September 29 | 8.6 Nautical Miles

After leaving my car at the Yarmouth town landing, my father in-law gave me a quick ride down to the yacht club. I got there a few minutes before launch service began so I relaxed on the front porch for a few minutes while the launch driver rowed out to the launch and brought it in to the dock.

Oof! Foggy!

I fired up the chart plotter, removed the boom and fastened it to the deck, and by 0950 I was underway. The fog was pretty thick, but at least it wasn't raining. I motored out of the anchorage and towards Cousins Island. The ever-present Wyman Station was almost lost in the fog on the way by.

I motored on past Little John Island, then turned up for the entrance to the Royal River. The fog continued to hang tough, with visiblity of about half a mile. The river was very still and beautiful in the fog. I saw only one small fishing boat on the whole way up the river. But I saw more than the usual amount of wildlife, too. I passed a small knot of cormorants along the way. And while Great Blue Herons are a common sight on the river, this day I saw no fewer than eight of them!

Of Course It Didn't Stay Dry

Soon enough I reached the Royal River Boat Yard to have my mast unstepped. When I arrived they were working on a boat already, so I put the boat on the fuel dock and took care of a few last minute things—disconnecting my mast wiring, stripping the halyards down, etc. As I worked on this, a light rain began to fall.

When the yard crew was ready, we unstepped the mast and placed it on deck. With a wave, I was on my way the last quarter of a mile to the Yarmouth Town Landing to wait for Steve Morse to show up with his truck. After a quick lunch, I got to work stripping the vhf and Windex from the masthead, removing the standing rigging, and lashing the mast on deck. All the while, an annoyingly persistant rain fell.

When I was about 15 minutes from finished, Steve showed up. I had a moment of panic, as I wasn't ready to go! I jogged up to talk to him saying "Hey, you're two hours early!" but it turned out he was picking up another boat ahead of me and was still planning to get me later in the afternoon.

Before long the rain eased up and then stopped altogether. I finished up a few things, neatening up and unloading a few miscellaneous items to my car, then relaxed in the cockpit with a book. There was a bit of cool breeze blowing, but the sun even peeked out a few times over the course of the next hour or so.

Then a sudden wind picked up, bringing with it a last gasp of rain—torrential rain. Fortunately it was a brief squall, and soon the skies began to clear for real.

A New Winter Home

Not long after that last shower, Steve's truck rolled back down the hill. Within a few moments we had the boat secured on the trailer, and we were on our way to Dasein's winter home in Whitefield at Tim Lackey's land-locked boat yard. By 1730 she was on her stands next to the large boat shop, ready for another long Maine winter. Sigh.

Until 2007!