Of buccaneers and forgotten cell phones

Sunset at Seal Bay on a cruise with good friends. Photo by Jack Farrell

September 2023

By Jack Farrell

A midsummer southeaster was lashing our coast with six-foot waves, 30-knot gusts and sideways rain measured in inches falling per hour. The tourist boats had all been canceled for the day, leaving the Shining Star, our 46-foot Mussel Ridge lobster boat, the only link from Star Island to the mainland. Like the Pony Express, the weather has to be pretty bad before we can take a weather day off, so out we went.

As we returned to Portsmouth from the early morning run to the Shoals, the incoming waves were locked in their customary battle with a fast-falling Piscataqua moon tide. The waves steepened, and sometimes broke, from the sea buoy all the way to the lighthouse at New Castle. Two big cruising sailboats were making their way out to the ocean under power, bows rising up sharply as they smashed into the waves – only to fall back into the troughs in a mass of sprawling foam. In the snug cabin of the Shining Star, dry and comfortable in the big following seas, we watched the yachts struggle to make any headway at all, marveling at the punishment inflicted on their shuddering hulls with each impact. But in a mile or two, they would be beyond the river’s sway, and a big swing to either east or west would be rewarded with a lively sail to remember for a lifetime. It was another good day to be on the water after all.

Last week my favorite first mate (aka wife) and I returned from a four-day cruise from Mount Desert with two of our oldest friends, with whom we celebrated 50 years of friendship and our common love of Maine and its boats. They have just purchased the boat of their dreams: a classic Hinckley Sou’wester 50 yawl with a gleaming red hull and near-perfect varnish on its teak hatches and trim. We had a delightful cruise to nowhere, anchoring for nights at Blue Hill Bay, Seal Bay on Vinalhaven, and at the head of Somes Sound – reminding each other all the while of the richness of our lives through the retelling of our favorite stories – as the big yawl glided along on the warm summer breezes or swung softly to the anchor, her brand-new mizzen sail keeping her bow comfortably into the wind all night long.

We met our dear friends on the boat in Southwest Harbor at Dysart’s Marina. The marina is built on the site of a sardine cannery, where I remember buying dented cans of fine Maine sardines for 10 cents each in 1975, while my mate applied for a summer job between semesters at a prestigious women’s college. As dozens of aproned older women stood at long tables snapping heads and tails from slippery herring with sharp scissors, the manager shook her head at the bright-eyed college girl looking for a new experience in the so-called real world: “I don’t think this is the right place for you, dee-ah.”

The hard-working ladies and the sardines are long gone. The place is now a sprawling marina with an array of interesting boats, both power and sail, for work and pleasure. I could spend hours walking those docks. And my mate knows the real world now as well as anyone alive.

The last time I was at Dysart’s was on a cold and blustery blue-sky April day. I was there to take possession of the leaking 51-foot M/V Hurricane from the pirate who sold her to me. This particular buccaneer moonlighted as a school bus driver. I had a check for the final purchase payment, and I had to wait at the marina until he got the kids to school before he would be down to exchange it for the keys. The bilge pumps ran the whole time, and so began my short adventure with that wonderful and quirky old boat, which has already been chronicled in detail in these pages. I really did have a lot of fun in the Hurricane, but it cost me a bundle to keep her afloat for those few years. She has finally finished her working days and is now undergoing a major re-fit on her way to life in full retirement as a cruising yacht.

We left Dysart’s with smiles all around in the big Hinckley and headed out the Western Way with a fair wind and no specific destination in mind, trimming the main and jib with the push of a shiny stainless-steel button. As we crossed the Bass Harbor Bar, I decided it was time to check my cell phone for messages to see how things were going on the Shining Star, left in very good hands with Captains Tim and Candi, but on a busy summer schedule with Star Island and charter trips. It was then that I realized I had left my phone in the car at Dysart’s.

“No problem,” said our host/captain. “We’ll just dip into Bass Harbor. You can take the dinghy to the ferry terminal and get a cab to take you over to Southwest, pick up your phone and ride right back. We’ll ghost around between here and Bernard until you get back.” I was grateful for the gracious support, but in reality, this unexpected part of the trip could take hours. There was no good option, but there was unspoked concern all around.

The bulletin board at the Swan’s Island ferry terminal at Bass Harbor revealed only a single taxi service: Grab a Cab of Mount Desert. The friendly clerk offered to make the call for me, absent a cell phone as I was at the time. Cell service was terrible out there at the edge of civilization, but the call eventually connected, and she handed her phone to me to make the request. As it turned out, I was in luck. Grab a Cab was a one vehicle operation, in high demand during peak season and turning down countless jobs every day. But it was my great good fortune that they just happened to be nearby at this very moment on their way to Southwest Harbor to pick up a fare for the airport at Bangor. A couple of minutes later I was in the cab and headed on the three-mile run back to Southwest Harbor.

“I’m sorry I can’t take you back to Bass Harbor,” said the driver from behind a thick plastic curtain that hung between the front and back seats – a likely holdover from the Covid epidemic, but still a welcome barrier to the clouds of smoke from her cigarette. “I have to take some people to Bangor Airport, and I won’t be back for hours. I’m the only cab on the island. There’s nobody else, and you can forget about Uber out here.”

“No problem,” I said. “I’ll find a ride somehow, or I’ll hitchhike. It’s not that far. I could even walk it.”

“So where did you leave your phone?” she asked.

“In our car,” I replied. “It’s on the grass, right in the upper parking lot at Dysart’s. I’m sure my phone is on the dashboard. I’ll grab it and get back down to the boat.”

So, I’m a practical hard-working guy of slightly above average intelligence who prides himself on his common sense. My three mates on that fabulous Hinckley loitering around Bass Harbor that afternoon have a combined IQ well over 400. And we had a plan to save the afternoon from the cell phone calamity.

“Okay,” said the cab driver between puffs of her cigarette. “Let me get this straight. We’re going over here to get your phone which is in your car at the marina in Southwest Harbor, because you really need to stay in touch with your business while you’re sailing. Forgive me, but why don’t you just grab your phone, check your messages, and then drive your own car back to Bass Harbor and get back on the boat?”

“Say,” I said, attempting to put a happy face on the embarrassment of missing the painfully obvious. “You are a lot more than a cab driver, aren’t you? You are a real problem-solver. You could be a detective.”

“Actually, I’m more of a counselor,” she said, as I unlocked the car and checked my messages. “Have a wonderful cruise! That’ll be twenty bucks.”

Jack was the manager at Star Island for many years. He currently manages major construction and utility projects there and provides all-season boat service to the island (average 250 trips per year) for luggage, food, employees, supplies and guests. He also runs Seacoast Maritime Charters, LLC providing year-round private charter boat service and marine logistics to the general public, now in the Shining Star. He still enjoys cruising in his classic Ted Hood sloop, Aloft, and teaching skiing at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine.