Weather

 7/19- Rockland ME

   Well the last week or so has been interesting to say the least. We ventured out and sailed across the bay to Carver Cove where we sat for a couple of days. The wind has been west and northwest for quite a long time now which is unusual. We enjoyed ourselves in Carvers as we dinghied in to a beach we hadn’t known was public. It had a nice little walk through the woods in some sort of preserve. 

   The wind was still west. In the morning so we put a reef in to try out the new sail. We just had the stay sail up for now as we anticipated tacking through the thoroughfare. We would have made it except for the very narrow section where we ran out of room. Mr Perkins came to the rescue and once we cleared the buoy we sailed the rest of the way. Once we were past the 26 buoy we ran up the head sail and took off for Rockland. While we were tacking out we crossed paths with another CD 36 with the same sail configuration up. It was a bumpy crossing but the boat sailed great and we got into Rockland easily. 

   We heard from our friends Peggy and Denny a few days later so we headed back over to Carver Cove again to meet up with them. 

   All week long I have noticed this anomaly in the weather forecasts for today. The winds would be nominal until 3 pm and then things went haywire until 5 at which time everything returned to normal. I wasn’t sure what to think about this but we headed north and had a nice broad reach until we got to Pickering Island. We went around the bend and anchored in the east bay which seemed fairly well protected from the west wind that was blowing. Around 3 you could see the storm clouds coming across the bay. When it got close I could see the water was being whipped up into the air. It hit like running into a wall. The boat was slapped sideways by 50 mph winds and the bay turned into a froth of white. The waves poured in on us from the north, 3 to 4 footers about 10 feet apart. We hobby horsed and danced with waves breaking over the bow. The anchor amazingly held and about 45 minutes later it all calmed down to a dull roar. We had stuff flying all over the cabin so we put the boat back together. 

   Try here was considerable damage all up and down the coast from this squall. A cruise ship broke the dock in Rockland and our friends Bufflehead had his mast broken. Another friend elsewhere had his anchor dragged a considerable distance before he got it under control. It was a wild one. 

   The next morning we headed out and we had a fine close reach down through the myriad of islands. We got all the way to Owls Head before we had to tack. Here the wind piped up and we were sailing on our ears having to tack into Rockland. I , with great effort rolled up the Yankee so we could tack more easily. We should have put a reef in but by this time it was too late. The wind blew harder and we tacked more finally getting inside the breakwater where we doused sails and headed for the mooring. 

   The wind has continued to blow strong from the west for the last three days and is forecast to continue. We will hang around and do some stuff in Rockland. 

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