Using the GPS anchor track for the first time; Cilantro
seemed to do a lot of wandering.

Our Northstar 952X chartplotter has a “drop anchor” tracking feature that we hadn't used before. We activated it at the Barred Islands to see how it worked and get a feel for the movement of the boat around the anchor. When we viewed the track an hour or so after anchoring, we were shocked at the spaghetti mess of lines showing how the boat had swung and circled and dithered and dallied in the gusty winds. What was the point of all that straight-line anchor setting? Curtis was sure at one point we were dragging, and he ran up on deck to check the ranges and bearings we had set. They were fine, he decided, although the tide had dropped about four feet, changing the shoreline shape and rendering some of the ranges useless. We left the track feature on overnight, and Sue kept hearing a slap or clunk or knocking sound and imagining us drifting, or slamming, aground. She got up several times to check the anchor track, which of course never looked more reassuring, only less, since it is really scribbles on top of more scribbles. This was a case of TMI – too much information!

Sunset panorama with moon and Little Barred Island