full fathom five

This summer's short, edgy cruise

September's the best month in Maine, because the air turns crystal clear with an undercurrent of crispness, the tourists have all gone home so roads and waterways are uncrowded and uninhabited islands completely deserted, and there's the bittersweet feeling of the end of summer that makes every moment of sun and fair winds precious.  Here's our boat, newly in the water after a too-busy summer.  Several systems: autopilot, refrigeration, water, are on the blink, but we're going anyway.  We want to store up memories for the coming winter.  You can see the mission of our boat very faintly on the stern: Memory.

So the first week of September, we set sail to Penobscot Bay, sailing a long 11 hours from Yarmouth to get up there quickly, because we only had a week.  Although our dog Cody wouldn't get out from underfoot, becoming a hazard on deck, he forced us to get off the boat frequently to hike on islands.  Here's a view after a long climb up Fox Rocks on Vinalhaven, looking down on Long Cove.  You can see why Penobscot Bay is one of the most interesting places to sail in the world. In almost any vista, there are hints of hidden, mysterious, and beautiful coves.   

Here's Cody just savoring his precious moments off the boat, where his feet have the purchase to make him secure, even in water.  This beach is mostly periwinkle and mussell shells, glinting yellow, white, and lavender from a shiny black background when wet.  And they sound like heavy rain when pulled back into the sea on receding waves. 

On Pickering Island, an almost two mile stretch of land near North Haven, there's only one human habitation: a one-room log cabin.  The indoor/outdoor fireplace here gives an idea of the cabin's age (about 70 years, I'd say) and how much the owners love the island.  Feathers, unusually-shaped rocks, animal skulls, and driftwood adorn the mantlepiece.   

And it's wonderful to come home to the Fall garden, with ornamental grass (miscanthus sinensus) pulled down over the brick walk by heavy pink blooms.

Gone Sailing

My husband and I and dog Cody are off for a week's sail to Penobscot Bay.  It's the first time we've had the boat in the water all summer; that's how busy we've been.  So this will be a welcome break, and we'll bring home some pictures.  Early September is the most beautiful time in Maine, and anticipation is a great feeling.  I'm savoring it.   

    We'll be home next Sunday, Sept. 9, and I'll post our pictures early that following week.  Hope you all enjoy these sparkling clear days and crisp nights in the meantime.

Okefenokee

We just returned from our two-week business-and-winter-break to Florida and Georgia.  We've heard dire tales of sub-zero temperatures, high winds, and snow-storms while we were gone, but since we've returned, it's been blessedly mild: nights in the 20's, and days in the mid-to-high thirties.  So we were gone just the right time.   

    After we did our business in Florida, we went to the Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge, 396,000 acres of swamp fed by the Suwannee and St. Marys Rivers, in southeast Georgia.  The swamp attracts all kinds of water-birds, from great sandhill cranes and blue herons, to ibis, snowy egret, and blue goose.  It was also a pleasure to see robins, catbirds, phoebes, cedar waxwings, and tree swallows that will soon migrate north where we'll welcome them back to our fields and feeders.   

     The swamp was low because of major draught in the southeast, but it was still beautiful.  Here are some pictures we snapped from a boat that took us through the channels.      

The swamp is a mix of lakes, prairies, and peat bogs

Above, a snowy egret

Alligators were so ubiquitous in the public areas adjoining the swamp, and also so sleepy during the day (they're nocturnal), that they seemed almost tame.  But signs all over the place warned us not to approach.

Our guide told us that alligators can crunch through these turtles' shells "just like an oreo cookie."

I'm standing under this live-oak just for scale.  You can see how huge it is - and how haunting with its drapes of spanish moss.

These sandhill cranes are about four feet tall.   

We floated through moss-strewn tunnels on the Suwannee Canal

Sun-shot gator

Great Blue Heron   

 

       And now it's so amazing to be home and surrounded by white.  Even so, the mild air, longer light, and smell of melting snow promise spring.      

Escaping Blizzards

My husband and I were driving down to Boston the other morning, to support friends whose aged father had just died. We were dressed in preliminary layers, with our black funeral clothes hanging in garment bags in the back window. 

