Third day (part one): Exploring Star Island

The Isles of Shoals are a beautiful place.  Really, this is a severe understatement.  Before bed last night we were treated to this sunset, soon accompanied by the evening star.

By the time the boys were asleep, the Milky Way was plainly visible and an ocean of stars one can never see in a town like Salem, unless there is a serious power outage on an unusually clear night. There were shooting stars, presumably part of the annual Leonid Brezhnev meteor showers.   

When I was last in Isles of Shoals, more than twenty years ago, the impression I received was that it was off-limits to univited visitors. We explored White Island and Lunging by inflatable raft but did not set foot on shore. It remains true that most of the islands are private property, and that the prospect of people on cruising boats traipsing around on them is about as welcome to the owners as the idea of tourists in the back yard would be to you and me.  

But times have changed. Star Island, in particular, is now a hive of activity, and well worth a trip ashore. Tour boats from Rye and Portsmouth (Star, Lunging and White Islands are in New Hampshire, technically in Rye; while Appledore, Cedar, Malaga, Smuttynose, and Duck Islands are in Maine) dock several times a day. Anyone who is interested can book a "personal retreat" in Star Island's magnificent Oceanic Hotel.  As unexpected visitors, we were welcomed at a float attached to the main pier by a friendly lifeguard who helped us to tie up our dinghy.  At the top of the gangway is a map of the island, and a donations bin (the donations bin suggests a donation $10 per person; I am embarrassed to say that  had left my wallet on Bufflehead and thus gave nothing).  Despite my own failure in this regard, I do strongly recommend a donation; if for no other reason, than that if you use the Oceanic Hotel's toilets (which I strongly recommend) you should at least help pay for their upkeep.  If you do use the Oceanic toilets (they are in the basement, accessible from the right hand side of the lobby via stairs), you might notice that there are also showers adjoining.  I did not ask about using these, but I did notice that even the Oceanic's paying guests are only supposed to shower every other day.  Do not presume.

Also in the lobby is a remarkable little bookstore (selling mostly titles relating to the islands or to spiritual matters—the isaland is run by the Unitarian Universalist association), a fun gift/craft shop, and a snack bar.  The lobby itself, as well as the grand front deck of the hotel is a throwback to another era of vacationing, and is sight to behold in itself.  There can be few such sights left anywhere in New England.

Just to left of the hotel is a little graveyard, honoring members of the Caswell family, most whom died before 1880 or so.  Here can be found some of the best examples I have seen of Victorian marble headstones, still legible after all these years.

Beyond that, on a low rise, is a gazebo called "the summer house," with a fine view (pictured above) of the White Island Lighthouse and its causeway.

If you continue around behind the hotel, there is a sort of industrial looking zone where we assume a lot of the maintenance work of the island and its buildings takes place. There are also some sheds where boat building, mainly of dorys, is being done. Travelling up the hill behind the hotel, you come to a little village of stone structures.  One of these is a chapel, where candlelit services are held nightly.  Another is a small museum dedicated to Island history, and its principal bard and gardener, Celia Thaxter,

It is not clear exactly how old these buildings are.  In style they match the chapel, which was built in 1800, or so.

The plaque is deliberately vague about why the islanders burned the the previous building to the ground.

Beyond the little square of stone buildings, out towards the Atlantic shore of the island, are a series of monuments. The famous is a monument to Captain John Smith, who stopped here and spoke highly of the islands, attempting to the name them after himself.  The name did not stick.  There are numerous cairns of uncertain provenance, which are not dedicated to Smith.  The most visible monument, below, is also not dedicated to Smith.  

This monument, which is not visible from any distance, is:

Many of the sponsored activities on Star island revolve around the arts.  The Art Barn is located between two cistern-pools.

Circling back around the island towards the wharf, one begins to walk by Gosport Harbor again.  There is a short stretch of industrial looking stuff again—construction debris and old screen doors—before one comes to a building housing a small marine laboratory and exhibition space.  Here one can see baby lobsters and touch starfish, and examine bones.  Right next to this building is a playground, which is useful for expending any excess energy your children may have retained even after walking around the island.

We are told that Smuttynose also has a nice walking trail.  We didn't get to check it out on this visit.  At certain times of year, especially early in the summer, it is worth noting that human owners and seabirds may have different ideas about whether a given island is open to visitors.

