Back to Burnt: One Last Maine Adventure

On Friday, September 7, we set out from South Bristol Harbor for a last Maine cruise in Cilantro. (She is scheduled to be pulled out of the water on Monday the 10th.) We motored across outer Muscongus Bay to Burnt Island in three- and four-foot mixed swells from the south and southwest. We thought about putting up sail, but the winds were light, and we would have been on a broad reach, with wind abaft the beam (coming from farther back than the midpoint of the boat). With the motion of the boat climbing up and over the swells, we were worried about jibing and excessive boom bounce, so we charged up batteries instead. The swells were a parting gift from Tropical Storm Leslie that was bypassing Bermuda and heading northeast toward Newfoundland. (Sue's personal belief was that some of the swells approached six feet from trough to crest, but she went with the three- and four-foot estimates to seem more grown-up.)

Greater shearwater in Muscongus Bay

Being under power instead of sail meant that, whenever we saw interesting birds, we could slow up and watch or turn and chase them. We spotted a large group of gannets circling and diving, and Curtis saw a boil of fish beneath them (perhaps escaping from harbor porpoises or a whale), so we motored in that direction. The fish had dispersed by the time we got there, but we had great looks at gannets, plus a greater shearwater that Sue managed a so-so photograph of, panning with her point-and-shoot as it flew past the boat.

Our goal on this mini-trip had been to visit Monhegan Island if we could. Monhegan lies 10 miles out to sea -- the name means "out-to-sea island" in Mi'kmaq -- and is known for excellent hiking and birding, especially during migration. The island community is considered a quintessential part of coastal and island Maine culture. The problem is that Monhegan has no safe anchorages, and there are only a handful of guest or rental moorings available on any given day. If you arrive late or during a busy time, you may not find a place to stay and will have to return to the mainland or head to the nearest alternative (usually Burnt or Allen Islands, several miles away). Even if you do pick up a mooring in Monhegan Harbor, it offers very little protection from prevailing winds and waves. Curtis read aloud from the cruising guide: "The harbor is exposed to the southwest and, to a lesser degree, to the northeast. Even in calm weather, the ocean swells funnel into the harbor and make it rolly. During a blow from the south, the swells are awesome, and it would be an extremely difficult and dangerous place to be." The forecast for Saturday predicted strong south and southwest winds and six- to nine-foot swells, so we were uncertain at best about making the 10-mile trip offshore.

Monhegan Island on NOAA chart #13301; Monhegan Harbor is exposed

to southwest swells; the rest of the west shore is deep, with strong tidal

currents and numerous underwater cables.

Allen and Burnt Islands in Muscongus Bay (NOAA chart #13301); we

anchored in the curved bay along the north shore of Burnt.

Anchoring on the north side of Burnt Island, in a little curving bay that we had visited before, we were mostly protected from the ocean swells, but a few of them wrapped around the point of land to our east to roll the bay a bit. We followed our usual anchoring routine, with Curtis dropping the hook in about 18 feet of water and paying out the chain and nylon rode steadily as the wind blew our bow off and we drifted downwind. We waited until the boat's drift pulled the nylon taut, then Sue shifted into reverse to put mild and then moderate tension on it. As she ran the engine rpms up to about 1700, she could feel the boat making small jerks backward, and she could see the shoreline sliding by in the opposite direction. Up at the bow, Curtis felt the rode alternately tension and jerk loose under his hand, indicating that the anchor was skipping along the bottom. He signaled to Sue to shift into neutral, and he let out another 25 feet of rode. He felt the anchor take hold, paid out even more line, and then Sue powered against it again in reverse. This time there was no jerking and hopping (and the shoreline stayed in the same place!). We took a few bearings and kept an eye on our swing and drift for a while, but the anchor held nicely.

Sunset with great blue heron on Burnt Island

We took an evening row along the shore, watching double-crested cormorants perch goofily on a floating dock. We considered going ashore, but the rollers were sloshing and breaking rather messily on the cobbled and rocky beach, so Sue was apprehensive about trying to land. Curtis kept rowing, and Sue snapped a sunset photo with a great blue heron.

Three more boats eventually joined us in the bay, including a 40-foot or larger craft from Florida skippered by a single-handing sailor who competently dropped sail and anchored, then disappeared below for the night. One of the other boats was an older, wooden, cutter-rigged boat carrying a family of four plus a small dog. They arrived at dusk, anchored next to us but at a respectable distance, and hung what looked like an oil lantern from the inner headstay for their anchor light.

Neighboring boat departs in a foggy dawn.

Fog greeted us the next morning. Visibility was less than a tenth of a mile, so we could only dimly see the shoreline of Burnt and the neighboring boat. As the fog began to dissipate ("diminish," Sue would say, not "clear"), the Florida single-hander weighed anchor and motored out of the anchorage, climbing back and forth between the helm and the mast and foredeck, putting up his mainsail and readying his headsail for hoisting. He disappeared into the fog around the point. From the wooden sailboat next to us, two kids plus mom and the dog rowed to a distant beach in their hard dinghy.