    Two-plus hours later, we were nearing the funeral home, and spotted a Starbucks on our side of the road.  We pulled in, and carrying our garment bags, ran through an icy, sub-zero wind into the restaurant and made for the restrooms to put on our final black layers. 

    Later, when we pulled into the funeral home, there were about six guys in black coats and hats with matching earmuffs in the drive, waiting for the funeral party.  The killer-wind whipped their black coats against them as they moved to open our car doors. "Uh oh!" I said to W.; he rolled his eyes, knowing what was coming.  We leapt out into the fierce wind, which blasted through our car as the guy on the driver's side lowered himself into the seat.  He drove off hunched against a blizzard of white hair from our dog whipped up from the floor, the air around him a churning mass of light grey behind the windows.  He took our car around back to position it for the funeral cortege that would drive to the graveyard after the wake.   

    Meanwhile, W. and I again made for the restrooms once we got in the door, relieved to get out of the bitter wind.  W. had our clothes-brush, so I picked white hairs off my suit by hand, a tedious process.  He got out long before I did to meet our friends at the door - a moment I hadn't wanted to miss because we hadn't told them we were coming.   

    Later, at lunch after the funeral, my friend B. told me about that moment.  They were indeed surprised and touched to see W. as they came in the door, and when they asked if I'd come too, W. said, "Yeah, she's around here somewhere, but it's been so long I hope they haven't embalmed her."   

    And our driver emerged from the back hallway with a perfect, true-black coat, so I guess they're ready for anything, even dog-hair blizzards.  I'm just glad it wasn't anyone we know, to see how dirty my car is in winter.   

    We'll be escaping the other kind of blizzards in a few days when we go to Florida for two weeks of business and pleasure.  W.'s going to Miami for a boat-race, which is business for a sailmaker, and I'm going to visit a fellow submarine writer in St. Augustine.  Then W.'s taking a train to meet me and we're going north to Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge to paddle through the swamp for a few days.  It'll be glorious to feel sun on our arms and be surrounded by birdsong. 

    I'll be back blogging again the week of March 12.  Until then, stay warm.             

Missing Popham

Today's rain made us miss our usual Sunday morning walk on Popham Beach, so I'll try to eke out our usual shot of inspiration for the coming week by sharing these pictures.  I hope they give you a sense of the gothic scale of this place, particularly at dawn, when there's no one else around.   

    Here's where (and when) we start our walk, at ancient Fort Popham, lit up by the sun rising across the Kennebec river.   

The sun throws a path across the sky, making a moment of pure anticipation,

lighting up the old Coast Guard Station.

And then, thirty minutes' walk and two miles further down the beach, the dawn no longer pinks the waves, but Seguin Island is still black against the lightening sky.

Is this heaven? 

White Horses

My husband and I and our dog Cody drive up to Popham Beach every free Sunday morning in the off-season (late Sept. to May), for our fast-walk in the most inspiring surroundings within an hour's drive.  I've posted pictures from our walks on previous posts, but this morning - because gale-force winds for the last day-and-a-half ousted our electricity - we forgot the camera as we stumbled out of our pitch-dark house at 6am. 

    So I'll just try to show you in words what we saw.  We arrived at crumbling Fort Popham, an ancient sand-stone fortress (built in 1607 as part of the first attempted - but never completed - European settlement in the Northeast), at 7am.  The waves of the Kennebec River were corrugated with fierce dark slashes of wind cutting through what looked like white steam in the lightening dawn.  We tied scarves bandit-fashion across our noses to protect our faces from blowing sand, then set off down the beach.  The tide was going out, sucking the waves back in a strong undertow, but the 45-knot wind blew the opposite direction, blowing the tops off the waves in long steamy spumes towards the beach.  Columns of dry, wheat-colored sand blew straight across our path, from water's edge up the sloping beach to the tall, grey-green grasses above us.  Cody whipped ahead, chasing dead leaves and clumps of kelp skittering across the sand. 

   When we reached the mouth of the Kennebec, the beach curves sharply right and opens out to the ocean.  As we walked out there, we were hit full force by roaring, unleashed wind that made us stagger as we tried to turn back to the sheltered stretch of river.  I saw a tall black island silhouetted against the ocean sky just before we turned.  On its rounded summit stood a black lighthouse, and down near its shore, illuminated against the black blackdrop, white spume was blowing off the waves in long steaming tendrils.  Although W. was leaning into the wind right beside me, I had to yell at him above the roar of the wind: "Like white manes of horses."  

