7 C-Dory’s Cruise Maine

[Rick from Maine]

For one week, 7 C-Dory’s experienced the perfect embodiment of Maine cruising. The usual suspects from the northeast C-Brat website gathered for a group cruise. Recognizing that most Maine ports would not be able to land even 7 boats, we didn’t announce this gathering on the C-Brat website. We knew that 7 boats was already stretching docking limits. The cruise went smoothly with no glitches, and it’s likely that the laughter during sundowner raftings could be heard for miles.
For the record, the participants were:
Hunky Dory- Rick & Carol Stambaugh
Alma’s Only- David & Dayna Paxton
Widget - Dave & Valerie Seaton
Crescent Girl- Dun & Becky Smith
Island Trade- Ray & Paula Hamilton
Knot Flying- Mike Rizzo
Clover- Nate & Betsy Leonard
My log showed 35 engine hours over the 8 days. Since we didn’t cruise in our boats one day, we averaged 5 hours of motoring each day. I’d estimate that we cruised about 325 miles in Casco Bay, the Midcoast Rivers, and Muscongus Bay in all kinds of weather including 5 ft high jumbled following seas and pea soup fog. Yup, a real Maine experience.
El & Bill, you’ll recognize a lot of these places as we cherry picked the best cruising grounds from Jewell Island to Port Clyde. We didn’t reach Penobscot Bay due to fog the last few days.
The gathering started at the Kennebec Tavern on the Kennebec River in Bath, Maine, on Saturday 7/26/08. 7 C-Dory’s tied to their docks for lunch. This location was also the site of the first ever northeast C-Dog gathering/cruise in 2003. From here we headed down the K’bec River past Popham Beach ( The site of the Popham Colony and the first ship built by Europeans in America, the Virginia of Sagadahock, in 1607.) Rounding Cape Small we encountered 3’ – 5’ seas typical of this area. Next we scooted into Small Point Harbor and Nate showed us where he misspent his youth. Six boats then went on to The Basin for overnight anchoring. Hunky Dory went to Bailey Island and a B&B for the night.
On Sunday, we started our day with what I consider to be the best day cruise in Maine: Around Sebascodegan Island. We left The Basin and Ray led us up the New Meadows River to Gurnet Strait. We hit it at peak flow that spun Clover before Nate got control. Next we found that the usual Long Reach navigation aids of sticks driven in the mud were missing, so we polished a few propellers doing the zigzag to Doughty Pt. Ewin Narrows were calm before turning into Long Cove and Lumbos Hole. Knot Flying described the Lumbos Hole ledges as: “It’s like entering a lock!” We finished the cruise through Wills Gut, the only granite cribstone bridge in the world. Pretty heady stuff! You can’t imagine the pristine beauty that is only 10’ off your gunwale going through these Narrows.
Then we went from the sublime to mayhem. Dun insisted we go to the Lobstah Boat races in Pott’s Harbor. Here we found flocks of drunken dilettante boaters trying to anchor and raft along a race course where lobster boats drag race. We rafted for about ½ hour before the bedlam of anchor dragging spectator boats became too scary, and we peeled off for lunch at Cook’s Lobster House at Wills Gut.
Sunday evening most boats overnighted at Jewell Island where they were able to beach the boats and hike the trails before rafting and anchoring for the night. A pop-up thunder storm grazed through at dusk. Widget overnighted at an Inn on Chebeague Island, while we returned to Bailey Island.
Monday we left Casco Bay bouncing around Small Point in troubled seas. From the Kennebec we took the calm inside passage to Wiscasset for a pleasant lunch and walks. From here we went to Nate’s parents house on Georgetown Island, where we paraded our fleet, reminiscent of Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet. It was disappointing that there was no Kazoo Band to greet us. Then we headed to Boothbay Harbor where most spent a night in rooms at the Marina Motels. A group dinner at Brown’s Wharf was boisterous with laughs.
The distaff crew savaged the boutiques of Boothbay Harbor while the C-Dory’s were fueled ( $4.06/Gal) and iced on Tuesday morning. We then went up the Damariscotta River for lunch at the Schooner Landing Restaurant, where we toasted El & Bill’s honeymoon meal here. After more boutique diving, we motored down to Seal Cove for the night’s anchorage. Six boats rafted on one anchor for sundowners. I suspect the reason we didn’t see many seals was the laughing at Mike’s jokes during our floating party. That night the skies were crystal clear. We watched the steaming Teapot ( the Milky Way spouting from Sagittarius) sink below the horizon, but didn’t see any of the predicted meteors. We slept to the sounds of splashing and swimming seals all around us.
Wednesday had perfect small boat cruising weather, so we went outside to Eastern Egg Rock to watch the Puffins. Then, three of our fleet departed to return home while the rest of us continued the cruise. Next was Friendship Harbor, which seems to have been brought to us by Kodak Film it’s so picturesque. We turned up the St. George River into Maple Juice Cove to see the Olsen House, where Wyeth painted Christina. On to a pleasant lunch in Thomaston, where a friendly sailor greeted us and provided some local knowledge of anchorages. As we headed out, the weather started to deteriorate, and predictions were ominous for the next few days. Since two boats were overnighting in Pleasant Point Gut, and two were mooring in Port Clyde we did a dry run of the inside passage to get GPS tracks in case the predicted fog was heavy. Widget and Hunky Dory took rental moorings and spent the night at a B&B in Port Clyde.
Thursday morning had pea soup fog. So, David Paxton led Clover to Port Clyde using his GPS breadcrumbs and radar. We all left our boats on rental moorings and took the ferry out to Monhegan Island. What a terrific day! Some of us geocached and hiked nearly 5 miles of trails to spectacular overlooks, while others hit the galleries. We lunched at a small stand that kept loosing power, which is typical on the Island. It was stormy that night, but we dined in cozy comfort since Dave Seaton pushed old ladies and children aside to get us the last reservation for dinner. Alma’s Only provided ferry service between the dock and moored boats.
More fog on Friday, so we bypassed Penobscot Bay, going inside Muscongus Bay instead. Tiptoeing out of Port Clyde through Friendship Harbor, we circumnavigated Bremen Long Island via the Flying Passage, then took the Lower Narrows around Hog Island. We paid our respects to Joshua Slocum at Round Pond before rounding Pemaquid Point noting the rock formations that Bill describes on Halcyon’s website. We went back through the Gut at South Bristol into Christmas Cove for lunch overlooking our 4 C-Dory’s among huge yachts at the dock. My credit card gave a sigh of relief as we passed Boothbay Harbor and took the Back River to the Oven Mouth. Going down the Cross River was special with porpoises leading the way. It was a great anchorage for our last night, with fish jumping all around us. During our sundowner rafting, David and I tried to catch dinner; good thing we had other provisions!
Our last morning, Saturday 8/2/08, was calm on the Cross River, but we expected fog on the Sheepscot River. We weren’t disappointed. We only had about 100 yards visibility for a few miles. The fog didn’t lift until we entered the inside passage. We had our parting lunch back at the Kennebec Tavern, then went down the river and hauled our boats.
Group cruises can’t be any better than this one. We always had interesting cruising, delightful rafting, or enjoyable shore side excursions. Although we brought some books, we never read a page in 8 days, as we were having too much fun. We wore ourselves out playing with our C-Dory’s. It was SUPAH!

