Monday 16 July: Admin morning in Camden, and long foggy day motoring to Boothbay.
Early alarm, as we have a very busy morning. But we are so toasty under the duvet, that we stay in bed longer than planned. When we poke our head through the hatch, we are surprised to see thick fog outside. Hope it will clear before we leave…
After breakfast we rush to the Lyman-Morse guests lounge, to tackle the list of Skype calls, eBay orders of spare parts, and few emails. Plus, fender socks are treated to a merry cleanup in the washing machines. They were so dirty after rubbing against the dock in Savannah and New York marinas. They are now clean again, and we can resume storing the fenders in the guests head.
Late morning all admin is done and we are ready to return to Cloudy Bay. Worryingly though, the fog is thicker than in the morning and we overhear people from the marina commenting that the tripper boats have came back in with the tourists, as the fog was too thick out at sea. Oops…
Back at Cloudy Bay, the first thing we do is dig out the fog horn. And surprise-surprise, of course it doesn’t work: the gas bottle has self-emptied itself due to lack of use! We’ll have to manage without horn. Maybe Glen should play the clarinet on a bass note, that should make enough noise.
Just before noon we slip the mooring buoy and brace ourselves for the long journey ahead. For today we leave the radio on high volume so that we can hear communications from boats who are calling their entering into/exiting from the marina. All very professional, it’s so nice to hear such good radio protocol. So different from what we’ve witnessed in Europe, where boaters play music or kids impersonate animal sounds on channel 16.
As we motor out of the channel, the fog is still very thick, we can only see few meters in front of us, hardly making out the fishing floats. We are cursing the poor visibility, and at the same time there is a VHF call from a kayak company, announcing that 10 kayaks will be crossing the channel from the yacht club to Curtis Island. Some people are not easily put off by the cold, bad weather or poor visibility. A boat is jokingly mocking them on VHF, but no giggles come from the other end.
Hardly any wind, and even the little that comes in is right on the nose, so we can’t sail, again. How frustrating!! To begin with, we motor slowly since the fishing floats become visible only when they are couple of meters away from Cloudy Bay’s hull. But as we get into the deeper sea, the floats are less dense and we can put the engine into the overdrive and get a higher speed. 40nm to go, we can’t afford to be too slow.
Hour after hour, we wonder if the fog will ever lift. On few occasions fishing floats were not the biggest bazaars, but fishing boats. Most without AIS, popping out from nowhere, and we got to see them only when they were within few boat lengths from us. Radar did a great job at picking them up in due time.
Nature had its usual way of entertaining us. As we had our eyes glued to the sea ahead of us, we spotted few seals poking their noses out of the water, puffins trying to fish and then taking off in their funny flight, a couple porpoise, and even a shark!- well, the fin of it cutting the water surface.
As we were motoring passed various headlands, islands or lighthouses, we were reading their names from the chart plotter. But we saw none of them. A bit of a shame, as the coast line must be very pretty.
Almost 7 hours later we arrive in Boothbay, which is also covered in fog, but less dense as we get into the bay, away from the Ocean. This is our destination, and Cloudy Bay will remain here for 3 weeks while we travel back home.
We make a short stop at one of the fuel docks, to top up our diesel tanks to leave them full while we are away. There was a tricky moment there when we needed to reverse but nothing happened. After a lot of high revs, the boat did finally stop, just short of a large fancy motor boat. Something is clearly wrong with the propeller. Then we pick up a mooring buoy, again tricky without good reverse gear! Finally all systems are off, and we can relax our eyes. It was a bit of a tiring trip, having to scan the grey sea against a grey foggy horizon all the time.
Late lunch again, then it’s off to tackle the list of things to do before we leave the boat. Tidy up decks, furl tighter the genoa and cutter in preparation for higher winds, pickle the watermaker, clean speed impeller, etc. When we crush into bed, we are off like the light.