CHAPTER ELEVEN Downeast : Saugerties to New Brunswick, Summer 1984

Letter to a Friend, December 1983:

Next summer, David and I want to take our little row boat [we still have the same one; a ship brought it over here from Europe for us] from Saugerties, New York, a hundred miles up the Hudson river, all the way up to New Brunswick, Canada, along the coast of Long Island, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. Want to come?

May 31

We left Saugerties after rolling in on a bus from Poughkeepsie in the pouring rain. The creek was flooding. We said all our goodbyes and set off out of the creek with the boat loaded down to the gills as usual, under steering oar alone.

Skies were still overcast, and the current flowing downstream only. Big logs and branches were floating by. A north breeze pushed us to Kingston where tonight we sleep on wood shavings in the Rondout Boatbuilding shop. The skies are clear now.

There was some excitement here in the creek when a tugboat had to turn an empty oil barge around and get it past the marina without smashing all the yachts. It managed to do so but when it deposited the barge on the creek side a bit downstream, the force of the current on the barge's stern tore a huge bollard out of the bank and the barge escaped and plowed into a neighboring mudbank.

June 2

Left Kingston around noon today. the flood waters have pretty much subsided and it has been blowing north. It was very gusty this morning and we debated going out at all. We tried out the new leeboards which I had constructed over the winter to Andy Mele's design and took one lackadaisical tack across the creek which landed us in a mudbank. As we reached out of the creek mouth under reefed main, "Clearwater" was just coming in. Now we're approaching Poughkeepsie, running against the tide under cloudy skies.

June 6

Anchored in the inlet at Eaton's Neck, Long Island, with the sun setting, dinner cooking, and enough breeze to keep the no-see-ums at bay.

When we left Garrison, early, with Betty Boomer on the pier waving goodbye, we rowed to the Bear Mountain bridge.

It was a hazy, calm, hot day. We sailed to Indian Point, then had to row again almost to Croton Point when a wind came up strong from the northwest and whooshed us down to Hastings where we met up with the schooner "Voyager".

They were out sailing and we cut across the channel to take a look at them. They swiftly out- distanced us and we followed after, tied up to the sloop "Sojourner Truth"'s dock in Hastings. Steve Stanne, the tall and courtly Pete Seeger lookalike who does the on-board education, welcomed us on board the "Voyager" and introduced us to the mustachio'd Captain Frank Fulchierro and the crew. We ate a delicious dinner of fish and garlic bread on board and were given a cabin to stay the night in. Everyone was talking about the sinking of the tall ship "Marques" on a race from Bermuda to Halifax. The first mate's girlfriend had been on board and was drowned.

The next morning we left "Voyager" midway through the ebb, just as her daily quota of school kids was coming on board. We rowed seven miles easily with the current. Another hot glary day. At Spuyten Duyvil we found to our relief that the current was with us, so we sped through the Harlem river, avoiding the Circle Line boats and casting wary eyes ashore for any signs of native unrest But it was mid day and all the natives we saw were fishing and just waved benignly at us.

The only antagonism we've encountered so far was from a sewage plant worker on the lower Hudson, who on seeing the souvenir Egyptian headgear which we wear to keep off the sun, became enraged and shouted something about "Where's your fucking camels? What did you do, run out of oil?"

We did not really have complete charts of the Harlem river and so were piecing our way along from chart to chart, trying to identify bridges as we went under them. As we neared Hell Gate we chickened out and decided to try to get through the Bronx Kill, although the chart showed it might only be navigable at high water.

But there were some police boats tied up at the station at this juncture, so we decided to ask them for advice, after first removing our Arab disguises.

Two officers informed us that the Bronx Kill now went through a culvert, so that was out. But they told us a little about Hell Gate and where we could go, so we pressed on.

The current was docile and favorable until, as we rounded the southern tip of Ward's Island, we saw and heard the overfalls. Visibility was good and there was no traffic. We were out of the way even if there had been any. But we had to row like mad for a minute or two to keep from getting set down onto a rock pile. We succeeded in this maneuver and were soon swirling our way under the bridges and into the East River.

Exhausted from five hours of rowing we ate lunch while drifting with the current past Riker's Island. Then the wind came up behind us and we were able to leave the city behind, camping on an idyllic little inlet near Fox Point, with horseshoe crabs mating, male mallards and egrets paddling around, and red and while wild roses and sweet peas. The day had been a thirty-three mile run.

Today we had an early start although there was no wind. I felt sick from too much sun and exertion after being out of shape. But we managed to come ten miles, mostly through David's efforts, and are now at a beautiful reedy bird sanctuary, with a beach full of white quartz pebbles and a sweet wind.

June 10

Bee Bee Diner, Mystic , Connecticut. It's 7:00 am and we have just rowed up the Mystic channel from Noank. Yesterday we sailed, first swiftly with the current, then slowly against it, from Duck Island.

When we left Eaton's Neck during the day, we puttered ten miles in the blistering heat to Port Jefferson. We bought groceries and I drank a milkshake and a quart of lemonade in quick succession. We decided to use the evening breeze and reached another 22 miles along the shore by moonlight. One of the leeboards was in, to keep us from being put offshore by the current, and it held out for good two hours of steady pressure before the weak link broke: the fitting pulled away from the gunwhale and we had to take it in.

We anchored in the mouth of Mattituck Inlet and slept until dawn when the bugs woke us. We rowed further up the creek and set up the tent and slept.

