Last Cruise

WE LEFT as usual late Friday afternoon from the skipper’s house, dressed in thick woolens for the weekend. As we started, a cold November sunset was in process over the Topsfield hills, and by the time we reached the thick northbound traffic on the turnpike, darkness had gathered. We had been driving for some minutes in silence when I broke in. “Let’s hope this year is as good as last.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said the skipper, lighting his pipe. “We’ll take it as it comes. Remember the sail we had last year, and we surely didn’t expect that.” The three of us recalled the November cruise up the Penobscot River, past the late fall foliage on the steep, wooded banks.

Now, as we sped northward to the Maine coast, a full moon rose in the east.

“It’ll be cold as Greenland on deck,” said Steve. “That north wind will push us right down the bay. I hope Peterson got the stove going.”

We stopped in Wiscasset for a good meal and a bottle of wine. Steve drew the cork. “The last civilized meal of the weekend,” he said. “We’ll be thinking about this later on.”

It was midnight by the time we reached Camden. We drove down to the shipyard, where the big cutter lay alongside the wharf in the moonlight, her masts and shrouds dark against the bright sky. By the smoke rising from the stack, we knew the cabin, at any rate, would be snug.

“Good old Peterson,” said the skipper. “He’s warmed her up for us. Let’s get under way.”

We parked the car and unloaded the dunnage and food; it did not take long to start the engine, cast off the lines, and shove off into the bay. By the time we had cleared the harbor, set the big brown mainsail, and hoisted headsails, the skipper said, “How about going out to Matinicus?”

“OK by me,” said Steve. “How about the mate?”

“I’m with you,” I said. “Anyone catch a weather report?”

“Gusts to twenty later on,” said the skipper. “We’ll have to watch it. The old bucket’s pretty solid, but these fall winds are heavy. Well, let’s do it. Swing ‘er off down the bay.”

The cutter heeled slightly as she settled into her marks and slipped down the moonlit bay before the quartering breeze, her wake hissing. It was a lovely clear evening, but cold. We ran left, down past the string of flashing buoys set out for the Naval Time Trial Course, left Rockland Breakwater and North Haven astern, and headed for the open sea. The cutter’s bow dipped and rose as she breasted the ground swell outside. We could easily see the outline of Islesboro and North Haven to port and the mainland with its twinkling lights to starboard. There was no other craft on the broad bay. We had it to ourselves.

Practically speaking, our choice of destination wasn’t a good one. Matinicus, an island inhabited mainly by fishermen, lies fifteen miles to seaward of Owls Head, the nearest mainland. It is an exposed trip for late fall, and there is not much protection when you get there.

At one thirty we drew watches, and the skipper and I retired below. A can of beer, a pipe, and we turned in, hoping for a few hours’ rest.

“Christ, what’s that?” We sat bolt upright.

A heavy surge of sea had tossed us up over the crests and dropped the bilges down hard. There was a rush of water along the lee rail and the creak of the gaff as the big cutter heeled to each fresh squall. The skipper put on his boots. “It’s breezed up. We gotta get that sail in,” he said.

We stumbled up the companionway to a wild scene on deck. Boiling whitecaps stretched to windward and leeward as the cutter heeled over, main flapping, lee rail awash, and blunt bows throwing off showers of spray. Astern, we could make out the low shore of Vinalhaven and Carver’s Harbor light. Steve was having a time with the big tiller. “I can’t hold her,” he shouted. “The breeze has picked up.”

picked up.” “You’re telling us!" yelled back the skipper. “In with those headsails— we haven’t much time.”

Quickly we rolled in the jib, dropped the staysail, and put into the wind. The main didn’t come in quite so easily. With one man at the throat and peak halyards, another at the main sheet and tiller, and a third to smother the heavy flaxen canvas as it came down, we had our hands full. Not far away, anemometers were registering wind velocities up to sixty knots.

“Can’t you secure the damn thing? Get a hitch on it!” The skipper was impatient.

“Dammit, you’ve lost it again!”

“There we are.”

We finally lay ahull, stops on and heavy spars secure. We were rolling in the trough of a steep chop, drifting slowly.

“We’ll have to try to make Carver’s.” The skipper braced himself on the shrouds and looked to leeward. “Let’s get that engine started.”

Chug, chug, chug—pffft. The motor sputtered, balked, and finally died for good. A loose dipstick, we found out later, had produced an oil bath that had shorted out the sparkplugs.

“Dammit to hell!”

“Well, I suppose we can drift this way until daybreak and then tuck in a reef. Plenty of sea room.”

“That’s what you think.” The skipper had been taking some rough bearings over the top of the binnacle. “The way I make it, we’ll be in trouble within the hour. The wind’s shifted, and we’ve got all that mess off Vinalhaven to leeward.”

We couldn’t sail to Carver’s, five miles to windward, even if we could reef. The cutter’s bluff bows precluded any beat into steep chop such as we had here; we would make no headway. But we had to make some move soon, before we were carried leeward into ledge-strewn waters.

The skipper made his decision. “We certainly can’t anchor out here,” he said, “and we can’t get to windward, that’s for sure. We’ll have to run for Isle au Haut. Put her around, and let’s get that jib set.”

Ten miles away, beyond the string of ledges, Isle au Haul’s high hill loomed up in the moonlight. We could make it there, clawing our way around the ledges under jib. We had a mile of leeway left to do it. A long downwind run, a long way back, but our only answer. We rolled down the jib, swung off to leeward, and started around.

