Thursday, October 21, 2010

Day 1 & 2: Southwest Harbor-Stonington-Portland or Lobster Trap Land

We boarded the boat Tuesday afternoon and after a quick stowaway of gear, we were on our way!

(That's me smiling, I swear)

We sailed through Blue Hill and Jericho Bay that afternoon and by sunset decided that it was going to be too hard to navigate through the lobster trap buoys in the dark. We anchored near Stonington, ME for the night, fixed a quick meal of chicken noodle soup, and crawled into our bunks for the evening.

We were up and at em by sunrise Wednesday morning and and spent the day negotiating more lobster trap buoys, like this:




"What's the big deal?", you may ask. Well a lobster trap buoy is attached to a long line which is attached to a lobster trap which hopefully contains somebody's tasty dinner which is somebody else's way of making a living. So driving a boat over a buoy could result in a line tangled in the boat's propeller and a mad lobsterman, neither of which is very much fun to deal with.

Anyhow, we passed safely out of Lobster Trap Land once we got within sight of Monhegan Island and continued sailing through the night. I cooked dinner:

(I am a huge fan of the gimballed stove!)

And we eventually arrived at the Portland Yacht Services docks around 12:30a.



We are currently waiting out weather, picking up a few extra snacks and heating up the place.


If you want to follow our journey, there is live tracking at the following website:

http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/

Just click on the "Go to Vessel" drop down menu and find Rachel B Jackson. It updates more frequently than me and you can even track our progress!

3 comments:

  1. Very nice to talk to you just now. Enjoy the Portland area today before you set sail tomorrow morning. What's a gimballed stove?

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  2. I have the same question as your Mom? Is it hard to cook on a boat? How often do you dock to get more food and supplies? Enjoy your jounrey. Heidi

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  3. A gimballed stove will right itself when the boat is heeled over while sailing. So it lets you cook consistently on an even plane instead of being influenced by the motion of the boat. That helps overcome one of the challenges of boat cooking anyways!

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