SHIT!

SHIP!!

SHIP!!!!

Jeff drops, no, slings, the chart aside as he grabs the wheel and slams it to port (left).

Directly off our starbird (right) side is what at first appears to be a mega yacht cruising full speed ahead toward our beam.

On a second, less hysterical look, it is merely a good-sized lobster boat, stalled, hoisting it’s catch aboard.

Whatever.

30 minutes ago, we pulled anchor in Rockland, Maine, headed towards Hurricane Island for a day stop before sailing on to Seal Bay for the night. The weather was a tad cloudy, but the forecast called for clearing skies. As we headed outside the harbor, fog thickened until we were engulfed in pea-soup. It was hard to see past the bow. Add to that the zillions of lobster traps we had to maneuver around, and sailing was impossible.

I stood “watch” front and center, glasses fogging, “cold” tears running down my face. (you know how your eyes water when you are outside in cold and wet wind?)

Trap on your port! Trap on your starbird!

I am admittedly directionally challenged, so I also use arm signals, but they don’t always coincide with my commands, so Jeff mainly follows the arms that are flying.

I scrunched my face and squinted my eyes to identify any traps-marked with a colorful floating buoy-if they were in our path, and if I could identify them in time. Run over one, and your prop is likely to seize up out there in the middle of nowhere.

We chugged along at a pitiful 3 knots, attempting to avoid buoys and boats, me ringing the cowbell we purchased in a local hardware store somewhere along the Intracoastal Waterway. The tag on the bell read “Kentucky Foghorn”, and it was just too good to pass up.

Out of nowhere, a massive blue sailboat appeared just off our bow. In the nick of time, we both veered away. I know they saw the whites of my eyes. Waaaayyyyy too close for comfort! Our temperamental radar had just showed a tiny blip, then nothing.

More Cowbell!

I shook the Kentucky foghorn like Granny wringing a chicken’s neck. Those boaters never even heard it. Obviously, we were going to need a better form of fog horn.

The Conch shell from the Bahamas! Right!

I grabbed that conch and gave my mightiest blow, emitting a long low bellow. It sounded a little like a horny bull, I imagined. I continued to blow it every ten-seconds or so for the next hour.

My lips were as irritated as a teenager’s in love, and after all that scrunching, squinting and blowing, I’m gonna need some Botox, for sure!

Jeff headed in closer to shore, and the sun appeared, dissipating the shroud of fog that had enveloped Kismet for the past hours.In front of us rose the rounded hills of coastal Maine, evergreens hugging the craggy shoreline. Tiny islands of smooth stones rose from the middle of shallow channels, offering local seals a place to bask in the warming sunshine.

Once anchored, we plopped the pups in Dingo the dinghy and explore the shorelines, taking advantage of high-tide to go ashore for a hike and much-needed pee. (The pups, not us).

Ahhhh. Now this is Maine. All of it. Islands and mountains. Buoys and boats. Fog and forests.

I think we’ll stay a while.