At five thirty that morning, when we had safely made our lee, the dawn greeted us off Saddleback light. When we finally anchored in the harbor at 6 A.M., the rumble of the chain running through the hawsehole was music to our ears.

“What a night!” said Steve. “Once a year is enough.”

With this we agreed, and rolled thankfully into the blankets.

WE CAME to about noon and went blinking on deck to find a lovely northwest day. On one side of our anchorage rose a wooded island, with a clearing where sheep grazed. On the other side was the little town, with the diminutive white steeple of the parish church rising against the dark spruces, and beyond, the light purple mountain that had caused Champlain to name it, so aptly, High Island.

“Still blowing out in the bay,” said the skipper. “Anyone want to go out?”

“Sure,” said Steve. “Look at those boiling whitecaps beyond the lighthouse. I’d love to go, particularly after last night’s moonlight sail.”

“For God’s sake, let’s eat and talk about it later,” I begged. That wine dinner in Wiscasset was many hours behind us.

A whole pound of bacon, a dozen eggs scrambled, toast, jam, and a bucket of hot coffee put a new complexion on the day. We were in full agreement to stay put, however, and decided to row ashore and explore the town. We landed at the wharf next to the tiny general store.

“You boys had a bit of breeze,” said the storekeeper as he assembled the tobacco, bread, and other small purchases we needed. “The wind’s kept most of us in.”

“You show some sense,” said the skipper.

Talk naturally turned to the weather. We heard of the great freeze of thirty-four, when the entire bay had frozen over. That had been a tough winter, and groceries and supplies for the community had been hauled over the ice from Stonington, by a Model T Ford. On one occasion, the Model T Ford met the icebreaker coming the other way!

“Bet you’ve never seen anything like this,” said the storekeeper, pointing outside. “It’s feeding time!”

Outside, on the village street, a number of deer were bounding about and awaiting such food as the village would give them. The greater part of this island has been deeded to Acadia National Park, and deer shooting is forbidden. As a result, the deer are tame, and at this time of year they come down from the hills to forage, frisking about the village street.

We walked up to the little graveyard, on a small knoll overlooking Kimball Island. The granite markers have the usual “Lost at Sea” on a great many graves.

“What’s that old abandoned place on the shore?” said Steve, pointing to a sagging barnlike building, half on land, half on pilings. It had the appearance of a small fish cannery that had seen better days.

“Looks as if it’s about to fall in,” said the skipper. “But perhaps it’ll hold us. Let’s see.”

A door stood half open, and we went in. On the first floor were the remains of an old general store that had been vacant, from the looks of it, for many years. The counters were there, the old iron safe, the scales, and the rubbish of merchandising of an earlier and simpler age. In the loft above, reached by wide stairs, were three moldy horse-drawn carriages, a number of old humpbacked steamer trunks containing God knows what, and some broken sea chests.

A platform at one end indicated that in bygone years this room had been used as a gathering place or entertainment hall for the village. We recalled the description from Wasson’s Sailing Days on the Penobscot of the “big times” that took place at the Thoroughfare, when a “mull” of fog brought the mackerel schooners in. That was in this same hall, over sixty years ago. Suddenly the room seemed full of fishermen and island girls dancing to the tune of the fiddler up on the platform, and the thumping of sea boots, and laughter.

“Let’s get out of here,” said the skipper. “This place makes me uncomfortable. I never did like pawing over the moldy remnants of the past.”

Dusk and cold were coming on as we untied the dinghy and rowed out to the cutter. The wind was whistling through the rigging, and we stoked the dying embers of the cabin stove and settled down with a drink.

“Damn funny the way these islands hang on to the past,” said Steve. “You can see just the way it was, with a little imagination. Remember that old inn? Used to stand near the church in the Thoroughfare. Must be torn down now.”

“I remember it,” I said. “A crumbling old place with long ells, and utterly abandoned. The beds were still made, table set, clothing on hooks, but no dust, no moths, and little damage. Nobody had been in it for years.”

The skipper grunted. “You can have your ghosts. Let’s get that steak on the fire and the vegetables cooking. Tomorrow’s a long day.”

The next morning the skipper’s alarm went off at six thirty. “All right, up and at ‘em !” he called. Sunday morning in November on the Maine coast, temperature 38 degrees.

There were groans, but the skipper was right, of course. We had a thirty-mile beat back to Camden against a strong wind, and then a long drive home. Fortunately, we had managed to correct our engine difficulties, so, after tying in a double reef, we powered out the Thoroughfare and made an offing before shutting off the engine. By seven o’clock we were out in the windswept bay again.

Although it was cold, it was much more comfortable than the previous day. For one thing, we were under easy sail, not carrying the full works. Besides, it wasn’t blowing anywhere near as hard. By noon we had tacked up to Goose Rock light, where we eased out sheets for a sheltered run through Fox Island Thoroughfare. So we entered that clear fall afternoon with the enamel colors and the diamond brilliance of the Maine coast at their best. As the afternoon wore on and we tacked up the white-flecked bay, the great purple Camden Hills drew closer. By five o’clock the sun was sinking, and it grew colder.

Tacking up inside the lighthouse, we rounded up into the wind off the shipyard and took in sail. As we chugged into the little harbor, one of the loveliest on the Maine coast, from a dark cloud that had come out of nowhere it began to snow, first a few flakes, and then harder and harder.

“Here it comes,” called the skipper. “We have our moments, but this is the best timing yet.”

“Old Man Winter has finally arrived,” said Steve, scraping some snow off the cabin top.

And so he had, and once again another sailing year was over.