Maryland to Maine: A Nautical Journey

Growing up around boats you inevitably gain some knowledge of the nautical world. During the last week of June, I learned more nautical terms and concepts to equal what I had learned over the past twenty years of sailing with my dad. My dad, step mom, Sharon, and older brother, Elliott and I got tired of sailing around the Chesapeake Bay, where our 40 foot Island Packet, Dream Catcher, has been residing for the last three years. We all longed for our native New England waters, especially my dad. So, we left.

The Chesapeake Bay was sunny and windy the Friday morning we departed for Maine. But, just after leaving the slip our engine started acting funny. Exchanging concerned glances with each other, my dad, irritated that his voyage was already behind schedule, went to check the engine. Before we left, he had someone check the engine, just to make sure everything was working properly. Well, they had checked it and everything was fine. But, they had forgotten to turn the diesel valve to “open”. This left us about ten feet out of our slip tied onto another set of pilings while my dad figured out the problem and fixed it. All the while Sharon’s parents stood on the dock concerned, watching us all yelling to each other and rolling our eyes. I thought that this was our pothole. After this everything would go smoothly; and for the most part I was right. We first made our way up the bay to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal which delivered us to the Delaware Bay. After our late afternoon sail down the Delaware we were out in the Atlantic Ocean by nightfall. On our second day aboard, land had vanished.

So, had our Autopilot! Yes, our autopilot had conveniently stopped working when we reached the open ocean. It was working fine when were surrounded by land. But, when it really mattered it decided to test our sailing abilities. Between seeing ocean (and only ocean) and realizing that our night shifts were going to be twice as challenging without the autopilot, I was getting nervous. Five hundred nautical miles to go. It seemed like the sea gods wanted to see what we were really made of.

Night fell. This was what I had been the most nervous about. I had never sailed at night, and memories of visiting the beach in the darkness still hold an eerie memory for me. The sun sank into the ocean, and soon all was dark. Sitting next to my dad the first night, I found myself more excited than I had been since we left Maryland. Massive ships appeared out of nowhere. The stars were out. Occasionally, the lights of New Jersey or New York illuminated of the horizon.

Not being able to see land may not sound like a big deal, but when you’ve spent your childhood summers sailing from harbor to harbor and soundly sleeping with your boat secured to an anchor, mooring or dock, the thought of not seeing land can tie a knot in your stomach. During our first day with no sight of land I was okay. Between sleeping off Bonine and losing a little over the transom, I began to feel at ease with the sea. I felt like I was in a snow globe when I looked around. All I could see was water and sky. Oddly enough, that was strangely comforting. I was completely disconnected from my world. My boyfriend, college friends, my job, everything was left on land. I was totally alone on a sailboat with my family 50 miles from terra firma. I’m twenty years old. And this was, in a way, another challenge we all decided to take on as a family.

Experiencing sailing far from shore, not seeing land for days, sailing at night and hand steering the entire trip, I really felt like a true sailor. I felt like this was why boats were made, not to go from marina to marina but to explore! I felt more accomplished. We were using our boat for a purpose other than just pleasure, even though the trip was turning out to be quite pleasurable. We were really traveling by boat – to Maine! And that is very cool.

The next couple of days were sort of timeless. The night shifts were taking their toll on us, leaving our bodies tired and a little sore. All we wanted to do was sleep, but even that took muscles sometimes if you didn’t want to fall out your bunk, even with lee clothes.

As alone as we felt in the big blue, we were lucky enough to have some visitors. Two days in row bottle-nosed dolphins played alongside our boat. On the fourth day, after transiting the Cape Cod Canal, we found we had extra time in our schedule. So, we visited Provincetown for the night and had an al fresco restaurant dinner downtown. But, we left early the next morning knowing that in 24 hours we’d make landfall at the Sheepscott River, just south of Boothbay. Within a few hours of casting off we found ourselves among three whale watching boats and about eight whales! They were phenomenal. While we were watching for the next blow hole to spout, Sharon yelped, “Look, look, look!” pointing to a very large dorsal fin ten feet from our boat, moving ever so slowly through the water from stern to bow. “A shark!” she informed us. It was very, very large. I kept my toes in the cockpit…

We had one more overnight to go, and although I had developed a love for the sea at night, one thing I did not develop a love for was the foul weather gear that accompanied night shifts. My dad’s 1986 pair of rain pants and rain jacket drowned me, making me feel like an overgrown banana. In spite the attire, I did my shift then slept four hours before my dad tapped my unwashed hair to wake me up at five. Like the rest of the days, it was clear and crisp that morning. We had really lucked out in the weather department. The nights were cold (but that darn foul weather gear kept me warm) but we never even had a rain shower. I slept after that shift for another hour when I was awakened again just outside the Sheepscott. We made it to Maine! Spruce trees, mist and rocks totally surrounded us. I felt like in was in a picture.

Robinhood Marina lay before us in all its glory. We had just sailed from the Chesapeake to Maine and we all felt elated. Needless to say, the sea had taught each of us something new. It taught me that in our crazy little lives when we feel like there’s no place you can go to be completely alone…. we’re usually right. But if you get the chance to be on the ocean very far from land, well, it’s just you and the sea. You are humbled. And that’s a lot better than being alone.