16. Nautical Miles | Blue Hill Harbor

It looked like we might have favorable conditions for a sail up Blue Hill Bay, so we planned to head up to Blue Hill Harbor. But first we had a couple of things to take care of...

Showers and Shopping

We were up around 0700. After I crankily staggered about the boat making coffee, we headed ashore to try out those nice new shower facilities. Nice? Wow! Freshly painted white beadboard paneling, wood trim, tile floors, and even nice teak duckboard mats outside each shower stall.

After cleaning up, we walked over to the Wooden Boat store to browse around. We purchased a coloring book for Gavin, and a coffee mug for me. I wasn't really planning to get anything at all, but the mug was just right. I'm quite particular about my coffee mugs--it needs to be heavy, correctly shaped, and sized for no more than 8 ounces. And the one with the nice Wooden Boat School logo was perfect, and only $5.95 to boot. How could I resist?

We headed back to the boat and got the boat ready for departure. The forecast was for westerly winds becoming southwest at 15 to 20 knots, so I tucked in a reef and at 0945 I dropped the mooring.

Fifteen to Twenty?

We sailed out past Babson Island, and had a lovely reach around Hog Island at the eastern end of Eggemoggin Reach in about 10 knots of wind. Soon we were wing-and-wing sailing past Naskeage Point and on toward Green Island at the base of Blue HIll Bay. The wind was still rather light, and fortunately we had fair current. We sailed on at 3 or so knots, and finally gybed around for the long broad-to-beam reach up Blue Hill Bay.

The wind continued light, but we were making around 3.5 knots and only had about 10 miles left to go, so I decided not to bother shaking out the reef, thinking that perhaps the wind would build as the day wore on.

It never did. At least, not until we were in Blue Hill Harbor. But we had a nice sail up the bay at speeds between 2.5 and 5.5 knots. Along the way we listened to a somewhat disturbing radio exchange between the Coast Guard and a boat that had an engine fire raging.

Kollegewidg-what?

As we neared Blue Hill Harbor, we were amused to listen to transient yachts butcher the name of the local yacht club on the VHF. Not that we were 100% sure how to pronounce Kollegewidgwok Yacht Club, mind you, but some of the attempts were very poor.

Soon, we dropped the main and motored into the outer harbor. We hailed KYC (yes, that's what the locals use, rather than Kollegewidgwok Yacht Club) on the VHF and procured a mooring for the night. The mooring they provided us was awfully close to another boat, but once we settled back on it, it seemed OK.

Once we were settled on the mooring, NOAA's 20 knots finally arrived and we were glad to be in the harbor. Heather and Gavin went ashore to the yacht club to explore for a bit before returning for nap time. The afternoon evaporated quickly, with Gavin sleeping and Heather working on the laptop, while I devoured another book.

After dinner, Gavin and I went for a long dinghy ride to explore the harbor and investigate whether there might be room to anchor in the inner harbor. We decided that there probably was, but ultimately we were too lazy to move the boat!