     "Yeah, they call 'em horses," he yelled back. 

     Always curious about new nautical terms, I asked him exactly what's called horses.  "The big white parts," he said, pointing at the white strands blowing across the black island. 

     Amazed that what suggested horses to me, a landlubbing horse-lover from way back, would conjure up the same thing for sailors, I carried the image back home with me.  There, I looked up "horses" in the dictionary.  It's not mentioned here, I told W. 

     "That's not much of a dictionary," he said, coming over and looking at the entry.  "I said "white horses,"" he said.   

     Oh!  That first part must have been blown away in the wind, and I wondered what else of what we said blew away.

     And here's what I got when I googled white horse: define:   

                 

white horse (a wave that is blown by the wind so its crest is broken and appears white). 

   

    So, although the high winds of the last two days brought widespread power-outtages, it brought me a particularly beautiful new marine image. 

Boat trip

We just got home from our sail to Penobscot Bay, and it's the first extended sail that hasn't made me feel wobbly - still bracing against the roll of the ocean - back on land.  That's because our dog Cody ensured that we got to dry land every day for at least an hour's walk.  So sealegs don't persist. 

    Here's some glimpses, below:   

     

       Our new-to-us (used) boat that we've christened "Memory." This will be our first extended trip on her (which we've got to - heh heh - practice for our retirement).  It's a J-boat, which means it sails fast, and it's about 36 feet long, which means that it's comfortable for a couple - with occasional guests - to live on.  The only glitch is that she was built in France, and thus takes butane to fuel her stove.  She came with a canister about 3/4 full when we started out, and that would have to last us for the trip because we couldn't find a butane supplier anywhere in the Northeast.    

Cody in his lifejacket (which, once he got his sealegs, and discovered that lying on the cockpit floor provided plenty of support when heeling over under sail, he didn't need anymore).  Note the little handle on top to pull him to safety.

Our first dawn, when we're just leaving our permanent mooring near Portland. The sun on the boats is a promise of fair winds and wonders to come.

Seals off Half-moon Cove on the Damariscotta River.  Note the dark head of one swimming in the background.  This is the way we mostly saw them, in the water with their doglike heads turned to us curiously as we passed, the only light thing about them the sun occasionally reflecting off their whiskers.  But out on the rocks, their coats lighten up as they dry, some of them even appearing white.

Big Pile 1: on a northwest cliff of North Haven Island, Penobscot Bay. 

Big Pile 2, next door.

Rowing Cody in to explore a beckoning beach.  His front paws over the edge of the dinghy is an example of his sealegs.

Holbrook Island sanctuary, on Cape Rosier just below Castine.

Here's an example of the many island paths and sights that pulled us along by wonder -

upon wonder (a lobster-pot tree)

to a timeless horizon.

Calling the wild and crazy boy

who has to have one more dip before going back to the boat.

Twilight in Pulpit Harbor, North Haven, where we grabbed a friend's mooring for the night.

Our last morning, rafted up with friends who sailed out to meet us in Quahog Bay near Cundy's Harbor, to give us hot coffee and breakfast (because we'd run out of Butane a couple of days before) for the sail back home.

   

Hope you're all doing well.  It's wonderful to be home and back in the blog.       

Gone Sailing

Wish I could post from beautiful Penobscot Bay, but won't be near computer.  We'll take pictures and notes, and I'll tell you about it when we get back Sept. 18th or so, depending on winds.  Wish us fair ones, please, as I wish all of you!

ML

And He rolled back the waters

My husband and I have recently begun a spring ritual of driving up to Popham Beach about 6 each Sunday morning, with a big thermos of coffee in the front seat, and our dog Cody in the back.  We get there about 7, and fast-walk the lone beach till about 8, when people start to appear in ones or twos, usually with dogs. 

Every time we come, we walk toward this little island with the big federal "cottage" on it.  It's always like a dream, a house on its own high island surrounded by water, beckoning but forever beyond, out of reach.   

Until two weeks ago.  On Easter morning, we happened on the island at low tide.  It was like a miracle: a huge swath of sand was suddenly there, as if laid down just for us.  Words welled up from my Sunday-school days of fifty-some years ago: "And He rolled back the waters..."         

