Somes Sound to Wooden Boat Harbor

Day 12: July 10, 2015

Today was a travel day.  We got up to a very calm anchorage so after a great sausage gravy on toast breakfast, we tinkered around the boat until a bit of wind developed.  We motored out of Somes Sound and then put up the sails and tacked our way past Greening Island.  As we were heading out into the open, we ran into a strong tidal current that allowed for very little forward progress in the light winds

Early morning in Somes Harbor

in which we were sailing.  My goal was to sail back towards our launch site in Bath but we needed to make an anchorage before midnight so I started the motor and pushed out into open water.  We tried to sail for the next hour or so but made little progress so I started the motor and we motored the remaining way to Wooden Boat Harbor.

We took the Dink to the dock of the Wooden Boat School and wandered to the boat house where there were three guys sitting.  In the conversation, I mentioned that Janine and I had been there back in 1996 on the sailing schooner Heritage that had dropped anchor in their harbor.  He said that she had been there yesterday, the skipper still doing amazing tricks with the motorless beauty and that it was in fact now up for sale. We talked about the restoration project on my dad’s Old Town canoe and the instructor, Rollin Thrulow who was still teaching on their faculty.  I had originally planned to bring the canoe and enroll in a class that he was teaching.  In that class you would restore your own canoe, however, when I inquired about taking the class, they had changed the character of the class so that you restored a canoe but not necessarily

A really big rock! Those things are also hiding just 

under water

your canoe.  So, I contacted Rollin privately and he agreed to restore the canoe at his personal shop.  He told me to sign a contract and one day in the future, we would receive a phone call and a truck would appear at our house with a long large trailer filled with a number of canoes.  Then later, that same truck would reappear with our restored canoe.  The project took well over a year to complete but

Sundown in Wooden Boat Harbor

the old beat up canoe came back as a piece of fine furniture too nice to take crashing down the shallow rivers of Ohio.  I told the guy at the school that it was now too nice to use and he admonished me, saying that these boats are designed to be used and I was to start using it!

This is an amazing place.  They teach all levels of woodworking and boat making.  They also publish Wooden Boat Magazine, a monthly publication featuring beautiful boat and craftsmanship.  They school website is www.thewoodenboatschool.com

I am amazed at how my memory has failed with regards to this facility.  I really have a different memory of what the place looked like.  I remember a huge mansion on a hill with a large wide open field blowing down to the water.  The field is now filled with trees and numerous large homes scattered around the grounds.  It must be progress.

Back at the boat, we enjoyed a chicken fettuccini dinner and a glass of Merlot.  This is a really beautiful place with many gorgeous hand-made wooden boats tied to mooring balls.  We sat out in the cockpit enjoying the evening until the sun dropped behind a little island west of the harbor.  Sunset is my signal to crawl into bed.