It was another merciless heat wave of a day, and good to be ashore. David went off and conjured up an old fisherman who welded the leeboard fitting and fed us lunch and let us sit in his kitchen out of the sun.

That evening we impatiently left the creek with the tide still against us, as we had wind and daylight simultaneously. We set off to cross Long Island Sound, eighteen miles, and ended up doing so in a fairly straight line despite worrying about being set by current. The wind gave out a couple of times and we rowed. Ended up rowing behind the Duck Island breakwater, optimistically hoping it was Old Saybrook, at midnight and slept on board.

Last night we went out for fish and chips at the "Sea Horse" bar in Noank.

June 14

At Dave's old friends Jack and Susan Syren's house near the Pawcatuck river, sitting in a room full of plants and windows and blue glass, with a baby raccoon which Susan rescued from the supermarket parking lot, in my lap.

We spent two nights in Mystic. We ate out quite a bit which must cease as it is expensive and of dubious nutritional value, deep fried clams having the texture of rubber bands as they do.

Mystic Seaport was having a Sea Chanty Festival which we sat in on. Geoff Kaufman from Clearwater Sloop Singers was there, so he helped us get in without paying the exorbitant admission cost. We listened to a lot of good traditional sea music.

On our second night there we went out to a joint called the Griswold Inn in Essex, to hear more of the same. Stan Hugill, the 78-year old British chanty man who actually was a real chantey man in his youth on square rigged sailing ships, was there holding forth and they placed me next to him at the dinner table so I got to meet him and talk to him. I'm afraid I was a little too honest when he asked me, with a performer's usual vanity, if his voice still sounded all right at his age. It is actually getting a bit quavery so I demurred a bit rather than lavishing him with praise. He sniffed, said "Humph!" and turned to talk to the person on the other side of him. that was the end of our conversation. I suppose I should have displayed a little tact and told him that, no matter what he sounded like, people would love him anyway, but I didn't think of that until afterwards.

We went to windward, rowing and drifting with the current with the sails left up, to the Pawcatuck River two days ago. We found the Lotteryville Marina where Jack and Susan keep their boat. It is still out of the water so we tied "Manza" up in their slip and came home with them to the baby raccoon and cable TV.

Now to collect Mary, who is due to turn thirteen in another two weeks. She and her mother live in Westerly, not far from Pawcatuck. Yesterday we met her cousin Shanti, a handsome lanky fourteen year old with long dark hair that hangs over one eye. It seems he may be joining us in a couple of weeks. We showed him "Manzanita". He seems genuinely interested in the trip.

Then we bicycled into Westerly to meet Mary after school. We biked around town, went to a concert in a church by Folk musician Bill Staines, had two flat tires, fixed one of them, delivered Mary back home at around 11:00 pm, and biked and walked back to the Syrens'. I slept until noon. There were thunder showers last night and now it's hot and windy again.

The raccoon slept with last one night. The moon's been full. The raccoon peed the bed and nursed optimistically at my nipples.

June 19

We are camped out at Newport Neck and have been for two days now, waiting for a Low to lumber out of the region. It rained great quantities last night and today is still very foggy, the fog being pushed by a south wind.

After leaving Jack and Susan's at noon last Saturday , with Mary, we sailed to Charlestown Inlet where we camped on the sand and spent the next day, until the tide would allow us out of the inlet. Our entrance, downwind but against the current, had been dramatic, ending with us wading "Manza" off of a sandbar. We broad reached past Point Judith and another eight miles further, to this small, rockbound inlet. Another dramatic entrance, amongst the reefs and wrecks, with wild shouting etc. Here we are surrounded by the houses of wealthy Rhode Islanders. We lived in the tent all day yesterday while it rained, reading "Shackleton's Boat Journey" and eating.

Today things are somewhat drier and David has ventured towards town in search of stores and a chart of the Cape Cod canal.

June 21

Summer Solstice. "Manza" is happily aground in Allen's Pond, ducked out of Buzzard's Bay where the wind was on the nose, although we managed to cover fourteen miles.

A baby dogfish swam by, horseshoe crabs scuttled and David and Mary are digging for clams. The sun is beginning to retreat and everything's peaceful. Birds are busy around the place and clams squirting up from the sand.

July 4

We are in the Grand Old State of Maine, roosting in a friends' summer house. Before us is Cape Elizabeth and all the nooks and crannies of the coastline, with people to visit scattered in various coves and islands.

Getting through the Cape Cod Canal proved to be a little nerve wracking. At first we were afraid we would have to go around outside the Cape, because there were all these signs saying "All Sailing Vessels Required to Have and Use Auxiliary Power" This not being an option for us, unless you count the oars as auxiliary power, we continued on our way, hoping no one would notice. Soon enough a Canal Tender type craft gave chase. I for some reason decided to yell at them in Norwegian, feigning ignorance of the rules. They ended up giving us a tow, and when they found out I wasn't really Norwegian I got some dirty looks. Anyway, we didn't have to go around the long way.

July 13

Damariscove Island. We are here with our old shipmate Louise Kessel, the Clearwater's bo'sun, and her friend Bret, who are living here as the island's caretakers. Louise is a storyteller by trade, and she has her hair in long black braids, almost long enough for her to sit on.

Mary went away in the rain, in Portland where we rafted up to "La Gracia", the old Norwegian ferry which is sistership to "Manza's" mother ship "Polar Trans". It was full of Gospel Warriors who were looking for lost sheep in the dive bars of Portland.

