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News & Features
Strider's surf 'n turf science show
By Roger Long
For Points East
My cell phone rang in the midst of the final flurry of preparations for Strider's oceanographic cruise to monitor CO2 emissions in Northeast waters (see my June 2009 Perspective), which could affect global warming. A dispatcher from Fundy Traffic, the radio and radar system that controls vessel movements in the Canadian portion of our planned study area, said that we would be denied entry into Canadian waters.
I was not naive enough to believe that I could just show up at the border in a 32-foot recreational sailboat loaded with water-sample bottles, strange-looking instruments lashed in the cockpit, racks of chemicals on a small lab bench over the quarter-berth, and not expect some problems. I had a three-page letter from the proper U.S. agency, declaring that my volunteer, unpaid water sampling was not in violation of my recreational documentation, and I had filed a float plan with Fundy Traffic, and mentioned the oceanographic work since our route would involve frequent stops. But I was pretty sure I would not be getting into Canada without a piece of paper with a Canadian letterhead and signature. I spent six weeks trying to get that piece of paper, which, I later found out, is only obtained by asking the U.S. State Department to request it from their Canadian counterparts, who then send the authorization to the gatekeeper agency. Long story short, we would not be performing our tests in Canadian waters.
I was not particularly upset. We had made the commitment to go where the need was greatest, but the change in plans was a good excuse to give my son Mike a tour of the coast of Maine. And the investigators at the University of New Hampshire Coastal Carbon Unit, who supported our venture, assured me that detailed work on this side of the border would be equally valuable. We were suddenly back in cruising mode, making it up as we went along.
The new plan then was to get all the way Downeast as quickly as possible by the scenic route and begin our science work on the return. We carried 30 sample bottles and a small CTD, an instrument that measures conductivity (saltiness), temperature, and depth in the top of the water column wherever we sample. The surface water will be put into a bottle with a few drops of preservative and we'll be off to the next sampling station.
We departed Portland at 2030 on May 21, under clear but calm skies. I sent Mike and my old buddy Eric to their bunks soon after sunset and told them I would call when I got tired. After a winter of nearly full-time work on the boat, it felt so good to be out on the water again that I just never got tired. There was no moon, the sky was perfectly clear, the stars were startling in their clarity, and there was plenty of work for the crew ahead. I just kept motoring along, finally bringing her to anchor off Spectacle Island in Ebenecook Harbor at 0248 the next morning.
We were under way at 0800, following a plan to power whenever the speed dropped below four knots. It was about half and half through Monhegan Harbor, around the cliffs, and up Penobscot Bay to Pulpit Harbor. The sail portions included a warp-speed broad reach from Monhegan to Metinic and a grand last leg up to Pulpit Harbor, where we shared the sunset over the Camden Hills with just one other boat.
We sailed the next day to Merchant's Row, and then were under power for the cliff tour of Mount Desert, followed by a fast sail to Schoodic. The wind dropped abruptly as we rounded into the point, and we went outside Petit Manan in view of the large swells. After passing through Pigeon Hill Bay, we had a lovely sail in the dying, gray light to Cape Split, where we spent the night.
The next day, it was clear and sunny and almost perfectly calm in the Grand Manan Channel as we ran under power up the Bold Coast, for me, the last unseen portion of Maine's outer coastline. Only Lubec and Cobscook Bay remain for me to "discover."
We powered right up to the border against the impressive current, and then it was time to go to work, running a zigzag pattern of sample stations down the channel with the current sweeping us along. Our stops and starts and strange route interested a USCG vessl, and we had a pleasant "zero-defect" examination, the boarding officer saying he was impressed with the boat. The crew seemed remarkably uncurious about the CTD instrument and all the bottles, chemicals, and cases we carried.
The long day ended with Strider anchored in Bucks Harbor. Following a leisurely 0930 start the next morning, we spent the day as a power research vessel, running 12 miles out to run a line of stations along the 50-fathom curve before heading in to Great Wass Island. We slid into the Mud Hole near low tide and piled into the dinghy for a walk ashore on the Nature Conservancy trails.
This is the part of cruising that Mike likes best. We were pretty certain that the trail must loop around to come back to the portion we had seen when we went ashore but we became less sure as we went farther along. I was kicking myself for not bringing the back up GPS. By the time we finally decided to turn around, it was getting cool. Back aboard Strider, a fine dinner of fat mussels from the spring low tide line set us up for an excellent night's sleep.
