Debi and Jack sailing on SV Iroquois

Vessel Name: Iroquois
Vessel Make/Model: Ohlson38
Crew: Jack Markin, Debi Dennis
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21 July 2019 | Belfast Maine
12 July 2019 | Pulpit Harbor, North Haven, Maine
27 July 2018 | Lincolnville Maine
05 July 2018 | Boothbay Harbor Maine
17 June 2018 | Falmouth Foreside, Maine
14 June 2018 | Portland Maine
12 June 2018 | Portsmouth New Hampshire
10 June 2018 | Jamestown CT
07 June 2018 | New Haven CT
30 May 2018 | Port Washington New York
27 May 2018 | Brooklyn New York
25 May 2018 | Atlantic City, New Jersey
24 May 2018 | Cape May NJ
23 May 2018 | Worton Creek
21 May 2018 | Annapolis Maryland
16 May 2018 | Solomons Island Maryland
13 May 2018 | Deltaville Virginia
11 May 2018 | Cape Charles Virginia
09 May 2018 | Hampton Virginia
06 May 2018 | Hampton Virginia
Recent Blog Posts
21 July 2019 | Belfast Maine

Belfast Maine

After Pulpit Harbor we stopped at Warren Island state park for a night before checking into Belfast. Nate came by in his little boat and took us up river which was way cool. We passed some houseboats, one of which was covered in plants. He even had peas growing up the stanchions  and lifelines.

12 July 2019 | Pulpit Harbor, North Haven, Maine

Pulpit Harbor

Iroquois is afloat again! We launched Wednesday in Rockport where we stayed all day readying and organizing. We had a nice get together and dinner in Camden with our Rockport friends then yesterday we did a shakedown sail to Pulpit Bay on North Haven. There was a light wind, 8-15 kts, so we put up the [...]

27 July 2018 | Lincolnville Maine

2018 The End

Iroquois is getting the full spa treatment. Every locker, cubby, lazarette, bilge emptied and cleaned. Varnish in and out. Metal cleaned. Winches serviced. Sails washed and repaired. The engine is serviced and winterized. Even the fuel is polished! The boat is going to enjoy a well-deserved rest in a [...]

05 July 2018 | Boothbay Harbor Maine

Boothbay Harbor

Our apologies for the lack of recent posts. We hung around Portland and Handy Boat -- visiting with family and friends and trying to adjust to a more land-based existence. Lily and Anthony came up for a Saturday dinner (oysters and lobster) aboard then sailed to our mooring at Handy Boat. The next weekend Zach and Maura came and we did the same thing. It was a pleasure to have Zach aboard for the first time. Thank you Maura! Hopefully it was enough fun they will want to come again. This past weekend the Garbers came and we did some sailing around Casco Bay. Lily was a good helmsman. She and Hubbard shared the duties. There wasn't much wind, but also no accidents. We had some great food in Portland, including two excellent meals at Fore Street, which did not disappoint. In between all the family visits we caught up with Stephanie and Brian on Detour. We met them on the OCC Norway Rally in 2016. They crossed over the next winter and spent last summer in Maine. They are just getting ready to take off on their next adventure as we wrap ours up. Hopefully they will have an excellent trip wherever the winds blow them. Handy Boat was very welcoming to us. It was fun to come back and see everyone who took such good care of us before our first Atlantic crossing. We also took in a concert by the  Frank Vignola Hot Jazz Trio, which was really good and a nice break in routine. Yesterday we motor sailed and motored to Boothbay Harbor. We will stay here a few days and visit with John and Ann who live here. We met in the Bahamas when Ann greeted us with a freshly baked loaf of bread. We were hungry and tired after a six day passage from St Thomas and her bread is amazing. It's hard to repay something like that. Anyway, this is our last hurrah for the season. Saturday we'll stop in Rockland. Sunday we move to Rockport and prepare to get hauled out Monday morning. Then we'll start work on the long list of deferred maintenance and repairs. We plan to be home in Wisconsin by August.

17 June 2018 | Falmouth Foreside, Maine

The Atlantic Circle is Complete

We have completed the Atlantic circle. Today we sailed from Portland to Handy Boat in Falmouth Foreside with Lily and Anthony. Almost exactly three years ago we left here on a transatlantic adventure. It's hard to imagine and even to remember all the places we've seen and all the people we've met. We [...]

14 June 2018 | Portland Maine

BacK in Maine

Jack woke me at 4:20 this morning, claiming that it was light, and we left Portsmouth harbor a little while after along with a fishing boat. It started as a slow day of dodging lobster pots. Every time I get annoyed by them I try to think about how delicious lobster is. There are so many of them, either there are a lot of lobsters or there will soon be none. Somewhere between Portsmouth and Portland we heard a sound we haven't heard for a very long time, it was the call of a loon which brought smiles to our faces. The wind did pick up and it turned into a nice sail all the way to Portland Maine. This is only the second place we've been in four years that we have actually been to before. We also stopped twice in Bergen Norway.  Anyway, we have certainly seen a lot of new places and the end of the journey is a little sad. Luckily Jack bought an oyster knife and we are docked near the fish market so we can treat ourselves and enjoy the moment.