We stayed in Bath at the Maritime Museum, meeting all the people and seeing all the boats. A few faces from my former home at the Outward Bound survival school on Hurricane Island have already drifted by, people I don't know. I barely know Louise now.

Homecoming to Maine. This island is so like Burnt Island, where I spent a summer supervising the food and equipment for boatloads of Outward Bound students. The wildflowers, buckets of well water, lungfulls of the smell of wild roses, guano, the pure salt air, ghosts.

Realizing how approaching Scandinavian this place is: the sea, the granite islands. Not as dramatically dark or light though.

A pair of white breasted swallows fights or courts through the air. We have a shady front pooch to sit on and discuss the tides, and a lobsterman to bring the news. The sea is roaring on the rocks.

Louise is another in the line of people who encourage us to write about our chosen life of nomadic voyaging. I feel some reluctance to do so, stemming from, I believe, being too close to and emotionally involved with these travels. Not that we've stopped traveling. But we're home now. Back among these friends we find support, sympathy, interest, but part of me feels sheepish about the voyage, slightly ashamed that we have this option, that we are privileged enough to do as we please, no matter how perverse or self destructive or pointless it may be.

The unpleasant aspects of living in a microcosmic symbolic lifeboat are obvious to almost anyone who sees us. It's a rare person who sees us and imagines the simple, barbaric happiness we try to attain. Describing it when we find it is something else again. It is a subtle thing.

Mary left us. We all started the summer full of good resolutions, or I did, anyway. This attitude broke down almost immediately, as it always had before. There is no room for hypocrisy in a 16' boat. Tolerance levels are at rock bottom, with no privacy, work to be done, bad weather , and the very real triangular jealousy as Mary competes with me for David. She turned thirteen. I cannot compare my life to hers as her life from when she was a toddler was torn apart as her parents fought.

David says mean things to her, I say mean things to her, she retaliates to us in kind. But when she's somehow in a fine frame of mind she read aloud to us from"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", and eagerly identified birds with me from our newly purchased [and promptly drenched] bird book. There are serious bird watchers here now and she would have enjoyed being with them.

But when it's raining I feel it's just as well she's not here. Whenever we were near other people she immediately glommed onto them, touching them, rubbing peoples' -mostly women's- backs. Some of them jumped or were nervous when she touched them, but soon relaxed as she in her innocence massaged them. Ready to jump into a car and race off with anyone resembling a normal, safe, female. She rubs her mother's back. Now she is with her mother. David still hates her mother, actively.

That's the situation.

I wonder if my harshness to Mary means I'll be harsh and mean with all children, and hope it doesn't. We haven't really treated Mary as a child, not as she understands the term, but then again we haven't been living like adults, but like childish savages, exhausted, extreme. This year, at home in the USA , for the first time she had a choice: she could leave us to our boat and to each other.

July 17

Burnt Island. Didn't plan on stopping here but couldn't pass it by either. This is where I spent months living in the summer of 1978. The island's only human inhabitants in between Hurricane Island sailing survival school courses, are the Davis's, Blaine, Viola and their son Danny, who are the caretakers and live in the only house, with the only source of electricity their generator, for the summer while Blaine tends his lobster pots. We had a nice visit with Viola. She is the one who used to make the most heavenly huge stacked pies- blueberry, custard, lemon meringue- when I would supply with butter for the crusts from our supply of Government Surplus food that the camp used . Her pies easily rival those at the legendary Dip Net in Port Clyde, the nearest coastal village. We saw Danny too and he has tripled in size.

We've been putting our small Norwegian gillnet down overnight now and then, and last night caught a very large old lobster. I thought it might be too big to eat. Its tail had not been notched by the lobstermen, who will mark the egg bearing females and toss them back in as a conservation method. When I asked Viola whether we should throw the lobster back, she gravely declared that we should certainly eat that lobster, and told me her recipe for lobster chowder, which involves plenty of butter and evaporated milk. We followed her advice.

Sailed straight here from Boothbay Harbor after a great four days with Louise and Bret and their entourage.

Now we're enjoying the luxury of the empty staff campsite, the tent platform in a prime location. It's a bright, clear southwest breeze day. Yesterday when the front came through, it poured with rain and was foggy. Louise had accompanied us from Damariscove to Boothbay and we navigated by guess and by dare into the harbor in the sudden grayness.

Louise gave us fresh ground cornmeal which we had helped grind with a hand mill, delicious fruits of the land. And today the sea was so beautiful, it cheered me up from the disappointment I felt because I spotted blood. I've been trying to get pregnant.

We sailed past Pemaquid Point and Monhegan, Eastern Egg and Western Egg or Western Omelette as we called it. How can we give this up?

Talking politics with Dan Kaylor the lobsterman. He mischievously gives his fantastical solution to the problem of nuclear weapons, terrorism, etc. "Giant invisible shields like a great big bubble around every country!" He is joking, but his eyes light up at the idea. Star Wars. The idea is appealing, impossible, similar to my own fantasies of shielding my own body or a small area against radiation.

July 30 Summary of the past two weeks

July 18-20: lived in Port Clyde in an abandoned lobster pound, frequenting the Dip Net coffee shop for 3" high blueberry pie. It rained, then cleared.

July 20

My Dad arrived, innocently jumped into the boat with us, and we sailed up the St. George river to Thomaston. We visited the yard where the ill-fated schooner the " John F Leavitt" was built in 1979. Conceived as a coastal cargo carrying sail vessel, the "Leavitt" sank in a storm on her maiden voyage , heavily loaded with lumber. The yard is now building a huge wooden fishing boat.

