October 20 – October 24:  DiMillos

We arrived back in Portland on Monday, October 20.  It was great to be back on board and sleeping in our own bunk.   A Nor’easter was predicted to blow in Wednesday so we picked up a slip for the week at DiMillos where we had a slip while living aboard in Portland!   We spent the week preparing for our departure south on Saturday.   We got a nice surprise visit by my dad and his friend Chuck who were returning to New Jersey from a bird hunting trip up in the North woods of Maine.  We had a nice lunch with them before they hit the road again and Tim and I finished up the things on our “to do“ list before leaving early in the morning to start South.

October 25:  Stowaways, Wave Riders, Spouts:  Portland to Brace Harbor, Cape Ann

We departed Portland around 7:30 A.M. headed for Brace Harbor, on Cape Ann in Massachusetts.   We motor sailed almost the entire way as the winds were basically WSW.  We did cut the engine and sailed a little because a bearing went bad in our alternator off of Cape Porpoise.   Luckily, we had a spare on board.   Tim, my very handy man, installed the new alternator while I got to do a little sailing albeit a little off our course as I had to bear off a little to fill the sails.

At some point while I was sailing along and Tim was fixing the engine a little bird landed on deck and stowed away until we arrived at Cape Ann.  He hopped around on deck, and flew around the dodger but he spent most of the time tucked in out of the wind between the blocks at the base of the mast.

Tim took over the wheel while I made lunch and called me up from the galley when he saw a whale spouting in the distance.  Would have been great to see the whale but it was still very cool to see one spouting!

Later in the afternoon we experienced our best wildlife encounter in all our years of sailing.   Some large porpoises were very close to our boat.  They surfed our bow wave and our wake.  They followed closely behind us for a while and one or two provided us with a spectacular aerial display as they jumped vertically out of the water.   FANTASTIC!!!

We arrived in Brace Harbor and anchored after dark.   Tim took Shamus to shore while I finished preparing dinner. I had made a meatloaf along the way and hoped it would be done baking by the time we arrived but was having a little trouble with the oven.  The temp wouldn’t rise above 225 degrees and the burner blew out frequently.   Still I managed to get the dam thing baked and we ended up having a nice meal after a long day on the water.

Brace Harbor is not a very pretty anchorage and there were rollers at night during the high tide.  It does have a small beach were we could walk Shamus.  We decided we would return here only if we needed too.

The rudder position censor and autopilot are being a little finicky.   We could still use it but had to monitor it closely which is not really a problem for us as we always have someone at the helm while the boat is under way.

So we had a couple small glitches with the boat along the way but some fabulous encounters with mother nature!  Thank goodness I have Tim.  I would have been calling Sea Tow when the alternator blew and I would have missed seeing the whale spouting and the dolphins since I was sleeping when they arrived on our bow wave!   Once we get the oven issue fixed I guess I owe him a few tasty treats!

October 26:  Plymouth, Massachusetts

We motor sailed in big seas to Plymouth, MA on Sunday, October 26.  We left Brace Harbor early in the morning and arrived in Plymouth in time to tune into the Patriots game around the start of the second quarter.  Plymouth is definitely a tourist town – serving mostly tourists arriving by car.  The Harbormaster does have about 3 moorings for rent just off the end of the breakwater as you enter Plymouth Harbor.   They charge $35 a night for the mooring and you must pay the mooring fee via check or money order.  No cash or credit cards accepted.   There are no showers or bathrooms available for cruisers included with the mooring fee.   The moorings are close to Plymouth Plantation State Park.  The monument that encloses “Plymouth Rock” and the replica of the Mayflower can both be seen from the mooring.  There is also a small dinghy dock located next to the Mayflower.   During the day, the park has public restrooms but I am not sure they are open at night.

There are a couple small markets up the hill from dinghy dock next to the Mayflower where you can pick up some staples but there wasn’t a grocery store where you could really provision well within walking distance.   Every other building seemed to be a tavern so there is no shortage of beer on tap if you’re thirsty!

I have to say – in my opinion – that Plymouth Rock itself seemed a bit cheesy!  The “rock” is a rather small boulder surrounded by gothic pillars.  It is rather overdone considering  no one really knows if the arriving pilgrims actually stepped off the Mayflower directly onto the Plymouth Rock or not.   The story of them doing so didn’t come about until 120 years after they arrived!  Still it has become the symbolic stepping stone of the first settlers to come to the new world so I agree it does deserve attention – but is just such a wee little thing!

October 27:  Cataumet, Kingman Yacht Center

The next day we had a nice sail down to the Cape Cod Canal, motored through and picked up my dad’s mooring at Kingman’s Yacht Center in Cataumet, Massachusetts for the night.   It was pretty quiet there this time of year but during the height of summer it is quite busy.  

October 28:  Cuttyhunk – the Elizabeth Islands

This morning Tim was up bright and early. He checked out my oven and found the jet for the oven burner was almost completely clogged.  After cleaning it out my oven was back to working great and I will be getting back to continuing to learn about baking bread and making other tasty foods!

He also re-wired the connections for the rudder censor and the autopilot.   They worked perfectly today when we left Kingman and motored southwest across Buzzards Bay to Cuttyhunk.

We are currently anchored in the pond at Cuttyhunk.  All the moorings have been pulled for the season and the small businesses that are open during the height of summer are closed.   Given the number of logs marking moorings it is easy to tell that there are A LOT of moorings here in the pond and even more outside the channel.   I am sure there are rental cottages on shore but it is obvious this place is packed with boats during the summer season.  I am glad we are here now when it is quiet and peaceful so we can appreciate how pretty it is.  