Start of Caledonian Canal

04 August 2015
We left Oban on Sunday midday at low tide hoping to catch the current through Corran Narrows without incident. We had a nice sail up the Firth of Lorn then up Loch Linnhe. We sailed through the first narrow, between Lynn of Lorn and Loch Linnhe where we saw "Bloodhound" under sail. Bloodhound is the 1934 racing yahl built for Prince Philip (husband of the Queen). Bloodhound is an craft of sleek beauty and speed, cutter rigged and probably crewed by 10-20 in its racing hay day. Now she is chartered but who knows what exclusive few. Her crew is made up of former sailors of the royal yacht Britannia. The previous day we met a man about our age who was a former Britannia crew waiting to be picked up by Bloodhound for his holiday sailing it. During the 20 minutes we talked to him he related various stories about taking (on the Britannia) the royals for picnics on various islands in the firth (an engineer would go ahead and set everything up for their romp); as well as his experience when the queen passed him on shore leave after a few beers with the boys (him not the queen). He also told us about being at Hong Kong for the handover.

We lost the wind and began to motor just before the Corran Narrows--pretty good timing--the tidal current was with us and we zipped through at 8.4 knots (about 4.5 faster than we would have under power). There were lots of whirlpools and eddies on the other side of the narrows, really interesting. We anchored across the bay from the entrance to the Caledonian Canal at Corpach. There was an apparently abandoned boat on a mooring there with a black crow on the mast and on each spreader, three total. It was sort of creepy and maybe an omen of bad things to come. The tidal currents were strong and the wind was blowing against the outgoing tide so our boat kept swinging around in all directions. We tried to sleep, but it was difficult--at one point there was a strange bump and sound which caused me to scream out "Jack!" In retrospect I think that may have been when the rode got caught under the keel. Anyway, when I woke and checked the depth around 2 am it was only 3 meters so we thought we should pull in some rode to get us further from shore, but when Jack went forward to do it he couldn't because it was going straight back under the boat and taut. We got the searchlight and could see it going off on the port side about midships. Actually there were two lines because we had also put on a snubber. Anyway we could reach them with the boathook but couldn't move them forward. We tried for a while to untangle things then decided to get out of the rain and think it over. The tide would rise and maybe that would solve it. So we went back to bed and both of us lay there mulling it over. After a while Jack had an idea that we could let go one end of one of the lines and pull it through so we went up to try. It was luckily slack water and we were just over the chain, right above the anchor. We undid the snubber first and were able to pull it out from under the boat. Then figured out that we didn't really have to completely undo the rode but could just get enough slack in it to pull it forward. It wasn't as easy as it sounds but we did it and went back to sleep for a couple of hours. We both congratulated ourselves on the way we went about solving the problem--when it was too hard to pull we stopped instead of creating more trouble and we used our heads instead of hands.

In the morning we radioed the canal keeper and asked for instructions. He said there was a boat coming out and once it cleared we should enter prepared for a port tie. Jack put out all the bumpers we had and we used our old jib sheets for lines because we didn't think our docklines were long enough. This was our first experience with locks but it wasn't as difficult as we thought it would be. The lockkeeper took the bow line wrapped it round a hook and handed it back then did the same with the stern line. We each held one line and fended off the wall with our feet while the water rose. When we got to the top we tied off and went into the office. There we paid and got a skippers guide to the canal which includes a map of all the bridges locks and pontoons. They told us we would have to stay in the Corpach Basin for a few hours because the next set of bridges and locks wouldn't be able to let us through until 2 or 3. So we took showers, walked to the grocery and hung out. When the lockkeeper came by he told us to go up to the first bridge then tie up at the pontoon on the starboard side but be ready for a port side tie up in the locks. We motored up the canal followed by a boat we had seen in Oban. Both of us tied up at the pontoon. They were French and wore the striped shirts and berets. While we were waiting another guy, Don, who we had met in Oban came by with his crew member. He was the one who had told us to leave at low water and where to anchor overnight. They had left a little early and had made it through the first lock the night before. Ahead of us was a railroad bridge, then a road bridge, then a series of nine locks called Neptune's Staircase. Don said first they would open the railway bridge because there were no trains, then they would stop traffic and open the road bridge. We saw the outcoming boats waiting behind the road bridge but they didn't open either of them for quite a while. Then we saw why when a coal-fired steam engined train came by. I could see a dining car like in the old movies and a few other cars behind it. It was very picturesque. After it passed they opened the swing bridges, first the railway, then the road and the three boats in the locks came out. When the last was by us we went forward into the lock. The lockkeeper took the stern line and Don was there to take the bow line. Once we got to the top of the first lock I got out to walk the lines and Jack stayed aboard. Don and his crew insisted on taking one of the lines so I had an easy job of it. There were throngs of tourists watching us and the French boat, who went on the starboard side (and were appropriately frenetic). Everyone wanted to know where we were from and how was the crossing etc. etc. We got a little tired of repeating the same things. Partway up another guy we had met in Oban came by. He had been berthed next to us in Oban, was from Ireland and on his way home from cruising the Baltic. He gave us lots of helpful information, including that he had planned on two years there but ended up spending four. His plan is to go south then across to the Carribean, up the coast to the St Lawrence and in to the Great Lakes! Strange world we live in...Anyway he was in Banavie with his wife, cousin and cousin's wife. They had decided to leave their boat in Oban and rented a car. It felt really strange to me to be in this new unknown place yet run into so many people we felt we knew. After about an hour and a half we made it up all nine locks and took the last place on a pontoon. Luckily Don and his crew were there to help us get in, between two other boats because we are not nearly as good at controlling our boat by motor as all these people are. Hopefully we'll be able to get out without incident. We had been told there was a good pub and hotel here so went up for a pint and had some excellent smoked salmon as well. Today we walked up to the next town for yogurt and ice then walked back along the canal. We're waiting here for better weather. It's very cold, windy and rainy now. But once you pay your canal fee you can stay anywhere as long as you want for free, so we'll just sit tight, read and enjoy our nice heater until there's a break in the weather. We have a great view of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland.
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