LINKS FOR THE YEAR 2000

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This is the log for the week ending August , 2000 By APW

Log for the week ending Aug 13th 2000 ByPS

Lat 4340 Log 6510 We are in Shelburne Nova Scotia waiting for a weather window to Roque Island Maine. We had a GREAT dinner at the Press Gang in Halifax. If you get to Halifax don't miss it. Stewart's birthday was yesterday. Amy baked him a chocolate cake. Systems on the boat are holding up well although the auto pilot ram tried to come unscrewed. Luckily we caught it in time. It pays to just wander around the boat sometimes looking for nothing in particular. We have met only one other wooden boat on this trip so far. A Pete Culler design called Dawn Treader, owned by an older couple. They have been living on-board for 5 years. They passed on our offer of fresh baked scones. Guess we weren't their type.

We are still struggling about what to do as far as sailing goes. We knew that we were not leaving for the same reasons most people do. It's not like we hated or jobs or where we lived. We didn't really want to "Run Away". Amy misses her gardens and dogs and I miss flying. We never thought we would feel like this when we were screwing on Iwalani's planking and fiberglassing her decks. Well, it's time to get this to the internet access office.

Aug.20 2000 PS

We left Shelburne on Thursday at 8pm. We had to time our passage around the south end of N.S to co-inside with a favorable current. It can run as strong as 4.5 knots. After bucking a strong headwind to Cape Sable we headed NW and averaged over 7.5 knots over the bottom towards Roque Island,ME. If we had not timed it well we would have been doing 1/2 knot! We arrived at Roque 36hrs after leaving Shelburne. Things on the island have changed since I was there 20 uears age. Back then the care taker invited us on a tour, now there are signs saying that you need written and dated permission to land there! We left after an 8hr layover and headed to Bar Harbor to drop off Justin. He has been a valuable crew member. There were times that I would think of something that needed to be done, only to find that he had already done it. He will be missed. We will be staying here a few days to buy some charts and tables that we will need to head south.Tonight Amy and I are going out to dinner to celebrate our wedding aniversery!PS

This is the log for the week ending Aug 28 by APW

As I have said right along, part of the reason I got sick, was because I felt like I could not handle this boat by myself. Sheer terror, is a powerful GI stimulant. "Excuses,excuses", Phil says. So we have started Amy the Deck Ape Training 101. I have learned one very valuable thing- I may have been sailing for 37 years, but I never learned how to sail. It has flabbergasted Phil, how little I know. Now I think he appreciates why I told him in February I was scared of my short comings.

We have been pretending the engine is broken, so are going into and out of harbors, anchoring and pulling up the anchor under sail alone. (Granted we are still using the electric windlass to haul up 200 feet of chain and the 45 lb CQR- we may be crazy, but we are not stupid)

In Bar Harbor we got quite a stir from the crowd when Phil demonstrated Iwalani under sail, as if he were going to pick some one up at the dock. As we sailed out of the harbor past all the other moored boats, their owners mouths agape-"Is your engine broken? Did you just pick some one up at the dock???Why did you do that?" ("Exercise the sails" was Phil's reply)

I don't know why I like Bar Harbor so much. It is tacky, full of people and is a lousy anchorage. But it is always fun. We spent our mornings going to the Opera House Internet café, which is a place full of antiques and Opera memorabilia- a housecleaners nightmare. Our last morning there, the kitchen caught on fire so we got to witness first hand, Bar Harbors fire fighters in action. They seemed a little nervous. I couldn't tell if they were just rookies, or were scared of a repeat of the great Bar Harbor Fire. After that excitement, the Opera house had to close down, so our cord to the internet was pulled. We also spent some time riding the free buses around Mount Desert and riding our folding bicycles around the carriage trails in the park. It was nice to get some exercise, not so nice to be passed by a big fat lady while we were going up hill. I am very quickly gaining back all the weight I lost on Georges Bank.

In the afternoons we would take the dinghy for a sail, try catching fish or paint. All the tourists on Steve Pagel's schooner would be leaning over the rail with their video cameras recording while we blasted by. "That's the life,", I could hear many of them say. But one day, we got up and both of us just started crying. Why are we doing this? We miss working. I miss the Vet clinic and my dogs, Phil misses his kids. We loved our life, family and friends. Are We CRAZY? Even Larry, our morale officer, had stopped singing. Actually he has a uropygial gland abscess- (his Preen or oil gland got infected) By the next morning, after a good bike ride the day before, we felt better. We are both a bunch of whiners. We just don't seem to be fitting in with the cruiser crowd. This became totally evident when we got to Southwest Harbor. We had to go back to Hinkleys to get the chart for the stretch of the east coast between South Carolina and Florida, which somehow was omitted the first time we were there. Instead of taking the bus, we decided to sail over and anchor. We felt like we had the plague. We were the only wooden masted boat in the entire harbor. All the glittery, shiny, black hulled Hinkleys were bouncing around like a bunch of debutantes in their sleek cocktail dresses and high heals, for even the lobster men in Southwest Harbor fly past anchored boats like they aren't even there, so no one lies at anchor peacefully. What's with these black hulls anyways? Doesn't anyone believe in white anymore? At the Hinkley dinghy dock we were the only hard dinghy, out of hundreds of inflatables. All the inflatables had huge outboards. Only a few had oars, perhaps their owners even knew how to use them...

We decided to go out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. We took showers, put on dresses, or at least I did, and looked and smelled pretty swanky, as Ben would say. Which I think means, oochacha, or swell. But when we got to the restaurant the lady said, "they were booked". Not, "sorry we're all booked", or with any effort to apologize or offer an alternative. " Oh well" we said, after beating two miles to windward in the dinghy to get there. Actually, you know, we do have an inflatable dinghy on board plus an outboard. The dingy lives in a bag. The outboard hangs off the sternrail like type of hood ornament on an automobile. So we are not completely classless. I guess this is part of my mother's reverse snobbishness that is rubbing off on me. I wanted to buy a Hinkley sweatshirt and with red fabric paint, draw a red circle and slash over the Hinkley logo. They got the last laugh though, because I refused to pay $90.00 for a sweatshirt.

We sailed past Mount Desert and all the other boney mountains, which look like napping old men and women with their conifer covers pulled part way up, into Eggemoggin Reach and the Benjamin River in Sedgewick. We did Phil's down wind schooner anchoring technique, which is quite exciting and must be tried by anyone who owns a sailboat at least once. What you do is take down all the jibs and sailing downwind with mainsail alone, throw out the anchor on the windward side. "Bye jeezus don't she fetch up some nice when that ole anchor grabs hold of the bottom" Actually, if you ever want to see your boat spin on a dime that's the way to do it.

Leaving Sedgewick, Phil stood by while I single- handed Iwalani off anchor and out the channel under sail alone. Hopefully, I will get to the point where I will make no mistakes. He is uncannily aware of every possible Murphy point available. I should have been doing this months ago. We will be a few days in Rockland, doing several weeks worth of laundry, then continue down the coast. APW