Our Summer Cruise 2019

 

Sunday, August 4

Alas! No Cake For Me

Thanks to everyone who sent cards in advance, text messages, and e-mails on my birthday. Another great day to travel, sunny and light winds as we set off to explore the Union River up as far as Ellsworth, a small town on the way to MDI; but it has all the big box stores.

Rocks to Thread Through to Get Out to Open Water

Blue Hill to Ellsworth - 16 nm

Not much activity on the water today and we only saw one boat until we were well up the river. The river mouth is very shallow and was dredged to 5 feet deep a number of years ago but has silted up in a several places. Advice we had received said to go up river on at least a mid rising tide which we did and the shallowest water we saw was 8 feet. The disadvantage to going at mid tide was the current which was strong. Going with the current, one has to maintain enough speed to have good steerage so we were running at 9 knots in some of the narrow areas. We were soon at Ellsworth and tied up to their floating dock that is about 100 feet long and supposedly with at least eight feet of water at low. Their dockage fees are relatively high at $2 a foot considering they really don't have much in the way of facilities other than electricity and water but there's no other choice here; anchoring would not be possible with a larger boat like ours.

Close to Low Tide

To celebrate my birthday we walked in to town to the Fogtown Brewing Company for some good beer and food truck burgers. Travis Cyr, a Maine singer/songwriter, was the evening's entertainment but was not the greatest. Our real excitement of the evening was watching the depth readout continuing to fall as low water approached. Due to the moon phase and other natural events, low tide was a minus value of more than 1 foot from the chart's baseline and we watched it get close to 5 feet deep with two hours to go! I sounded out the water ahead of us on the dock and we could get another foot a boat length ahead so we dragged the boat along and we must have been only inches off the bottom at the turn of the tide. Tomorrow morning will be tight again!

Monday, August 5

It was tight this morning but the tide was rising by 8:00 am with no bumps on the bottom. To take advantage of the tide and minimize the current, we delayed our departure until around noon so we would have good depth and less current against us. Just as well we did because George and Cynthy, our friends from Brooklin, stopped by as they were in Ellsworth. We hadn't seen them this year as they were on a long 1800 mile cruise down the East coast to NY, up the Hudson, through the Erie and Oswego Canals, crossing Lake Ontario to Kingston, going up the Rideau Canal in Canada to Ottawa, and then returning via Lake Champlain to NY and home. We got chance to catch up with their journey for an hour or so before we had to leave.

Ellsworth to Sawyer Cove - 16 nm

A much better ride going down the river than up and we were soon out in open water heading to Galley Cove on Bartlett Island for the evening. Both moorings were already taken so we were forced to look elsewhere and spotted Sawyer Cove on the shore of MDI. Not much written about it in the Cruising Guide but it looked promising. It actually turned out to be a good location with 270 degrees of wind protection and perfect anchoring depth; we found 7 feet of water at low tide with no other boats anchored. Several boats were on moorings but no houses were visible until lights came on at night. We spent a very peaceful evening with osprey sightings and a colorful sunset.

 

Tuesday, August 6

Destination Swan's Island for a few days for the Sweet Chariot Music Festival. Just another short run of a couple of hours.

Sawyer Cove to Burnt Coat Harbor, Swan's Island - 18 nm

Wow! We have been truly blessed with good weather again and no waves. The run today was through a massive number of lobster floats and boats weaving all over. At one point, we had over 30 boats within sight of us and the radar screen was very cluttered. It's tough keeping track of that many as they rarely steer a constant course and only have two speeds, stopped and wide open.

A Couple of the More Colorful Lobster Boats Nearby

It's also tough to anticipate how to avoid them as they rarely adhere to the navigation rules of who gives way to who.

Burnt Coat Harbor Lighthouse at the Entrance

Swan's Island is a remote island, with ferry service originating in Bass Harbor. The six mile crossing from Bass Harbor takes about 30 minutes. The ferry, "Captain Henry Lee", holds 17 automobiles as well as walk-on passengers.

The year-round population is about 380 people, with over 1000 residents in the summertime.

Swan's Island has some 7,000 acres with a highly irregular shoreline that provides secure and interesting anchorages for visiting boaters. It is hilly, but not particularly high. There is a quarry for swimming as well as places to visit on foot or bicycle. The island has three little villages, Atlantic in Mackerel Cove on the north coast, Swan's Island, on the shores of Burnt Coat Harbor in the south and Minturn on the north side of the Burnt Coat Harbor.

