Up at 5:30, calm and clear. Quiet on the harbor, even the lobster boats heed the "no wake" buoys. Fog slides down the hills, never quite reaching the water. New set of clothes and a clean the boat.
There is a tiny cove with a boat ramp and town dock on the northwest corner of the harbor. Motor there to get rid of some trash. I find that there are recycle bins there but no place for trash. I've come across this a few times before in Maine. Why should the little towns pay to get rid of cruisers trash?
Motor over to Buck's Harbor Maine. Not open yet, there is a small store and a fuel dock, plus a sign showing where I can drop off the trash. How nice. Get rid of the trash and, when the store opens, top of the fuel can. The lady at the store tells me I am welcome to leave SPARTINA at the dock while I walk up to the coffee shop in the village.
Iced tea and a blueberry muffin in the in the old post office of the one-intersection town. Beautiful murals on the walls and a great breakfast, plus an iced tea to go.
Back at the marina pick up some bottled drinks, cast off at 9:00 on the windless morning as life begins to stir on schooners in the harbor.
No wind on Eggemoggin Reach, under power headed east to the Wooden Boat School for a visit.
Under the bridge to Deer Island, then past the Torrey Islands, past Little Babson and Babson Islands. Tie up to a mooring off the Wooden Boat School at noon. There's a launch picking up sailors coming in from sails on beautiful Herreshoff 12 and 1/2 designs. I wave to the boat, ask if I can catch a ride to the dock. The captain of the boat, Rick, asks if my name is Steve, tells me he heard I might be coming by.
Rick gives me directions up to the school. It is lunchtime up there, Rick finds a sandwich for me - a nice shrimp po' boy. I get a tour of the school, mostly located in an old brick building. Batches of students are building skiffs, river dories, ship's wheels and even casting bronze in the various shops. It looks like it would be a fun place to spend a week, but then again I've retired from boat building. I ask if Matt, the editor, is around, and I am told he is out sailing.
2:00 Rick runs me in the launch out to SPARTINA. I thank him for the hospitality. The afternoon winds are beginning to gust, I tuck both reefs into the main for the sail back up Eggemoggin Reach. Four tacks into the wind between the Torry Islands and Little Babson Island at 5.5 to get to the Reach, then a run west to Joyce Point as fog hovers to the south. Less wind along the way, round up to shake out the second reef, 3.3.
3:15 see the markers for the Benjamin River, make two downwind tacks into the channel. 3:45 in the mooring field on the Benjamin River, tacking back and forth in what could easily be a maritime museum of classic boats.
4:15 tie up at a mooring behind the Cape Dory Robinhood IDA. Setting up the boom tent, Randy, my host for the evening, rows out to say hello. A friend of a friend, he and his wife Nancy had invited me to use their guest morning. Randy also has a Sea Pearl, an open cockpit cat-ketch, that he has sailed in the Sea Islands in Georgia. We have a nice conversation about our sailing down there in the beautiful marshes. He invites me up for coffee tomorrow mid-morning, I thank him but tell him I will be off sailing by then.
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