Good Buy from the sailing season of 2008!

We are now getting ready to leave Aros More for this year. Our last preparations are taking place and tomorrow we leave Rockland and the boat at 5.00am to catch a bus to Boston and then fly home. It will be all strange to have dry land under our feet. We have have had a wonderful season, seen lovely places, met friendly people and made lots of new friends.
we have taken more photos than you would like to know!
It has been a most memorable Summer and I am sad to say that the season is over!

Red -Right - Return

Red, Right ,Return! Red to starboard when you go to back to a harbour.... on this side of the Atlantic!
We are now heading home to port! as we are into our last two weeks of sailing for this year. Yesterday we booked our home tickets and fly out form Boston on Tuesday 15th September to arrive in Edinburgh on Wednesday 16th September in the afternoon. We shall leave Aros More in Rockland, ME. all wrapped up in plastic for the winter.
We are still having a wonderful time sailing in lovely surroundings and in good weather. This little town of Camden claims to is the world capital of windjammers ( schooners) .
These beautiful old sailing vessels sail around here with tourists and as sailing schools.
On the photo of the motor yacht you can see a helicopter on the aft-deck. We were anchored next to it last night, and the helicopter kept taking off and landing again after a trip round the bay.
We are expecting very high winds for the week end and have been advised to go to a hurricane hole , which is a small bay, Pulpit Harbour, very protected from winds from all directions. we shall sit out the storm there till Sunday night.

From Castine, ME

Since Rockland we have had the most wonderful time sailing around the islands in Maine. Everywhere we find lovely anchorages and good sheltered moorings. David bought a really helpful book called ‘Maine Coast’, so with that and local advice and suggestions from other sailors we have found all these wonderful places.
The day we left Rockland we had a very eerie experience as we were suddenly in thick pea-soup of fog. The radar went on. We were approaching a group of islands, called Fox Islands. After about an hour we heard the sound of a bell buoy, and from the same direction a triangular shape appeared. It happened to be the sail of another yacht going in the same direction as we were sailing. It looked really ghost-like and weird. Fog is a bad problem for coastal sailing on the Maine coast and further east and north.
We have hiked, climbed mountains and picked blueberries, cranberries and fungi such as chantarelles and bulitus in the plenty. We have cooked and eaten lobsters in many ways. How do you feel about eating ‘lobster lasagne‘? It was good. We have met many interesting people and made many new friends.
Last Sunday after a great sail from the very picturesque Long Island we arrived at a beautiful bay with moorings. The sea was dead calm and it was a lovely afternoon. We saw a couple rowing a dinghy in the mooring area, and I asked them if they knew of any free mooring we could hook up to. The lady, who was wearing a big boater of a sunhat, guided us to her own mooring buoy. We got talking and before we knew it, we were invited to her house for cocktails. She, Maggie, directed us to the house and after a short trip in the dinghy we approached a private jetty belonging to an amazing fairytale house with lovely views over the archipelago to the south and west, a beautiful flower garden, gazebos, garden houses, a small golf court and a tennis court. The house, which was very large was built in granite with cedar-shingles on the roof. Maggie’s grandparents had built the house as a family summerhouse at a time when you had servants who had their own quarters in your summerhouse, as well! The house was sitting in 40 acres of its own ground, mainly of woodland.
In the drawing room a roaring fire was light, and Maggie and her friend Steven were welcoming us with drinks. We ended up being invited to dinner as well. The next day we were taken to the local market, and we reciprocated hospitality by giving Maggie and Steven a ‘Haggis Experience’ enjoyed in good Scottish tradition with Whisky and bagpipe music on Aros More. Maggie was very sceptical about the haggis, but she enjoyed it. I told her to come back to Scotland and we shall give her a real Scottish experience!

Lobster capital of the world! Rockland, Maine.

Rockland, Maine.
We spent a couple of days in a small beautiful bay, called Robin Hood Cove. In the mornings we are now having fog and the temperature is decreasing to more normal levels, for us.
We arrived to Rockland yesterday after an interesting sail through the archipelago of the Maine coast. It is very similar to what meets you in Sweden: low skerries and rocky islands with pine trees. The trolls are here, too! Holiday homes of different shapes and sizes are dotted all. Only a very few people stay on the islands all year round. Lobsterfishing is the main employment along the coast. Rockland claims to be the lobster capital of the world. Field after field of lobsterpots are scattered for miles along the coast. You have to watch every inch when motoring in case you should hit one of the thousand buoys.

Isles of Shoal.

Gloucester, New Hampshire, is a 'working harbour with a lot of fishing boats, and also a seaside resort with tourists walking the sea- promenade. A memorial erected for fishermen from this small town lost at sea over the last two centuries contains more than three thousand
names.

The memorial of the young woman and her two little children anxiously looking out to sea is very moving.
We have just left a small group of islands, the Isles of Shoal, which were inhabited by a lot of seagulls and their young. There was also a 'conference center' which one could compare with the Iona community or Findhorn. The birdlife was amazing, though. A 'dig' was taking place on the next door island, Snuttynose Island, and the archiology students were terribly excited as they had just found a coin from the mid 19th century.