Lobstering is the main occupation on Swan's Island. The economy of the island is mostly dependent on the income derived from lobstering and summer tourism. Swan's Island has about 50 full-time lobstermen and women, and many part-timers, including school children who fish from small skiffs in the summer. They have formed two Cooperatives to make their fishing more profitable by cutting down some of the middlemen in the chain of sea to table businesses associated with lobstering.

 

Swan's Island was first charted in 1606 by Samuel de Champlain's expedition, and at the time was used by local Indians as a seasonal hunting ground. Burnt Coat Harbor was originally named Burnt Coast Harbor by him since the shoreline had suffered a major fire and most of the trees had perished. The name was corrupted over time.

Colonel James Swan, a member of the Sons of Liberty and Boston Tea Party participant, purchased the island in 1786, but in 1791, David Smith, an American Revolutionary War veteran, became the first settler of European extraction on the island.

The population grew slowly to more than 1,000 by 1900. Fish processing was the dominant industry into the 1930s, when it became no longer profitable in the area. The state-run ferry, which began service in 1960, helped make Swan's Island a popular summer tourism destination. The ferry also is used to carry the mail to the island and school kids to school.

The Harbor has a unique mooring ball system with the Cooperative placing a number of good mooring balls around the bay. They operate on an honor system with a 16 oz. plastic bottle on a string tied to the ball. You put your money in the bottle and, every so often, someone comes round and empties the bottle. Ours probably had more than $150 crammed in it!

The first concert of the Sweet Chariot Music Festival was held tonight at the Odd Fellows Hall.

Doug Day was inspired twenty years ago by the Fox Hollow Festival and his first Mystic Seaport Music Festival to create an event on Swan's Island where he summered. He admired the schooners that sailed out of Camden, Rockport and Rockland and invited them to come to a mid-week party. A dozen schooners sailed into Mackerel Cove on Swan's, turned into the wind, dropped anchor at the same time, and sent brave scouts up to his barn to see what was going on. In the barn, they saw the Praise Ensemble side by side with the Boners and a lot of rock and roll and shanties going on besides. The Sweet Chariot Music Festival was born!

From this small beginning, the Sweet Chariot Music Festival has grown to a three day event of eclectic music and singing with shanties, folk, jazz and world music being the backbone of the program. This year has twenty eight acts. Buckley Smith, a visual artist with a rare gift for capturing the spirit of the sea, becomes a set designer in front of the audience creating a huge, stage-sized nautical mural completed over the three days. Schooners still arrive for one night each at the festival and performers cruise around the moored boats in the Harbor serenading us from a small schooner with sea shanties for an hour each day (weather permitting). Each night of the festival sells out its 250 tickets which is quite amazing since the audience either has to come by boat, know someone they can stay with on the Island, or live on the Island.

Lewis R. French Arriving in Burnt Coat

Sea Shanties on the Water

About Half of the Lobster Pound at the Coop - About 20,000 Pounds of Lobster

Each of the lobstermen off-loads their catch each day, weighs them in at the shack on the upper right and then the Coop handles it all from there. This represents one day's haul and will be loaded and shipped by tomorrow morning on the early ferry. Each crate holds about 90 pounds of lobsters and we have counted some boats unloading up to twenty crates.

Off to the music! Just a sample here.

Movie 4442

 

Four Amazing Musicians in Their Own Right Joining Together

Beginning of the Mural

Wednesday, August 7

A little greyer skies today with a touch of fog further into the Harbor; still warm though.

View Further up the Harbor

Judy was busy stretching so I decided to dinghy around the Harbor and go for a walk on shore for a while and maybe check out the lighthouse. This area is definitely a working harbor with a number of tall piers and, depending upon the tide, horizontal or 45 degree ramps down to the docks.

 

The Co-op Dock

My walk took me along the shore of the Harbor with occasional glimpses of the water through the low lying fog until I reached the Post Office which is a huge building for the size of the Island. A little further on I came across The Island Market Store or "TIMS" as it is known. This is the only grocery store on the Island and is quite basic. Any major shopping involves a ferry ride to Bass Harbor and then a drive to Bar Harbor or Ellsworth. The other store is more of a gift shop with some limited clothing. Adjacent to TIMS is a small food truck-type cafe. The Library is in another direction near the Health Center but I didn't want to walk all the way there and find it closed. Close to TIMS is the old Methodist Church which no longer functions as a church but is now going to be used to house the Swan's Island Historical Society (there are still three other functioning churches on the Island). Unfortunately, it's furnace failed recently this winter and flooded the building causing extensive damage; they are trying to fund raise the insurance deductible right now.

