Location: Linekin
Bay, Maine
We’re currently moored in Linekin Bay, Maine, visiting
friends Brian and Kathy. Linekin Bay is
just east of Boothbay Harbor, one of Maine’s popular summer boating and tourist
stops. We arrived in Boothbay Thursday afternoon and went into Brown’s Wharf to load water and pick-up a mooring for
the night. Tim Brown, the marina manager
at Brown’s, was good friends with Kathy’s late husband, Gregg. Gregg and Dave grew up together in Beverly,
MA and went to college together at Mass. Maritime. Dave always says if it weren’t for Gregg he
never would have finished at Mass. Maritime; Gregg kept him motivated and sane
during their college years, studying, playing lacrosse and “midnight
riding”. Gregg died in a plane crash
about 5 years ago leaving behind his wife Kathy and their three daughters,
Kelsy, Sonni and Ali. Gregg, in his
passing, was once again a big motivator for Dave and me and was a big reason
for retirement part 1 and now retirement part 2. Life is too short and it is important to get
out and do the things you want to do and see the things you want to see rather
than being a slave to sitting behind a desk, pushing a pencil and trying to
keep up with the Jones. If you want to
read more about Gregg’s daughter Kelsy and how she took charge of the family
business after Gregg’s death, there is a good article “Saving Hartley Marine”
in the August 2012 issue of Maine Magazine, online at http://www.themainemag.com/people/features/1937-saving-hartley-marine.html
So… Brian, another childhood friend of Dave’s, and Kathy
hooked up a few years ago and just spent the winter living in a very small
apartment in East Boothbay where they have a dock and access to this mooring we
are on. They both said that after
surviving in an apartment that small they can handle anything. Here is a picture of Seabiscuit on Kathy and
Brian’s mooring in Linekin Bay:
A little catching up on where we’ve been recently… I think the last blog ended about the time my
friend Jennie came on board in Newburyport, MA.
Jennie and I went to college together in Montana and were roommates our
senior year. We joke that we’re not
really friends, just ex-roommates because you can’t be friends with your
roommates. Jen-Jen was instrumental is
helping us last year when we bought the boat.
She works in DC and lives in Bowie, MD, just across Chesapeake Bay from
Rockhall where Seabiscuit was docked.
She spent several weekends running around getting parts, supplies and
provisions for us while we were preparing to get underway to move the boat from
Rockhall up to NH for the winter. She
cooked a bunch of food for us to take on the trip (breakfast burritos,
spaghetti and sauce, etc.) and helped us test the crabs and beers at all of the
Rockhall restaurants. Jen-Jen used to
work in MA and has several friends there so she spent the first half of her
vacation week with us on the boat and the second half with her friends at their
cabin on a lake in NH.
Here is a picture of Jennie at the helm:
While she was aboard, we did lots of fun things. Cruised from Newburyport to Salem, moored in
Salem and had a wonderful dinner at 62 on Pickering Wharf; went out whale watching
on Stellwagon Bank and saw lots of humpback whales; went back to Salem and had
a wonderful dinner at a German/Polish place in town. Sunday we went to Kettle Island and met up
with Al and Patti and some of their friends.
We swam, hunted for seaglass on the beach, had a few cold ones, had
summer reubens (corn-beef and cole-slaw) for lunch and passed the day
away. Doug, one of the Al and Patti’s
friends, has invented a floating sunglass strap using wine corks. He gave us a few and we have been wearing
them and getting lots of comments. He
actually got a patent on them and sells them on line at www.winenomore.com. We moored in Gloucester for the night and
then waited for high slack water to go thru the Blynman Canal up to
Annisquam.
A little moaning and whining here… First, going up the
Blynman Canal is pretty tricky; it’s narrow, i.e. all but the small boats go up
it single file and it doesn’t have a lot of depth. There are two bridges that need to be lifted,
one at the Gloucester Harbor entrance and a railroad bridge further up. The Cape Ann Marina is between the two
bridges. Because we are slow, while
waiting for the first bridge to lift, two boats that were behind us moved up in
line in front of us. Rather than going
all the way through the canal, both boats stopped to turn in at the Cape Ann
Marina, backing up the line and causing everyone to reverse and horns to blow. We
moored for the night at Annisquam. According to the guide books, there is a
market is Annisquam that can provide basic supplies, groceries, ice, beer,
sodas, etc. so Jennie and I took the launch in to check it out. The description of the market was slightly
embellished… let’s just say they had a
limited supply of beer (Bud Light, Coors Light, Miller Light) and soda and that
was it… so we walked the 100 yards to the other end of the town and took the
launch back out to the boat. Jennie and
Dave barbequed steaks for dinner that night.
Here is a picture of Jennie trying to teach Dave how to tell when the
steak is done “medium rare”. They are up
on the boat deck with Wingaersheek beach is in the background.
The next day we went
around Cape Ann and anchored near Sandy Beach in Rockport. We took the dinghy in to the dinghy dock,
wandered around Rockport, had a lobster roll for lunch and strudel for dessert
then headed north back to Newburyport to drop Jennie off for the second half of
her vacation.
We decided to go from Newburyport back up to Great Bay
Marine in NH to catch-up on some maintenance and to see Dave’s dad and the rest
of his family one more time before heading back to Salem to spend a weekend
with Heather (Dave’s daughter) and her boyfriend Derek. When
preparing to leave the Newburyport Town Dock, we discovered a fuel leak coming
from one of the manhole covers on the starboard aft tank. We tightened the bolts around the cover to
slow the leak until we could repair it once we got into Great Bay.
More on maintenance, our trip with Heather and Derek and our
time so far in Maine in the next post…
