Tuesday, May 10-Thursday, May 12
Tuesday morning.....early (5:15) it was extremely calm and sunny so we decided to "practice" moving off the dock and back onto the dock while no one was around to watch!!! Peter handled our boat with perfection moving off dock, onto another dock, and then backing into the fuel dock. We waited for the marina to open to get a pump out and left Rockland Harbor at 7:30. Our passage through Owl's Head and Muscle Ridge was beautiful and calm in the early morning sun. It resembled our cruise ship passage through the archipelago going into Stockholm, Sweden. Rounding the Owl's Head lighthouse was a treat.
Once we moved away from the coastline we faced the open ocean along the coastline. The predicted winds of 10-12 K soon turned into 25-30 K and the waves were slightly larger than predicted, 3-5, at least. The boat took the abuse and rode well in the waves. We tried to navigate from the inside helm but that got quickly sprayed with salt water and the helm wiper didn't work. So we moved to the fly-bridge. It was a little rolly but we felt safe at all times....life jackets on of course. About 1.5 hours away from Booth Bay the conditions became worse and even our fly-bridge became covered with salt spray. It was a little more difficult to watch for lobster buoys and markers.
About 2:30 pm we moved into calmer waters in Booth Bay Harbor and tied up at our favorite place, the Tugboat Inn. Peter, the dock master we met some 7-8 years ago there tied us up. We were cold and wet and wanted a warm lunch and some heat. Our heating unit decided to stop working on us. So that night we threw our sleeping bag over our blankets and slept through the cold night warm and toasty. Wednesday we decided to do something about the heat so we stayed an extra night . Peter was able to get the heat pump working during the day. Jane's brothers, Jim & Mike were driving from New Hampshire to Rockland to collect our car so they stopped by Booth Bay Harbor and we had a nice lunch together at the Tugboat.
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We heard the lobster boats on our dock leaving at 4:30 am and watched them return about 5 pm. What a long day they put in. Peter decided to have a conversation with the boat next to us and we ended up getting 16 rock crab claws and 2 lobsters fresh off the boat....for much less cash than the restaurant! They went straight into the pot for our dinner.
Thursday morning was beautiful so we left at 7:30 am again. There was no fuel dock open.....their boating season has not yet begun......so we headed out across the bay toward Biddeford Pool. It was such a nice trip we decided to keep going to Kennybunkport, summer white house for the 2 Bush presidents. It is a beautiful town. After fueling up we took a walk into the village before settling in for the night to relax.
While in Newport Harbor we had boat business to do so we collected our car from Sarah's house in North Kingstown and used it during the day. Our good friends who live in Newport let us use their driveway to park in for overnight. We got our boat, dinghy, and outboard registered. A shopping trip to West Marine and the lettering was purchased for the dinghy. The last to do is the boat naming ceremony. We will do that in East Greenwich next week.