Second Day: Annisquam, MA to Gosport Harbor, Isles of Shoals

Between Cape Ann, MA and Cape Elizabeth, ME is a long stretch of water called the Bigelow Bight. A "bight" is an indentation in the coast that is so shallow that, with the proper wind direction, it can be entered and exited without having to tack.  In fact, it is barely an indentation at all.  The shoreline is an extraordinarily long stretch of beach, stretching from Wingaersheek (at the mouth of the Annisquam) to Old Orchard (just inside of Cape Elizabeth).  The beaches are pierced by a few rocky outcroppings, but mainly by the mouths of rivers.  The combination of beach and river is a double-edged one for boaters.  Every river mouth is a harbor, but those harbors are often difficult to enter, subject to strong currents, and resistant to accurate charting of things like depth.  Once inside the river mouth, ones options for accommodation may be limited or complex.  Marinas often predominate; moorings may be unavailable; places to anchor may be severely limited.

Some might say that being able to poke up rivers is the whole point of owning a shoal draft boat.  We would not disagree.  But if you aren't sure of your own ability to read tide and currents, or you don't want to deal with drawbridges or marinas, one stop on the passage east to the more spectacular parts of the Maine coast that does not require crossing a bar or navigating a river mouth, is Gosport Harbor, at the Isles of Shoals, which is where we are this afternoon.

Three of the six and a half islands that make up this little archipelago are joined together by two breakwaters. One connects Star Island to Cedar, and the other connects Cedar to the poetically named Smuttynose.  The result is a harbor of extraordinary stillness in a environment that otherwise, looks, sounds, and smells thoroughly offshore.

The trip from Annisquam, on which we averaged five and a half knots over the bottom, is approximately 19 nautical miles.  We covered it in slightly more than three hours, under power, with a headwind, and a very calm sea.  We are travelling with children, something the original writers' of the Guide do not much acknowledge as a possibility.  To a ten year old and a twelve year old boy, an multi-hour offshore passage on beautiful day holds about as much appeal as long stint in a waiting room without any good magazines.  Had we wished to get all the way to midcoast maine today, we could easily have done so.  We would have just had to get up earlier and rest content with arriving in Casco Bay near sundown. The boys would have been intolerant of this plan.  I did it myself at their age, and I remember it as one of the longest (if also most memorable) days of my life.  

I also remember being enthralled by the Isles of Shoals as we passed through them.  Rocky, with scrubby vegetation, they have a bizarre mixture of buildings on them: a lighthouse on White Island, at the southernmost extreme, a large and somewhat ramshackle summer hotel, which is now the property of the Unitarian Universalist Association on Star Island, A large house on the tiny Lunging Island, a weathered obelisk commemorating Johns Smith's visit here, a submarine watchtower on Appledore island, and a famous garden.  And then they were gone.  Staying here, on a weekday afternoon, is not technically a solitary affair.  But it feels high lonesome, and quiet in the best sense.  

Bufflehead, as viewed from above and behind the Star Isl.-Cedar Isl. Breakwater.

The Breakwater itself, on a falling tide.  This mooring is the one furthest inside.  "If you can read this, you are aground."  Actually the water is quite deep here, even at low tide.  The six foot spot on the chart is somewhere off to starboard.

To Boldly Go Where No Cruising Boat Has Gone Before, Much.

A long time ago, when this writer was in his late teens and his co-conspirator was in his early thirties, we were anchored in Gosport Harbor, in the midst of delivering Bufflehead, our family's Morgan 30, back to Marblehead, MA.  We went way way up inside the harbor, almost to the breakwater between Cedar Island and Smuttynose, taking a mooring or dropping a hook (I don't remember which) in what looks on the chart like a six foot spot.  Most cruising sailboats have a draft of five feet or more, and most skippers are (quite rightly) cautious about testing the limits of that.  Any water that is colored blue on a detailed chart is typically viewed as not navigable.  So there we were, in a sweet little spot that looked like it should be off limits to a boat our size.  People on other boats were looking at us enviously, questioningly, as if to say "could we go there?"  We thought of posting a sign on our transom: "If you can read this, you're aground."

And in fact, over the course of more than 45 years of cruising on Bufflehead, this is a scenario that has played out over and over. We go to a harbor, or saltwater creek, or cove, and then go to the part where no one else is, where everyone else assumes they can't go.  The bible of New England cruising is Duncan and Ware's Cruising Guide to the New England Coast.  Now in its Twelfth Edition, it's has gone from it's original two authors, to five.  It doesn't contain any overt assumptions about draft, but it seems to assume a bare minimum of four feet.  The preface also admits that the authors don't share everything they know.  Some secret getaways are just too valuable.

But we flatter ourselves to think we are interesting guys and that, when it comes to cruising, we are pretty good at it, in ways that maybe Duncan and Ware were not interested in.  So we have embarked on this project to get some of our practices, traditions and itineraries written down, so that other people can profit by them, or at least get a chuckle.