From here we will continue on to Block Island, across Long Island Sound and down the East River as we continue south.  It will be really cool to sail past the Statue of Liberty.   I have flown around it in a small plane but I hope sailing around her will let us see her as she did to the to the thousands of immigrants she welcomed to our country, including Tim’s grandfather and family who entered through Ellis Island when they arrived in America from Scotland!

October 4 – October 6:  Mt. Snow to Stowe VT

We had made reservations to spend a couple days and nights in Stowe, Vermont where we wanted to check out the mountain biking trails.    We left New Jersey on Saturday, October 4 to get a head start on our drive to Stowe.  We didn’t want to lose a whole day of biking by driving the entire distance to Stowe from NJ in a single day. So we drove to Mt. Snow Vermont and spent the night in a cozy bed and breakfast before heading over to Stowe.  

On Sunday, Oct 5, on our way from Mt. Snow to Stowe we stopped at President Calvin Coolidge’s family homestead in Plymouth, Vermont where he was born and buried.   His homestead is located in an absolutely stunning part of Vermont.   While it was very cool to see President Coolidge’s homestead Tim had an ulterior motive for the visit.   He had been there before and knew the Plymouth Cheese Factory is also located there.   The Plymouth Cheese Factory was founded by John Coolidge, the President’s father, in 1890. The factory was operational until 1934 when it had to close due to a milk shortage that occurred during the Great Depression.  The factory was re-opened in 1960 by John Coolidge, the sole surviving child of President Calvin Coolidge. From 1960-1998 John Coolidge re-introduced Plymouth Cheese, and at the age of 92 sold the cheese factory to the State of Vermont.  The recipe for what became Plymouth Cheese arrived with the first European settlers to the New World. They are still using the same recipe and process that they developed back in 1890 and let me tell you it is some very tasty cheese!  Plymouth VT is a very worthwhile place to visit  - not only is it spectacularly beautiful but if  you like U.S. history you can learn some interesting things about President Coolidge while snacking on some equally famous and very yummy cheese!

After purchasing a suitable quantity of presidential cheese we continued north along rt. 100 to another beautiful place Tim spent time in; Rochester, VT.  We  stopped at a bike shop in Rochester for two reasons.  We needed some cool weather leggings for biking since we forgot to bring ours and also to see if we could find a good place to mountain bike on our way to Stowe.   We scored in that I found some bike pants and the bike shop owner directed us to some bike trails near Blueberry Lake in Warren, Vermont.  We were looking forward to getting on our bikes and exploring some new trails.  Shamus seemed to be equally excited about getting out of the truck to run along and explore with us.   The trails were a lot of fun - very flowy descents with good switch backs to climb back out.  Unfortunately, Tim had a fall and hurt is elbow and wrist. Bummer!   Nothing exciting, he simply fell over while stopped.  Dumbass! 

We arrived at the Ten Acre Lodge in Stowe, Vt. Sunday evening.  Our room was nice and very comfortable and they are obviously pet friendly!   Grabbed some dinner, hit the grocery store to buy food for breakfast and lunch and then tucked ourselves in for the night to make sure we were well rested to ride in the morning. 

Monday morning we visited the iRide Bike Shop as they are the place to go in Stowe for information about the area’s bike trails.   We were able to ride the Cady Hill Forest Trail system from their parking lot.  Stowe is definitely putting some work into building nice trails.  They had a decent trail map and the trails we rode were well marked making them easy to navigate.   Two trails, Florence and Snake were so new that the person providing us with trail information at iRide had to draw their location in on the trail map.  Both of the new trails had been machine built and were surprisingly well packed down in the short time since they were cut. Florence is a one-way very fast descent through the woods.  I had a huge smile on my face when I arrived at the bottom of the Florence trail! Tim did too but couldn’t ride as aggressively as he wanted due to the injury to his elbow and wrist.   “Snake” was a great climb with plenty of switchbacks.  We rode most of the Caddy Hill Forest Trails and ended our day doing another descent back down Florence!   Fun! Fun! Fun!

October 7 – October 13:  Burke, VT / Kingdom Trails

On Tuesday, October 7, we left Stowe.   We drove the short distance to Burlington, VT because I had never been there and was interested in seeing it.   We parked down on the waterfront of Lake Champlain and walked around town and did a little window shopping on Church Street.  We didn’t stay long as we wanted to get over to East Burke, VT – our favorite place for mountain biking and skiing.  It was good to be back at the Bike Barn and to have some time with our good friends Charles and Tabitha.

The trails were in great condition and over the week we were there we rode about 70 miles and our elevation gain was about 8000 feet (cumulative). 

The new Tiki Bar was a blast and Robert and Rachel’s Food Truck which is parked right next to the Tiki Bar served up some delicious food!

East Burke is one of Tim’s and my favorite places and we always love being there.   I already can’t wait to go back.  The only downside to our recent visit was it was the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend so the bike trails were unbelievably crowded on Saturday, Oct. 11.  So much so that Tim and I decided to hike on Sunday rather than ride.  

October 13 – October 20:  Camp weekend in Belgrade Lakes, Maine

Tim and I did one more ride at Kingdome Trails on Monday morning, October 13th before driving to the Reilley family camp in Belgrade Lakes, Maine.   We had a couple of quiet days puttering around the camp.  We went for a bike ride at Bond Brook in Augusta but had to cut the ride short after about 3 miles as I started blowing out the spokes on my rear tire. 

Tim’s four brothers were joining us for the weekend to close up the camp until next spring.  Mark, John, and Rob arrived late Friday afternoon and Doug arrived late that night.   We soon opened up our Tiki Bar. We ate some good food, got the camp buttoned up for the weekend, and had tons of fun with the brothers!