We hurried across the beach to the sandbar, walked down it to the kelp-covered rocks, not knowing how long we had before the tide came back in, possibly stranding us. Cody raced in front of us, then turned and lay down in the tide-pools, waiting for us to catch up.  When we got to the rocks forming the main part of the island, my law-abiding husband stopped at the No Trespassing sign.  I ignored it, clambering up the rocks.  But the slippery kelp, plus W.'s reluctance, the approaching tide, and Cody's frustration that he couldn't herd us together, made me finally turn, pick and slide my way carefully back down the slick rocks, and follow them down the sandbar. 

But today, the tide was even lower when we neared the island, and we stayed to the righthand side, where we found a way up with more footholds through the slippery rocks.  I persuaded W. to climb up with me, then pick our way around through prickly rugosa bushes to the "front yard" to take this picture.  Then, deterred by a "No Dogs Allowed!" sign on the porch-railing, we turned back and stepped, sat and slid down the rocks to the beach below.

Two weeks ago, Easter Sunday when we were driving home, there was a reprise of the Easter story on National Public Radio.  God, an angel, Jesus, or some other "He," "rolled back the stone" of the cave where Jesus's body had been, and disciples found the body gone.  I realized that that was where I'd gotten that morning's words, "And He rolled back the waters."  Or it could have been, too, the story of Moses parting the Red Sea.

It reminded me how pervasive the myths of the dominant culture are, how I still carry them around in my subconscious beneath my adult agnosticism.  When I see something that triggers the "holy" feelings of childhood Sunday school, the awe and gratitude of a sudden sandbar leading to the fairy-tale house of my dreams, the words of those Sunday school stories flood back.  Some superior "He" breaks through my feminism and parts the waters for me and my family Easter morning.                  

First Day at the Beach

This weekend, W. (my husband) and I had a to-do list a mile long.  When we woke up Sat. morning, instead of our usual morning walk, we dutifully went to the cellar and started cleaning out all the moldy canvas luggage-bags that we no longer used, loading them all into trash-bags or Goodwill boxes.  After a couple of hours of this between loads of laundry, we came upstairs to find sun shining through billowing steamy dew evaporating off the fields. 

   As we stood there looking out the window over a sink full of breakfast dishes, we talked about the sudden reprieve we seemed to be getting from the morning's expected showers, and how this was probably the last snow- or frost-free weekend of the year.  We watched toast-colored beech leaves floating down over the stone walls, pretty much the last leaves of autumn to fall.  I shut off the water on half a sinkful of dishes, said let's take Cody (our new dog) to the beach. 

   There was no discussion, no time for talk.  We dried our hands, grabbed hats and sunglasses and the dog-leash, ran past the to-do list dead on the counter, and piled into the car.  We drove through leaf-covered backroads to Brunswick, Bath, and then down past the Hyde School on Rt. 209 and out into the marshland, buoyed by the sight of water.  It freed our minds from the tangle of chores at home, and we talked about the likelihood of our Cody - only two month's sprung from an animal shelter in the midwest - never having seen anything like where we were headed. 

And here he is, agog at Popham Beach.

    

   

Unlike our old golden retriever, Toby, Cody stayed away from the water, preferring to nose around in the tall grasses at the back of the beach, then race in mad figure-eights through the sand.  But finally, on the walk back to the car, he started to get curious about the water.  And while peering at the seafoam, he spied a sandpiper running into the waves.  He leaped into the water after it and was pulled under; he popped back up, turned and dog-paddled back to shore.  After running out and shaking off, he retreated to the back of the beach.

On the way home, we stopped for the world's best brownies at the former Kristina's - now Mae's - bakery in Bath.  We also got a Kong ball for Cody, which we stuffed with kibble and peanut-butter for him when we got home.

 

The outing gave the rest of the day a feeling of privilege, even though we were schlepping more moldy canvas from the cellar and hauling heavy brush out of mucky places in our meadow.  I kept thinking, where else could we just take off for the beach like that, and drive fifty minutes to a place so unlike anywhere else that it was like being in a fairy-tale, and have it completely to ourselves on a beautiful Saturday in November? 

Nowhere but Maine.