Curtis marveled that Burnt Island was far enough offshore to make gannets a "yard" bird. At least twenty of these elegant pelagics flew past Cilantro while we sipped our coffee in the cockpit. An adult bald eagle flapped slowly through the fog from a spruce tree on Burnt to his "office" on a small rock-pile island to the north. We had seen probably the same eagle on the same rock pile during our last visit to Burnt.

Whale carcass on Burnt Island

We dinghied to the nearby rocky shore for a mid-morning walk on Burnt Island. Sue was still nervous about disembarking from the dinghy onto the wet and seaweed-covered rocks while waves sloshed into us from behind, but she survived the operation (with Curtis's gracious assistance). Burnt Island is privately owned, but boaters are allowed to visit in the off-season (not July or August), and there are several miles of well-maintained trails. Scanning the shoreline through binoculars from the boat, Sue had spotted what looked like a 20-foot-long whale carcass on the rocky beach, so we walked down the beach to get a closer look. The smell was terrific -- probably this summer's casualty, as the tail flukes were still visible along with other fleshy parts and skin -- but the gulls didn't seem to mind.

On the rest of our walk, land birds were few and far between: a northern flicker, a mockingbird, white-throated sparrows, robins, catbirds, and crows calling in the distance, but no warbler flocks. Sprays of goldenrod, yellowing rosa rugosa, and even orange lichen on a roof lent the island a distinctly fall feeling. Sue stopped frequently to "collect" photos of wildflowers and seaweed.

A fall feeling in the landscape on Burnt Island

Sonchus asper, or prickly sow thistle

Rosa rugosa

Fucus (brown seaweed) species

Assorted seaweed; Sue thinks the red and green fringed
ones might be Chondrus crispus, or Irish moss, along
with pieces of kelp and several Fucus species 

Returning to the boat, we prepared to depart into the slowly clearing fog. We weighed anchor without any trouble -- no kelp this time, but neither was there any mud, so we were probably anchored in rock -- and motored east and south around Burnt Island. We had to pass a mile or so farther south to clear Old Man Ledge and Old Woman Ledge, but by then we would be on a nice trajectory to sail back toward Pemaquid Point. We had ruled out visiting Monhegan Island, given the wind and swell forecast, but Curtis was hoping to get some good sailing in on our last day on the ocean. The swells were already higher than Sue liked, but Cilantro's motion through them was (Sue admitted) relatively controlled. We raised the main to see if it would steady us even more, and it seemed to, so we motorsailed for a while before unfurling the staysail and shutting down the engine. The wind speed was 12 knots when we started out, and it built to 16 or 17 as the day went along, so we left the genoa furled.

Curtis enjoying a great sail; Sue takes many photos to
distract herself. 

Curtis loved the sailing, the tightness of the rigging, the smooth motion of the boat, and her 8.2 knots of speed! He was in his element at the helm or sitting on the edge of the cockpit, watching the wind, fiddling with our heading, and trying to spot whales and seabirds. Sue spent most of the day just getting comfortable with the ocean. It was definitely "lumpy," as our friend Kurt Fisher describes it. She took lots of boring photographs of waves, trying to "commune" with the troughs and crests, and was occasionally able to laugh at herself. Climbing down the companionway to grab a snack or put something away requiring finding and using all available handholds and shifting your weight and balance to match the swing and sway of the boat. Curtis called it "gimbaling," like the movement of Cilantro's gimbaled stove on its axis. "You're getting the same exercise as if you were on a walk," he said to Sue. "So we are gimbaling through the sea instead of gamboling through the forest?" she asked, thinking the forest was a mite more appealing at the moment.

"A lovely day on the ocean," says Curtis. Where he found
beauty, however, Sue saw an endless series of swells.

"What about this giant one powering toward the boat?"
Sue asks.

"Look! Those guys are having lots of fun too!"
Curtis pointed out, as a couple of passing
sailors waved to us.

After passing Pemaquid Point, we sailed north through Johns Bay on broad reaches and a run, returning to the mooring in South Bristol Harbor by late afternoon on Saturday. Cilantro's decks (and the backsides of our shorts!) were coated with salt spray, but we hoped a forecast frontal passage and rainstorm might rinse her off overnight. The rainfall turned out to be minimal, but Mikey told us the next morning that a local fisherman had clocked a wind gust at 42 knots. Probably best that we saved Monhegan for another visit, we agreed.

So our last coastal cruising adventure in Maine has come and gone, along with the lumpiest ocean we have so far encountered. Sue was glad to be getting a gradual introduction to big seas, and Curtis was thrilled with the sailing. Cilantro the Pacific Seacraft turns out to be a very solid ship, and we look forward to moving her south and west toward her next adventure. She will be decommissioned (mast and rigging removed) by Bittersweet Landing Boatyard over the next couple of weeks, after which she will be trucked cross-country to Tucson, transferred to another truck, and driven south into Mexico.

Sunday morning in So. Bristol Harbor