The following day was for enjoying Roque Island in crisp and perfect weather. We walked the beach and anchored in Bunker Cove, which our cruising guide claims to be the most beautiful anchorage on the Atlantic coast. The holding ground is certainly good because we remained fast in impressive winds blowing straight from the direction with the least protection. There was a brand-new moon and the clearest sky I can ever remember seeing.
After breakfast the next day, we ran another sample line far out to sea. How many Maine cruisers have had the Petit Manan lighthouse eight miles off their starboard beam on the last week of May? The final leg into Mount Desert was with two reefs in the main and no jib. The wind vane steered and Strider made six knots hard on the wind, and felt as solid and powerful as a train. We ran up Somes Sound and picked up a mooring.
The weather radio broadcast the next morning was all about rain, so we ran down to Great Harbor Marina and tied up to a dock with shore power and spent a day restocking, taking showers, doing laundry, and reconnecting with the world via Wi-Fi. Early the following morning, we were off on another long sampling loop out to sea that took us close to Mount Desert Rock under cold, gray skies. We anchored that night in Head Harbor on the outside end of Isle Au Haut, where I slept as soundly as I can ever remember on the boat. Good thing: A bit of ancient wisdom is that the land is a greater hazard to the sailor than the sea, and we were about to prove that true.
We slept late and then ran around to Duck Harbor in fog that was congealing into mist and rain drops. There were big swells being torn into awkward lumps by the tide amid the unmarked ledges of this forbidding corner of the coast. Lobster pots were appearing suddenly just a wave ahead, some pulled just under the surface by the current. I was half-blind from fogging glasses, and a snagged pot could easily have put us ashore. I was pretty damn glad to say, "Let'er go!" in Duck Harbor.
Before going ashore this time for a walk, I grabbed the GPS. Rain threatened, but I only planned a short walk. We studied the map at the trailhead, and I chided myself for not thinking to bring the otherwise useless cell phone with which I could have taken a picture of it. We started down the road.
We soon came to a trail marker pointing up to the top of the mountain. Mike was the only one who wanted to leave the road and plunge into the wet bushes. He had been such a trooper – uncomplainingly doing the sampling far out on ugly seas with the cold he'd developed the second day – that I told myself he deserved this climb. So we started up into the wet after him, and it began to rain.
We passed such steep pitches that we couldn't imagine struggling back down the now wet and slippery rocks. Continuing on over and down the backside of the summit to the road seemed the safest plan. We passed the top and started down. Except, it wasn't down. It was up some more, and then up and down pitches and cliffs worse than we had ascended. There were places I would have used a rope instead of my old sneakers.
The skies opened up with cold and driving rain. The roots, puddles, and mud were almost as bad as the rocks, and the mist mixed with rain penetrated the branches overhead. We came to the road, which ran a couple of hundred yards and then stopped, with the blue trail blazes leading off into the woods. Our hearts sank.
The GPS wouldn't maintain a fix in my pocket, and walking around holding it at arms length wasn't feasible. I got it out and it showed that we were on a trail heading away from the boat. There was no alternative but to retrace all we'd done. We continued on exhausted; the GPS told us we were only about a third of the way into our hike.
Much later, I realized that I was entering that dangerous state where I no longer had the energy to keep moving fast enough to stay warm. The others were dressed less well than me. A twisted ankle or any other delay would send us quickly into hypothermic shock, far from help. The GPS still showed us heading 180 degrees away from the boat. Just when things looked bleakest and most dangerous, I remembered I hadn't pulled the dinghy all the way up.
Until this day, I'd always pulled the dinghy above the high-tide mark and tied it off, even for the shortest trips ashore. Inexplicably, I hadn't done so this time. Everything we could possibly need for warmth, shelter, or summoning help was on the boat, and the tide was coming in. I'd confidently headed up the beach, GPS in hand, so we weren't going to get lost, I'd apparently thought, thus we didn't need to pull the dinghy all the way up.
I can really move through the woods for an old guy, and I lit out to check on the dinghy, trying to think of every step as a separate event and adventure, knowing that just one bad one could literally kill us all. I reached the road and set out an arrow of branches to be sure there was no confusion. But I knew we were in trouble as soon as I could see the shore. The tide was full.