 

Adjacent to the Church is the Cemetery which has been maintained in excellent condition. Walking amongst the gravestones from the early to late 1800s, many familiar names can be seen - Orcutt, Holbrook, Sprague, Conary, Herrick, Calderwood, Kent, Lunt, and many others whose names are on Islands, Harbors, Rocks and Ledges in this area of Maine.

Grindle Hill Cemetery

The next stop on my walk was at the nearby Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) Hall. The I.O.O.F was a fraternal organization that became popular on Swan's Island in the early 1900s. The Odd Fellows met in Epworth Hall, across from the current Methodist Church, until the group had a building of its own. The three-story hall was built shortly after 1909, and after some major renovations, serves as a community gathering place as well as the location for the Sweet Chariot Festival. It is almost identical to the Odd Fellows Hall in Brooklin and I suspect the same plans were used.

Odd Fellows Hall

Time was getting on so my walk to the lighthouse was postponed and food back on the boat was on my agenda.

The fog had got worse not better .....

The Schooner "American Eagle" in For the Festival

 

Coming on Stage to Start Evening Off - 4454

 

One of Many Shanties Tonight - 4458

 

Midway through his performance, the power to the whole Island and miles around died but he just kept playing and finished his song!

 

Mural Coming Along

Another great concert tonight except for the short blackout. The weather had deteriorated during the concert with lightning causing the power outage. By the time we arrived back at the dock, the winds were blowing at 20+ kts, 2' waves were rolling in, and our flashlight was barely penetrating the fog. The dinghy was not cooperating very well so we had a slow ride to the boat.

Thursday, August 8

This Sums up the Weather Today - Cool, Wet and Windy!

Not much happening today for us as we just hunkered down and relaxed all day; and it got worse later in the day.

Another Schooner Arrived Nearby But Could Not See Which It Was!

 

Doug Day - Director of the Festival - 4498

 

Two More of the Evening's Acts - Both Winners of National Singer/Songwriter Awards

 

Farewell Sing-along - Goodnight Irene (4502)

The evening lasted almost four hours with just a short break to make up for last night's power break! Our journey back to the boat was much better than last night and we slept well.

Friday, August 9

A better day is here with calm water, blue skies and just a trace of low lying fog ...this will burn off quickly today.

The Schooner - Visible Today!

By 9:00 am, the dinghy was raised and secured, engine checks done and we cast off from the mooring to head back to Herrick Bay passing the Sweet Chariot buoy; not sure that is legal?

 

Swan's Island to Herrick Bay - 16nm

By noon we were back at Atlantic Boat on a mooring and ashore to enjoy long showers and do some laundry before heading for Ellsworth to stock up with food and some odds and ends. Our new carburetor for the dinghy had arrived at the boat yard so we were anxious to get that installed soon and hopefully all our motor issues would be solved.

New Docks at ABC - But Still Only 3 Feet of Water at the End at Low

We had seen the summer schedule for the Surrey Barn concerts during the week and a jazz trio, John Gallagher and Friends, from Eastern Maine was playing so we ate quickly, picked up ice cream on the way and managed to get seats in a good location at the Barn. The trio of John Gallagher (bass), his son, Fallen (sax), and Dave Clarke (guitar) played their interpretations of jazz standards from the 1940 to the present including compositions by Ellington, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Dave Brubeck and others. An excellent concert and inexpensive to boot at $15 a ticket.

John Gallagher and Friends - 4508

Saturday, August 10

Herrick Bay Round Trip - 28 nm

With our jobs done at Herrick and strong winds (20 kts+) predicted from the North and Northeast, we wanted to move to somewhere with good protection but not far away. One anchorage nearby, Opechee looked quite good but on cruising around, it was much more open than it appeared on the chart. Another anchorage to the north on Bartlett Island had good protection and we had been in there before; we weren't the only ones with that idea and there was no room at the inn for us. After checking out a couple of other locations, we decided to head back to Herrick and waddya know the winds never came so we had a good rest of the day and night on our mooring ball. Although the winds didn't appear, the skies were quite ominous with heavy rains around us but we skated by most of it.