We tacked part way down the river and camped in a nice spot. Dad really got to see a good cross section of what we do. He slept in the tent with us. Nice sunset; no major mosquito problem.

Next morning we tacked "Manzanita" down the river to Turkey Cove, against a strong south breeze. We used the leeboards and had the current with us, with Dad at the helm. We startled a large herd of seals basking on a ledge, including one enormous bull seal, who was last to dive off of his comfortable bed.

Tying the boat to a convenient abandoned floating dock, we battened her down and hiked to Port Clyde to get Dad's car. Drove with him to Bath, where we ate a lobster bake dinner at the Maritime Museum, toured the "Pride of Baltimore" which was tied up at the dock, listened to singing by people from the Kendall Whaling Museum, and took a river trip on the motor launch "Sasanoa" to see Bath Iron Works and the fleet of Friendship sloops assembled in the anchorage. The "Pride" fired her cannons at sunset, and we drove back through a torrential thunderstorm. Called up some friends of friends, Les Hyde and Ann Coggins, whom we had never met, and they took us under their wing for the night, so we slept in a nice guest cabin, They served us blueberry pancakes in the morning and took us for a swim in a nearby quarry, with thorough hospitality.

Back to the Dip Net for lunch, and then Dad dropped us off in Turkey Cove, and was on his way back home. Great visit. I'll call him again in a few days.

We spent the night at the fine accommodations of an estate grounds in Turkey Cove. Next morning we rowed to Port Clyde, stocked up on groceries and reached off towards Hurricane Island.

Got there just in time for dinner in the big mess hall, after an exciting sail across the mouth of Penobscot Bay. Put "Manza" on a mooring and moved into one of the platform guest tents with a few other people. Chef Rick Perry is still running the kitchen there and all the meals were excellent. We were welcomed as guests.

I saw a few old face from my years of working logistics there. Almost all of the old routines were intact. though. The next day we attended Morning meeting on the big slab of granite, the meeting rock, watched a session on the ropes course, a capsize drill and a climbing session. Walked around the familiar old running path that circumscribes the island.

Next day we rode to Rockland on the MV "Hurricane". Northwest winds were contrary for us to sail there. Toured the North End shipyard, where a Norwegian coast guard boat was getting a bit of a rebuild. Talked to HIOBS Program Director Tino O'Brien about being an assistant instructor on the island one of these years, and put in an application. Then took the boat back out to the island, got in "Manza" and drifted up into Ledbetter Sound, where we camped on a lovely granite island.

We had a nice reach over to Rockport the next day, where our buddy Wayne Ford from the Hudson valley was at the Apprenticeshop Small Boat Building School to greet us. We toured their boat shop and went to have coffee, and Beth Miller [who had visited us on Mallorca] came in, on her landscaping rounds. We ate a barbecued dinner with her at a house she was renting beside a beautiful lake. She is a fine, batty woman of artistic temperament. Her romance with Steve, her bicycling companion who also stayed with us in Palma, is now off, and he is remarrying in the fall.

Next day we visited Camden briefly to do laundry Saw the new schooner "Dayspring", and together we wrote an article for the Apprenticeshop's newsletter.

Everyone at the boatshop in Rockport was getting ready for the launching of a newly built Pinky schooner. We helped my old HIOBS shipmate Tim Higbee, who will skipper it, with some whippings and splicings as they rigged her. We camped out with Wayne that night up in the fields where he has a campsite. It rained and stormed and David went back down to the harbor in the middle of the night at high tide to put "Manza" out on an anchor; she had been up a tiny creek, grounded out at low tide.

Next day was the launching which was attended with great fanfare. There was a film crew, hors d'oeuvres, a little contra dancing. We watched the actual launch, which went smoothly, from the deck of the scow "Banjo", owned by Buck and Becky Smith of Green's Island.

That afternoon, Wayne decided to join us for a day or two of sailing., so we sailed out of the harbor. Not enough wind for us to sail, so we rowed over to the "Banjo", which was slowly sailing away with their huge mainsail in light airs. They took us aboard and towed "Manza" for awhile and we had a pleasant visit. It was a beautiful clear evening, with the sea all glassy and opalescent. They eventually motored over to Mark Island, and we camped around the corner from them.

In the morning, a couple of clammers arrived in a skiff, and we got some helpful hints on digging clams in gravel, and they gave a us a few plus some mussels, as we are now out of the Red Tide zone. Broke camp and drifted north among the islands.

Saw some seals, and Wayne went in swimming with one. It was curious but didn't get too close.

The breeze came up and we ran up to Islesboro, where Wayne was going to take the ferry back to the mainland. We just missed the last ferry, so camped in a corner of Islesboro Bay and gathered mussels for dinner.

Wayne left early the next morning. We slept in as it was calm. Used the afternoon breeze to reach over to Cape Rosier and drifted in light airs into Buck's Harbor. We saw a porpoise very close to the boat, and David caught two mackerel. Schooners were also making their way into the harbor. There were eight of them in there for the night: "Rachel Jackson", "Mistress", "Mercantile", "Steven Tabor", "EF Riggin" "Harvey Gamage", "Timberwind" and the "Bowditch". We visited on the "Bowditch" that evening, invited on board by the cook. Set up the boat tent and slept at anchor.

Yesterday we got a late start, waiting for a wind and a favorable tide to get through the Eggemoggin Reach. Anchored in a little cove just outside the harbor and lay under a tree reading until the tide turned.