Så tager vi videre nordpå mod Maine, US.

Vi har nu fået dybtemåleren sat på plads og tager videre i dag, søndag. Desværre viste det sig at der er errotion p.g.a saltvand i en del af generatorens startermotor, så den virker ikke. David skal sende efter en reservedel som så skal sendes til et nyt sted nordpå. Davids forhandler er jo i UK og generatoren er derfra, og alt på båden er 240 volt, og ikke som her 120 volt, så vi kan ikke bruge amerikanske dele. Sådan er det at være langturs sejler. Man bruger lang tid på at få båden sejlklar, så sejler man lidt og finder problemer som skal ordnes og så venter man på at få at få reservedele og på at få arbejdet gjort.
Vejret er dejligt med sol, varme og vind. Det er bedre her end hjemme i regnen og kulde og her er ingen myg eller "knots"/midges.
Vi har det dejligt. Det er billigt at leve og købe ting. En doller er 50 pence. Jeg har brugt den sidste uges tid på at lave smykker, været på et lille kursus i hvordan man gør, så pas på! for nu får I alle sammen smykker i fødselsdagsgave/julegave.
Nu skal vi til at sejle. David har ordnet et andet lille problem med en utæthed i dækket, som gjorde navigationsbordet vådt.

I Beverly Port Marina,

We have been up on 'the hard' in Beverly Port Marine for a day and a night. Our parcels arrived and the parts had to be fitted, that being the transducer to the depth sounder and the inverter for the generator. David has been dripping with sweat to get it all sorted. The depth sounder is now working and he is really chuffed with that. However, the bad news is that the generator is in a poor state. It has had a big operation today and is needing a new kidney to survive. The new liver (Inverter) is installed and working fine.
Little boys little toys , big boys big toys!
The temperature is around 30 degrees C/80 degrees F. David is working really hard. One minute the boat is a floating home and the next n it is turned into a workshop. David is dripping with sweat, but he pushes on and on.
The photo of me is from the foredeck where I am sitting in the dinghy knitting for my new granddaughter. the photo with the bemini shows our washing line!

Beverly, MA.

From Plymouth we visited first Hull and now Beverly. In Hull we saw a very interesting museum for the local lifeboat which had saved many lives from shipwrecks of some of the big sailing ships on their approach to Boston in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (see photo form previous Blog).
Two parcels with spare parts for the boat have been sent to Beverly. The inverter for the generator arrived today and hopefully the parts for the depth-sounder arrive tomorrow. The boat will have to be lifted up on the hard to be fitted with the new units. This will happen promptly after arrival. Then we are off north to Maine and Canada for the last part of our cruise. We are having a great time and the weather is good. We are meeting so many interesting people. An example was a colourful 'live-aboard' in Hull. He was a household-remover, who was a happy-go-lucky fellow. He literally sailed close to the wind. He the had a lobster pot tied up to the pontoon, and he cooked his dinner on a 'slow cooker' plugged in to the phone charger in the yacht club. He invited us to join him for dinner, well-knowing that we were leaving that morning.
We crossed the Boston Bay and took a berth in the Beverly Port Marina for the night, to the cost of $100per night, which is normal price around here As we were waiting for our parcels we went out on a mooring the next day.
The tide here in Beverly is around 10 feet,which you can see on the photo. The white bird in the night is an egret, which was fishing at the pontoon.
Sunday we cycled to Salem nearby and saw the Witch museum, which was very popular and crowded. In the town-common a n international festival took place. Some belly-dancers showed a lot of belly!

Hull. MA (near Boston)

Hull, and US Lifeguard Museum in Allerton, MA.
Vi er på anker uden for en lille by, Hull, i nærheden af Boston. Vi har et forfærdeligt vejr med regn, torden og storm i nat og i dag, men vi er i shorts og t shirts, for det er stadig meget varmt. Vi har ikke været i land i dag. I går åbnerde vi for vand beholderen så alt regnen som faldt på dækket kom ind i bådens forsyning af vand. David har i de sidste par dage haft telefon forbindelse med forhandlerne af vort ekkolod, som endnu ikke er ankommet til det bådværft vi har bestilt det at skulle på land hos. Det er noget værre svineri, men sådan er det hele tiden. Vi fik en mail i dag som sagde at den del af generatoren ,som også skal fornyes p.g.a. errosion og derfo ikke virker, er afsendt fra UK og skulle ankomme på fredag.
Igår var vi pået lille museum forden lokale rednings båd. Det var meget spændende at se de store tre til firemastede skonnerter som var gået på grund her under vinterstormene i sin tid.
Jeg har heldigvis wifi forbindelse, og snakker dagligt med min Kirsten, og hun og lille Anna har det godt, men der går ikke lang tid mellem at hun ammer. Nu er hun heldigvis ved at få hjælp fra sundhedsplejersken. Hun er altid ved godt mod når vi snakker sammen. Jeg er selvfølgelig ked af at jeg ikke kan være der. Jeg strikker babytøj og et tæppe til barnevognen osv.

