After a delicious breakfast of blueberry pancakes, sausage, melon slices and great coffee Monday morning, we left the dock at Rockland and headed out past the breakwater and began our journey around the thousand islands of Penebscot Bay. We raised sail as soon as we were nearing the breakwater. Since the Taber is a centerboard schooner, she is able to go into some fairly shallow waters and get in close to the islands. Captain Noah and crew were really good at showing and explaining what we were seeing as we cruised by. And they LET us help with raising sails and tacking when necessary. It took a lot of man and woman power to raise the sails but many hands made light work. Raising anchor was another team effort.
L: Susan and Fred on mainsheet. CL: J&R Riggin passing the Rockland Breaker Lighthouse. CR: Susan’s back, then her husband David, Rick, Dana, Fred and Lila; the guys are raising the foresail. R: The Riggin seen across Plain Jane which was built by Noah and was a really neat little boat.
We had a great lunch of beef stew salad, and fresh wood stove baked crusty bread. Getting to know the boat better. We lost our wind for a while in the afternoon and lowered ‘Baby’ the motorized dinghy and used her as a pusher boat. Wind picked back up later and we sailed further east to Isle Au Haut. Cap’n Noah says we did about a 24 mile sail. Dropped anchor in sight of the island and the Riggin. Appetizers were served soon as we got the sails furled. Mussels in a wine sauce served with chunks of the crusty bread. Dinner was Risotto Salmon with Hazelnut Butter Sauce, Asparagus, and Strawberry/Rhubarb Cardamom Pie. Great sunset and learned the Taber’s tradition of firing the cannon at sunset. It’s a 12 gauge shotgun shell blank cannon but makes an impressive end to the day. Colors came down, dinner shortly after. This is the summer solstice and sundown was late. Listened to Fred’s story about him and the .223 vs the young male black bear. It was an interesting story and turns out he won with only a torn shirt. The game warden got the dead bear. Also talked at dark with Jock who is a building contractor in ME. We talked about his camp on the lake and building stuff. To bed around 10PM in Cabin 5 which was much better than 4. Now we had room for standing and turning around. 2 beds perpendicular to each other. There are open cabins, only 16 passengers out of a possible 22.
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