We had an exciting reach down the Reach, leeboard and all. Wind slacked off again at evening so we made our way towards Swans Island. The schooner "Victory Chimes" sailed by us in the narrow channel by Orono Island. Camped on Phinney island, off of Swans': a beautiful pink granite island with patches of scarlet fireweed and a clam bed where we dug enough clams to make some chowder.

This morning a sail, drift and row across Blue Hill Bay among the schooners, now tied up to the ferry dock in Bass Harbor on Mt. Desert. Imminent rain. Just called Dad, and Mom who has just moved into her new house in a town called Killawog. All's right with the the world.

Aug. 6

On Sheep Island at the mouth of Gouldsboro Bay. Just spent about five days with Dan and Ruth Harper and their two little kids. Ruthie, my old boss from the Hurricane Island logistics barn who hired me for the position there, is a loving Mom and has managed to put herself in the rather hectic position of running a $45/night Bed and Breakfast, with seven fancy rooms to let. They've just moved in and this is their first season, complete with daily catastrophes: well running dry, screaming children waking up the guests, earwigs in the coffee, etc. But they gave us a warm welcome and put up with us for days on end.

We had sailed into Bunker's Harbor after leaving Bass harbor mid morning, rowing against the current over Bass Harbor Bar, unfortunately. The weather has been fair now for the past two weeks, although it is hazing up at the moment and may be foggy later. The afternoon breeze picked up southwest and we sailed across the mouth of Frenchman's Bay. David caught four mackerel, first one, then three at once on the jig, which we fried up that night for a gargantuan feast attended by so many mosquitos that we put the mosquito net over us while cooking and eating. Next morning the lobsterman moored next to us gave us directions to the Harper's place. I'd heard they were in the area from friends on Hurricane. He knew them - "Ruth Harper- yes- my wife sold her some Avon the other day"- and we prepared to sail up there, but when we phoned them Dan and Ruth said they'd come get us in the car.

A surprise turned out to be that their neighbor across the street, who runs a pottery business, is my seventh grade art teacher, Mary Lou Weaver. Dan Harper had discovered this connection, and led me over there unwittingly to meet her.

We sailed away this afternoon with a good breeze and a fair tide, but we decided to stop early and not cross the Petit Manan bar just yet. There's a rough granite island with a sheer shoreline on this side, so we can anchor fairly close to shore.

My period is now officially late enough for me to be pregnant!

Aug. 11

The fog is finally lifting after four days. We are in Eastern Harbor, in Otter Cove, at the shoreside log cabin of Bob Hull and Patty, his lady friend [his wife is elsewhere]. We sailed over here from Sheep Island on the first day of fog, a dreamlike journey, out of sight of land all day. Found the first few buoys, locating some of them by sound only, and rowed across the Petit Manan Bar in a calm. Then a wind came up and for awhile we were barreling along in thick peas soup, not knowing exactly where we were. But eventually we heard another buoy, heard waves breaking on a ledge, and rowing again by this time, sighted the Ladle ledges and rowed into the harbor.

Found Bob and Patty up in their Eagle's Nest summer house, and they have hosted us royally for the past four days, in exchange for some labor. Bob is some sort of business executive, on vacation, and Patty is his somewhat bored ladylove. They loaned us a car to go food shopping, and we searched out the nearest pharmacy , a few towns over, where I purchased a do-it-yourself pregnancy test kit. The label read "Find out in the privacy of your own home", but here we were in the public library, with the little test tubes on a bookcase. Results positive. I'm going to have a kid. It's still too good to be true.

So maybe we'll go on today, although we have missed the tide entirely. We've been introduced to many of the locals such as the comely young girlfriend of a maritime drug runner, who brings boatloads of marijuana into port but meanwhile leaves her ashore for weeks on end. She complains of her loneliness, and is even more bored than Patty. Patty has little sympathy for her.

Called Mom and Dad and sent a postcard to the Hvals with the news. Dubious about the Hval reaction. My parents seemed pleased, if a little stunned.

Aug.13

Trapped here by weather, our own laziness, and waiting to see if our host's half-East Indian grandson will join us for the remainder of the trip. Bob seems eager to ship him off with us. It's been a solid week of fog, although it has cleared off a little at the moment. We are living in a moss-chinked log cabin. Just cooked oatmeal with dried fruit over the fire. Reading paperbacks with studied lethargy. We don't want summer to end.

Aug. 18

Cross Island. We finally pried ourselves free of the easy life in Eastern Egg harbor two days ago, leaving in the fog with 16 year old Sachu, Bob's grandson, who is so far being a very good sport about this adventure he was volunteered for.

Had a couple of days of good visits before we left with a couple named with Brad and Donna Kausen, successful sheep shearers, spinners, dyers, knitters, gardeners, hog raisers, soap makers, bee keepers. They had us all over for a feast from their garden and the fish market: salad, cream of broccoli soup, new potatoes, green beans, shark, and blueberries. Played a little music afterwards and sang. Next morning they came clamming down near Bob's cabin and took a look at "Manza" as we prepared to leave.

We rowed, sailed, rowed, and sailed in fog, haze, thick fog, sometimes a moment of clearing, through the reach to Jonesport, under the bridge and across the

other side, to Patton's Cove on Roque Island. Tied up to a convenient dock and hiked up a road to the famous farm. I've known two people who've lived here as caretakers, including the current one, Ken Rich, who used to be the manager at Hurricane Island, and Guy Mahan, my former partner.