From Provincetown to Plymouth, MA

We are having a wonderful time here on the very most east coast of the United States.
We visited Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod, which is a long sandy peninsula curling itself out into the Atlantic. Here we ate lobster in a small cafe by the harbour.The sunset photo shows the tower which is a memorial built in granite in memory of the Pilgrim -Fathers, who arrived on the good ship The Mayflower, in 1620.
They did not like it, so off they went and settled in Plymouth across the bay. David is reading about the Mayflower just now, so we are in their 'footsteps', and went whale- watching on the way across the bay. The one on the photo is a Right Whale, an endangered species, which has its habitat in the Boston Bay, which we crossed. She' blew out' right in front of the boat less than 20 yards away. Fantastic!!

Visit from kusine Lynn, Nick henden mand , og Meredina , hendes datter

I dag havde vi besøg af Howards datter Lynn , hendes mand Nick og hendes datter , Meredina. De er noget så søde. Lynn ligner Kusine Jytte fuldstændig. Hun fortalte at Howard var meget imponeret over os og at vi havde sejlet hertil. hendes mand, Nick, fortalte nogle utrolige historier om Howard. Nick, som arbejder med noget ligesom Pernille, hjalp somme tider Howard på slæbebåden , og han var der dengang Howard fik en trosse i ansigtet og var nær slået ihjeld. En anden gang da de var ude i noget forfærdeligt uvejr og Howard sad oppe i masten på en stol han havde bundet fast, for at se bedre,lå besætningen, som var hans søn og Nick på gulvet og var møj søsyge, og så pludselig så de Hawards hovded, på hovedet gennem vinduet til styrhuest og han bad om en kop kaffe! Han var en gæv fyr!
Det var sjovt at snakke med dem.
I morgen sejler vi gennem Cape Cod Kanal og tager sikkert ud til den by, Procince Town som var det første sted skibet , The Mayflower, kom til med immigtrater fra England i 1604.
Håber I har det godt.

back in Cape Cod

Back in Cape Cod.

We are now back in Quissett Harbour in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, after an overnight flight from Vancouver. The US customs officer, whom we saw in Ottawa at four o‘clock in the morning, when we changed plane, was a little suspect of David’s new purchase of a handheld VHF radio with WX- weather-forecast in the suitcase. It was ok-ed after some explanation. I am sure he thought he had discovered a bomb! In Boston we caught the bus to Cape Cod and arrived back at the boat in baking heat just before midday. A dip in the sea got rid of the sweat and stickiness, and life was worth living again.
The next day we biked to Falmouth and found ourselves in the middle of a large craft-fare. The tea cosies I tried to sell last year at the farmers market in Crieff would have gone like hotcakes.
While waiting on a new tool which David bought on the internet with promise of ’next day delivery’ we did some maintenance. David found that the generator and inverter were badly corroded. The dealer in Britain was contacted and a new part ordered. And so it goes on!
Our patience is tested all the time! Still, here we are on an anchorage in a beautiful quiet bay in Cape Cod, surrounded by green trees and a blue sky above. The sun is shining and we had a lovely day and an amazing sunset! And, on top of that I went swimming at midnight. Phosphorescent plankton were sparkling like jewels in the dark. Magic!

Re-cycling on Saturna Island

Saturna Island is one of the Gulf Islands outside Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. Around three hundred people live on the island permanently. The island has its own private re-cycling and the inhabitants do it all with great enthusiasm. Anything, and I do mean anything which can be re-used or re-cycled, is collected at a center run by volunteers twice a week.It also included a free seconds shop, which takes donations only as pay. Convieniently this center is across the road from the island shop, which also has a restaurant and coffee- shop, where the islanders go to socialize.
It works very well.

Saturne Island July

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We took part in Canada Day( 1st of July) celebrations on the island . David helped carving spear-grilled lamb and I scooped icecream for a lot of people. There were one thousand dinners being served alltogether.

We walked around the point close to Janes and Brians house. The sand stone cliffs are 40 mill. years old and have made the most amazing formations and sculptures.

I managed a photo of a butterfly, the size of a small bird.

British Columbia, June & July 2008

Chemainus was a lovely small town famous for it murals of life in the area in by-gone times.
From the village park I heard fiddle music which sounded familiar. To my delight I discovered a group of Danish folk-dancers in their native costumes dancing an open stage. I could hardly believe it, but it was great. I was invited to meet with them after the performance. They came from the Island of Syd-Funen, but were wearing costumes from the areas from where they originated all over Denmark. The ladies had made all their own and the men's costumes. It reminded me of my time as a Danish girl-guide, when I modelled a native costume my mother and other ladies had made for the local girl-guide group more than 50 years ago.
From Vancouver Island we took the ferry to Saturna Island, where Jane and Brian have made a beautiful home, surrounded by nature and a stunning views over the sea.
Yesterday morning when I opened my eyes I was a doe and two sweet little fawns on the lawn outside the open window and in the background a sea-eagle was resting on a rock on the shore. It is so beautiful and the the nature seems so un -touched here.