Portsmouth to The Basin
July 22, 2013
David, the Harbormaster at Badgers Island Marina East was good enough to sit with me and our charts to impart some local knowledge about the intricate and expansive Maine Coast. We have those little stickers “sign here” all over a dozen chart pages. We thought we would stop yesterday in Portland but one of those little stickers caught our imagination. It pointed to a feature called “The Basin” just off one of the rivers in the area. He mentioned that most crews would not notice the place since it is connected to the river by a thirty-yard wide channel through the rocks. Looking at it from the river, which had more lobster pots that we have ever seen, the channel looked way too narrow for us to try. The Harbormaster said it had enough water at low tide so we took a shot. If the water was not deep enough for us there would be no room to turn around. A few hundred yards in the channel takes a hard left turn. Being Sunday, the channel was populated with anchored boats enjoying the sun. Ok, says we, let’s take a chance. We motored ever so slowly dodging lobster floats and those other boats. The depth at the turn was only 6 inches under the keel. It was dead low water at the time.
AS we made the turn, the Basin opened into a few hundred-acre lake like body of water. Other boats already anchored there. What a place! Beautiful tree lined rocky shores offer such shelter from the sea forces, we are surprised it is not regulated. As we circled to anchor, a trawler crew nearby hailed us. Turns out they are the crew we met in Sandwich from our home town. It has been almost three weeks since we met them. They spent a week in this place.
Exactly a month ago, we sailed away from Port Washington, NY and the crew of S/Y Ruffian, the boat from the UK. We have not seen them since. I made a vhf call to them several times yesterday to no success. I thought they might still be in the Portland area. Just as we sailed up the river to this place they answered the call. Turns out they anchored one river over from us. They will join us today. It will be very good to see them again.
This posting will be a few days late since we are at the end of the wire here in this place (being down in a rock hole). Weather here today has been super with the high temperature around 73 degrees. Bear, Scurv and I took a good dinghy ride around the Basin and found an eagle’s nest.