It had cleared off to a lovely bright hazy day, and we saw Ken's sturdy form down by the wharf. I reintroduced myself to him and he was as cordial as could be and showed us all around. We went into the pasture to "help" him drive the two jersey cows in to be milked, saw the quarter horses, riding horses, beef cows, bull, pony. There was a baby calf, and many old horse drawn sleighs and buggies in the barn where we watched the milking. Then into the big staff house for lemonade. Jim Porter, another old friend and former HIOBS staffer, came in. He had been buzzing around in an airplane earlier, over the farm buildings. I told him where our mutual friends Dan and Ruth were living.

Cooked on the beach that night but slept in a convenient cabin. Up in the morning and it was clear and bright, with a northwest breeze and what looked like clouds of red tide in the water of the cove.

Sailed out across Roque Bay, rowed, sailed, rowed, and sailed here to Cross Island. Found the tide against us in the narrows, so we rowed up to a moored boat. An old guy named Dobbin, the caretaker of the island, was on board, and told us none of the Hurricane Islanders were around. This is one of their Mobile Course Base camps. He pointed us to a beach where we could camp, a nice spot with a spring. I took a long hike around the island, yesterday afternoon, following the twisting, devious trails that they've marked out for their morning "Run and Dip". I was just trying to get a look at the Coast Guard station next cove over. Ended up way on the other side of the island, followed a trail along the cliffs for awhile, then cut across through the woods again. Finally ended up at the Coast Guard station, and bushwhacked back to our camp along the shore.

This morning it is clear, although the sky was terribly red at sunrise. Northwest wind again. We're waiting for the tide. Dobbin is here chewing the fat with us.

Later the same day. At Little River Island in Cutler Harbor. A two and a half hour sail, riding the current which runs along here like a freight train. Waited around Cutler Harbor for Bob and Pat to come and pick up Sachu. Ate lunch at the takeout stand, read the Saturday paper. They arrived anon and spirited our crew member away, so it's back to just the two of us. We rowed over to this island; went up into the old lighthouse tower, staring out across the wide Bay of Fundy to Grand Manan Island. Two or three more good sailing days should get us to our destination : Waweig, New Brunswick, where David owns land and built a cabin about ten years ago. Purple asters and goldenrod are blooming and there's a bit of chill in the air. Only a year ago we were in Norway, wondering what to do. It seems longer ago than that.

Aug. 21

St. Andrews, New Brunswick. Clear day, blowing from the northwest too hard to go anywhere, although we are only eight miles from our destination.

We left Little River Island at low tide, mid morning, and rowed for two hours in a flat calm, current with us, up the last open stretch of coast. Then the old reliable southwest came up and we ran with it up to West Quoddy Head. We were there in no time, and turned into the Bay of the Narrows with Lubec in sight.

Thinking we would still have the tide with us, we debated going through the Lubec bridge, which is a bad place for current we'd been warned. Plenty of wind right behind us, and as we neared the bridge, a terrible chop sprang up. We figured the current was with us as we were still going forward, but this was not the case. Only the strength of the wind tearing through the narrows kept us going. Urchins on shore watched our progress with interest, leaping from dock to dock with shrill screams of "Watch out for the whirlpool!"

Once under the bridge, we had to get around a stone jetty with the tide winging around it at a mean clip. Somehow the wind pushed us through that one too and we were able to maneuver our way to the town floating dock, where a family on a powerboat befriended us and fed us mackerel they'd just caught.

We needed the ebb to go up Friar Roads to Eastport. Didn't have long to wait and had a nice late afternoon sail over there. Went right by town, and almost go mowed down by the Deer Island pushboat ferry, which had to drop back on its tow to slow down and let us pass.

Anchored around the corner, very tired after a 22 mile day. Cooked, were invaded by mosquitos, slept fitfully. We were glad to be past Eastport and on the US side of the channel. Our host at the mackerel dinner had warned us of whirlpools between Eastport and Deer and Indian Islands.

Didn't sleep too well with mosquitos infiltrating the net. Early in the morning a boat beeped at us twice as it went by. Dave stuck his head out to see. A fishing boat was enquiring after our presence there, saying, "I saw you dead in the water, didn't know if anybody was on board." We suspected him of wanting to pillage the boat, and went back to sleep.

Not long afterwards, wild yells and hoots and the sound of an outboard approaching reached our ears. Suspecting an onslaught of drunks by the sound of it, Dave snarled "What the fuck do you want?" when they came alongside rather boisterously. He stuck his head out again. The drunks were nonplussed. "We had a report you were spinning around out here." "We've got a bloody anchor down," was our retort.

They sped away, hooting and hollering.

"That was the Coast Guard," Dave said in wonder. All of a sudden, we looked out the back of the tent and realized we were looking at unfamiliar territory, and that the whooping and hollering we had heard was not drunken shouting, but yells of excitement from riding a speed boat through the formidable tide rips of the Bay of Fundy

Suddenly wide awake, we clambered out of the tent trying to identify our surroundings and determine whether we still had an anchor. We did, and it was on the bottom, but some time in the past hour or so we had drifted across the Western Passage and were now on the shores of Indian Island, in the channel between Indian and Deer. We'd travelled about a mile. The anchor not having enough scope had simply lifted off the bottom at high water, and we were lucky to have avoided drifting out to sea or onto some rocks.

