Turkey Tracks:  September 7, 2014

Come Sailing With Me

I’m just home after spending a magical, gorgeous, fun, inspiring six days sailing Penobscot Bay on the windjammer/schooner J&E Riggin with Captains Jon Finger and Anne Mahle.

Here’s the Riggin as seen from the island where we had a lobster roast:

There are many, many better pictures on the Riggin web site: http://www.mainewindjammer.com.

I forget how many trips John and I made before he got too sick to go, but we qualified as “Riggin Relics,” which meant we’d made 5 or 6…

On this trip, I sailed with a great couple who have made 27 trips over the years–often stringing three together in a summer.  So, beware, being on the Riggin and around Jon and Anne gets into your blood.  It has mine…

Here’s a little video of one of my favorite pastimes aboard:

This trip was centered around knitting and featured Margaret Radcliffe, who had just published a new, very useful “how to” book.  Margaret is one of those people who is at the top of her craft.  She has forgotten more about knitting than most of us will ever know. And she was generous with her time and skilled with her help on our projects.  Because knitting was featured, most of the passengers were women–with two sturdy male passenger exceptions, both of whom are married to knitters.

I thoroughly enjoyed these women and will see some of them over the winter and will sail again with some of them next summer.  Emails are already flying around between us.

Here’s Jessica knitting with her morning coffee/tea:

Jessica is making the hat pattern that Margaret Radcliffe designed for this cruise.  I love her colors:

Here’s a completed sock on Jeanine’s foot:

And Pinky (of the 27 voyages) completed this great cowl early on in our trip:

Pinky is standing in the galley–which is always a warm retreat if one gets cold or needs a table on which to work.  Here are two more pictures of the galley:

What you’re seeing is the “eating” end of the galley.  On the other end is the “cooking” end.  Anne and her crew (the amazing Cassie this year) feed up to 30 people (passengers and crew) three meals a day using a wood stove.  There is limited water and no electricity for kitchen save-time tools.  The kitchen “nook” that can’t be more than 6 feet long and with a walkway that is about 3 feet between the stove and cabinets and the sink side.

Anne’s food is…simply…amazing.  Most of her food is FRESH, FRESH as it it locally sourced.  She makes all her own breads–sometimes three different ones each day depending on what’s for breakfast–and there is a home made dessert at both lunch and dinner. Anne has two cookbooks now:  AT HOME, AT SEA and SUGAR AND SPICE.  Both are beautiful AND excellent.

Here’s a view of the boat from the back to the front–you can see the kitchen stove pipe to the left.  This pic only shows about 1/3 of the width of the boat and does not show the long front end or the 10 or so feet behind the camera.  I have never felt crowded on this boat.  Nor had to wait longer than two minutes for a bathroom.

Here’s Terry swimming off the Brooklin harbor, called affectionately the Wood Boat Harbor as the Wooden Boat School is located there.  This school is a place where you can go and learn how to build various wooden boats that you keep.  I have often seen families working away in one of the buildings to make a boat.

And, yes, I did get to swim this trip–with Jessica, off North Haven island.  The water was cold after the cool summer, but really refreshing as it was a hot day.

There was a lot of boat traffic this year–and it is so much fun to see sailboats cutting through the water and to hear the wind in their sails.  September is really fine sailing weather.

Here’s the Riggin’s little sail boat with Justin at the helm at Wood Boat Harbor:

The Riggin always draws traffic when she anchors.  Here are some small boats sailing around us:

Here’s a sailboat–one of many, many–out on the water either passing us or being passed by us:

The scenary is beyond spectacular out in this water world.  And it’s impossible to capture it with just a camera.

But…

The sunlight sparkling on the water is breathtaking.

And there are endless islands and passages between them and beautiful and/or quaint houses on the islands.

At one point we traveled what is known as Eggemoggin Reach (the site of famous races and regattas) and we went under the Deer Island Bridge with about a foot to spare at the top of our mast–causing all of us to gasp and shut our eyes:

I have some other short videos (the lobster bake, the last night, raising the front sail, hauling the anchor), which I will post separately, but I will end with this picture of a sunset on the Bay:

Come sailing with me next year?

I’ll be going on another six-day sail on July 20-25 and an as yet undetermined four-day knitting cruise in mid June.