[Roscoe]

Sounds like a great time. Wish I'd known you all were coming ... at one point you were just a few hundred yards from our mooring.

[416rigby]

Sounds like a whale of a time! I'd like to see Maine someday...sure looks pretty.
Rick

[Byrdman]

Looks like a great time!
Awesome!

Thanks for at least posting the trip log... something for us to print and put in our "gotta go there" files and dream trips.

Going up to the NE end of this week, early part of next week myself to the VT area. Will post more once known good road times. No real time for a cruise...but, who knows.....Terry on Last Dance and I may pop up somewhere in the NY waters for a few days/week before months end. No real plans...just a maybe at this point... and no time lines.

Byrdman

[Moxieabs]

Rick,
Thanks for the very accurate cruise summary and your local knowledge during the cruise. Widget is longingly looking at the Fox Islands as the next adventure area.
Dave

[matt_unique]

Thanks for the report. I have been to Maine twice in the last 40 days. Should you not be limited by dock space in the future, announce it here.

(PS I'm originally from Maine, small town outside of Augusta).

[El and Bill]

Rick -- what a flood of wonderful memories -- thanks for posting and so glad that the trip was supah!

[ffheap]

Hi Folks,

Sorry I missed the trip, but work calls.

I thought our first Northeastern Trip was New Bedford? Then that was followed by the Lake Champlain trip and the Erie Canal trips?

Did you see that Fred and Pat sold their C-Dory. I hope they get another. They are great folks to cruise with.

I have been very busy on other things so will not be available until spring. Will tell you all about it when I see you next.

Fred

[ffheap]

How about some pictures?

Fred

[Rick from Maine]

Hi Fred,

We missed ya.

Fred, I erred in the above report. The first ever northeast C-Dog gathering was in 2002 (not 2003) at the Kennebec Tavern in Bath ME. It was El & Bill, Linus & Bonnie, and Carol & I. About 1 week after the initial rendezvous, Halcyon, Hunky Dory, and Fred Kistler's Tomcat cruised ME for a while, hitting many of the same places we cruised this year.

New Bedford was the first northeast C-Dog/Brat gathering that you came to.

One interesting thing about the cruise this year that we had in common with the cruise in 2002: This year we were harassed on the VHF by the same 2 jerks who harassed us in 2002! This year Nate returned their fire by playing Dualing Banjo's at them.

See ya next year, Rick

[CTYankee]

I thought the C-Brats showed admirable restraint by not responding to the juvenile comments of the local "maniacs". The worst thing to do is to legitimize their insults.

BTW, can we get a picture album so we can post our pics? I've got a few good ones!

Dun

[ffheap]

Dun,

What insults?

Fred

[CTYankee]

Oh, they just poked fun at our VHF chatter and made us feel like we didn't belong in Maine! You know, typical "from away" comments!