I ran to the beach and there was no beach and no dinghy. Strider sat mockingly out of reach in the middle of the harbor. I went out on a small headland to survey the empty cove, and I saw the dinghy on the far side bumping gently against a little nubbin of rock in the last indentation before the open sea. I ran the mile around the road and down the trail and finally through the thick woods. I was thinking, Too fast and I could have a heart attack that could kill more than just myself; too slow and we could all die a horrible death. We would never make it to town in our current condition with night coming on.
I sprinted. I plunged through thick branches to the small cove, and it was empty. I slumped. Then, I thought, maybe this was a similar cove. I went over the point and there was the dinghy drifting away from the rock into deep water. I flew down the steep rocks, got one foot on the last rock with water up to my knees, and hooked one finger over the dinghy's rail.
The dinghy was half-full of rainwater. I hauled the poor thing up on the rocks and dumped her out. Mike and Eric were just coming out of the trees when I rowed into the open. I suspect they were relieved to see me, but we were all too tired and cold to discuss it. A few minutes later, we were on the boat.
As I was rowing us out to the boat I said, "You know, if I had done something that stupid on the water, I would sell the boat." I was serious. These remote islands can be just as dangerous as the sea, and you must never abandon that navigational mindset just because there is land under your shoes.
Heavy rain started just as we left the next morning looking for a place to dry out and regroup. We headed to Rockland via the Fox Island Thorofare, a long way with damp clothes under the foul-weather gear and in the hard, cold, driving rain. It began to clear just as we reached the Rockland breakwater, and it was sunny by the time we tied up at Landings Marina.
Within an hour, the boat was mostly dried out, laundry was in the machines, and we were eating lunch ashore and buying food. We went out to anchor late that afternoon just before the most impressive New England thunderstorm I'd ever seen in passed to the north. We ran up to Camden under power the next morning in thick fog and picked up a mooring to consider our options.
The fog was too thick to justify a tour of the harbor, so we headed across the bay, and I finally got to use the radar. It cleared up when we reached Mark Island, so we finished up our sampling work with three stations down the bay and started sailing toward Tenants Harbor. Sail gave way to power near Two Bush Light due to threatening skies to the west, and we were secure on a mooring just as the rain began, although no wind or lightning materialized. Eric treated us to a fine meal at the East Wind Inn that evening, and the day ended with the sun breaking out of a hole in the sky to produce a rainbow against a sky that seemed too dark to hold such incredible light.
It was cold, clear and blowing very hard with the front's passage the next morning.
We were beyond sailing for fun in such conditions, so we bucked to windward under power up around Mosquito Island. It was hard and uncomfortable work, even with Strider's reliable diesel. Once into Port Clyde, we followed the inland routes up through Friendship and then well up the Medomak River to anchor for a leisurely lunch and rest.
We then sailed down the river tending sails constantly as gusts burst over the tree line from random directions, occasionally resorting to power where the wind couldn't penetrate the narrow parts. The wind died off Round Pond and we struck the sails. When we came around the headland, we were confronted with an intimidating expanse of white tops on every wave and winds that we might have been able to make four knots against in such seas. We turned and fled for Round Pond to pick up a Padebco mooring and go ashore, where it was a calm, warm summer day.
That night, the boat was shook with moaning rigging, but when I woke up at 0230, it was dead calm. The weather report the night before had mentioned more wind and rain. I lay there thinking it was time to be home, but couldn't quite get out of my warm bunk – until I heard a lobsterboat start. That did it. I got up, wolfed down some cookies, and Strider was under way at 0320 to motor clear back to Portland and end this 550-mile saga, 420 of which were covered under power. This was no pleasure cruise, but we'd had a job to do and we did it.
The CTD data was downloaded within a day, and the UNH researcher said he was already finding surprises and interesting patterns. Surprisingly little basic study has been done Downeast, so there's still plenty for us to do. We're ready to go back. The only real impediment will be finding crew crazy enough to go with me.
Roger Long is a naval architect specializing in oceanographic research vessels (www.rogerlongboats.com). The harbormaster of Cape Elizabeth, he sails Strider out of Portland Harbor. Watch for him in a "Nova" episode to air on PBS sometime next winter.
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