Letting this sink in for awhile as the tide raced past, we finally when the water had calmed down a little near low water, rowed over to Deer Island. Went ashore on a memorably rickety pier suspended twenty feet above the water, and walked to the point to have a look at the channel. It was a gray, rainy day. There seemed to be a back eddy along shore that we could row in against the tide, so we got back in the boat and crept along the shore of Deer Island up to to Fairhaven.

Crowds of sea gulls and the smell of rancid sardine guts greeted us. We tied up to a floating dock at the cannery which was responsible for this atmosphere, and were given a tour of the plant by one of the managers when he heard we'd come from so far. We then hiked to a nearby restaurant for lunch. A northerly breeze was up and we weren't sure we could get anywhere.

David was razzing the waitress about hearing about her restaurant in the "New York Times". She became slightly annoyed and said, "Well, we're in the Guinness Book of World Records, anyway!"

"What for?"

"The largest whirlpool in the world."

This being, of course, the one we had just drifted across in our sleep.

That afternoon we had a difficult five mile row against the wind to get to St. Andrews. Yesterday the norther increased, so we did laundry, took showers at a campground, went to the library and the diner. Today is calm, clear, sunny. Hoping for a southwest this afternoon with the flood.

Aug. 24

Upper Waweig River. We had a beautiful downwind sail up here two days ago. Stopped off at a tuna dock where a big freighter from Rotterdam lay, and David got news about one of his old friends who used to work there. Then we poked on up the Waweig. Loons on the water and bald eagles in the trees. Gospel music coming from a camp meeting in some buildings by the riverside. We felt our way in, dropping first the main, to slow us down and get under the bridge, and then the mast as we felt in front of us with the boat hook for rocks. Beached "Manza" just below the ruins of an old wooden bridge, set up the tent on the bridge embankment, cooked and slept.

We are pretty well isolated and hard to spot here although there are houses close by.

We hiked out to the road which was very close by and then up over the road for a mile or two towards Dave's land.

New houses have been built and more are building, and the road is paved now. We passed the Armstrong plantation, home to a guy Dave used to work for at a water powered saw mill. Then we plunged into the woods on an old trail Dave used to use to walk to work, emerged in a field, and spied a crooked little house. Dave's cabin.

The poor house has fallen off of its foundation pillars, which were knocked askew by frost heave. Windows are broken and everything is cockeyed, the floor buckled. But it's a beautiful spot, with two sources of drinking water, some blueberry bushes and apple trees.

We visited the next door neighbors on each side. Newcomers on one side, and on the other a lady named Plumie who remembered Dave and fed us sandwiches and homemade apple pie.

Then we hiked in to the saw mill. It's a tree shaded lovely spot on a lake. The lake is full of big logs waiting to be sawn. The millstream runs right under the mill; the teeth of the big gears are wooden. We talked with John, the young helper, who was waiting for Mackay Armstrong to show up. He did and gave us a ride out to his place. He's a short, dynamic energetic sort with graying blond hair and a gruff, take charge attitude. First we went into the woods with them and loaded the truck with firewood to sell. He took us home, where his wife Malva fed us a delicious impromptu meal. He gave us an opalescent Pala shell he had smuggled out of New Zealand, like an small abalone, and then ran us back down to the boat, visiting the boat and camp. He was back again this morning to tell us we could keep "Manza" in his airplane hangar in St. Stephen and to warn Dave not to pay so-and-so for cutting the fields at his cabin, because he kept the hay.

There was an immaculate, fully furnished child's bedroom at Mackay and Melva's house, She keeps it just as it was when their two year old daughter died, in a traffic accident with her father in his pickup truck. when he ran a stop sign at a crossroads .

Yesterday and today were gray. We attempted to hitch hike into St. Stephens this morning but gave it up. Now we find we are being scrutinized from across the river by suspicious locals hiding in the bushes and following our activities with binoculars.

Mom claims she's coming up for a visit on September 5th. By then we should be all squared away here and ready to go.

It's a nice spot here on the river.

Aug 29

We've connected up with the Thompson family, who were friends of Dave's ten years ago when he was last here. Dave Thompson is an tall, rangy and bearded American ex-pat who came to New Brunswick as a draft dodger during Viet Nam and made this his home. This is our fifth day on their farm. They rescued us from our camp on the Waweig and we've moved in to the log cabin farm house where the five of them live: Dave, his wife Nancy, three lively and friendly kids, and a big friendly white dog like a polar bear. There's a barnful of goats, four pigs, a flock of chickens, three work horses, wild cats, and a big garden. They staged a huge softball game on Sunday, with forty players of all ages and a big dinner afterwards.

We took the oldest boy, Ash, 12, with us on the boat for an overnight trip to bring it around to the Digdewash Basin. Sailed down the St. Croix with a brisk following breeze, stopped in St. Andrews to get lunch and wait for the tide. Had to row the rest of the way, to Hardwood Island where we cooked dinner. On the way Ash, who was steering, caught nine mackerel, three and then four at a time.

After cooking we rowed another few miles into the mouth of the Digdewash, although it was dark, feeling our way in and seeing by starlight.

Then followed several idyllic days on the farm, with Dave helping Dave T build a new wood shed. We've been swimming in the river, to Calais for pizza last night, played recorder and guitar and colored pictures with the kids. Finding more possible storage locations for "Manza". Drinking lots of goats milk and eating salads from the garden.

Aug. 30

Scared of winter. We don't want it to come. Feeling intimidated by the successful homesteads here, as close to self sufficiency as we would like to be. Spacious log cabins, huge stone houses, barns, full gardens and barnyards. It all seems so unattainable, but as we are told modestly by one of the landholders, "One day's work at a time. You can't put any more into it than that."

Aug. 31

Dreamed last night that "Manza" was all full of water. Went to check her today and she was fine. It turns out that the people who were peering at us from the bushes down at the river were from Fish and Wildlife, who suspected that we were there for the purpose of salmon poaching. We had considered putting the gillnet out that evening as it happens, but had decided against it out of sheer laziness. Fortunately so, as it turns out that it's illegal to even own a gillnet here, let alone to harvest salmon.

Sept. 10

"Manzanita" is in a barn in Letete, New Brunswick, high and dry, and we are at Mom's new house in upstate New York, ditto.

Our last sail was from the Digdewash down to Harry and Martha Bryan's big stone house on the bay, with Dave Thompson and all three of the kids with us. We spent several days at the Bryans' putting the boat and all the gear into storage in a barn on a one of their back fields. Then Mom arrived. She could only stay a day and a half. We went out for a morning sail or drift in Harry's swampscott dory so she could get a taste of small boat sailing.

Drove away from Canada, visiting Dave's land and neighbors in Waweig one last time on the way past.

Now we are doing laundry, drying things out, recovering from the car trip, cats on our laps. Reading yesterday's "Sunday Times" and this week's "New Yorker".

Summer's over and we're home to roost.

Appendix:

Article written by David Hval and Sarah Underhill for the "Apprentice", newsletter of the Rockport Apprenticeshop

Open Boat Cruising

The boat is a Norwegian ship's gig built in 1950 in Grimstad, Norway. It is clinker built, 16 feet by 4 feet, and draws 1 1/2 feet on a straight keel with a transom. It is heavy [900 pounds], oak framed on 6-inch centers, planked with 1/2 inch pine, and fastened with copper rivets and galvanized nails.

We make our own sails. Currently, we have a standing lug main and a jib. After three years of going sideways to windward, we built leeboards. She is durable, slow, and as seaworthy as an open boat can be. This seaworthiness is a result of a bluff bow above the water line, round high quarters providing reserve buoyancy so she floats up over seas, and no flat surfaces to resist seas.

She is called "La Manzanita", the little apple. We love her and trust her and have seen her limits. She has brought us a long way. We bought her in the Caribbean where she'd been sitting on the deck of a cargo vessel from the north of Norway.

We put her on the deck of a 90-foot Baltic ketch and sailed from Antigua to Palma de Mallorca in the Mediterranean, spent one summer in the Balearic islands and the next sailing and rowing 500 miles from Mallorca to Gibraltar. From Gibraltar a series of hitchhikes got "Manzanita" to Bergen, Norway. The following summer we sailed round the southern tip of Norway to Grimstad to visit the boat shop where she was built. That fall "Manzanita" hitchhiked again from Norway to Baltimore. We set out north in October, getting as far as the Hudson River where we spent the winter. In the spring of 1984 we sailed down the Hudson through New York City and Long Island Sound heading for the Bay of Fundy. We are in Penobscot Bay as we write this. In all we've covered about 1,600 miles.

Most of those miles were safe and pleasurable sails. We watch the sky and try not to take unnecessary risks. We've also learned not to try to second guess the weather; it is easy to get fooled. Part of the fun of a small boat is the feeling of alertness one maintains while making a longer passage than ever before, be it 5 miles or 2,000.

Our longest passages were two 50-mile stretches, from Mallorca to Ibiza and from Ibiza to the Spanish mainland. Small ones by most standards, but they seemed long to us. They each took 30 hours. We went to sea with food and water for two weeks in case we encountered contrary heavy wind. As it happened, the wind Gods smiled on us, and we made it to the mainland without a problem. When we were 3 miles off under the lee of the land, an offshore wind sprang up. By the time we were in the harbor, it was a full gale which blew for 24 hours. We were lucky.

We were lucky another time when we were off of Lindesnes. This is the southernmost point of Norway where the wind and current sometimes run against each other on a baroque scale. We rounded the cape on just such a day with a 25-30 knot wind behind us opposing the current on the Skagerrak. We'd stayed out too long, and there was nothing we could do but ride. The seas right off the cape were very steep, and in them we learned something about the limits of the boat which is very interesting to know. As seas rolled by us, the boat's stern rose to them, so we were never really pooped, but their unusual steepness caused the crests to pour in amidships. Taking them a little more on the quarter minimized the bailing which got fairly frantic. We rounded the cape in the early evening and surfed into the lee agreeing that no one in their right mind would travel this way.

Why do we do it? It is not easy, but it's simple, uncomplicated, basic. We just get in the boat and go.

Boat Inventory:

[Basic rule of thumb for how much gear to bring: the maximum possible is generally equal to the minimum required]

2 mainsails

2 jibs

4 oars

1 steering oar

5 oarlocks

2 anchor rodes

bilge pump, bucket, sponge

mast

spar

rudder

tiller

lizard [anchor pulley system]

docklines, small stuff etc

sea anchor

life jackets

flares

foghorn

flashlights

sail repair kit

copper flotation tanks [built in]

come-along for beaching

charts

compass

dividers

land tent

boat tent

sleeping bags

ground cloth

mosquito net

1 burner kerosene stove

frypan

cookpot

2 spoons

5 gallons water

gillnet

mackerel jig

waterproof food containers

no radio

no engine

sometimes a clock