September 10th, 2019
BRIDGE
I nearly fell over with laughter when this boat shot past. I would have loved to have been at the design brief. I can only afford a dinghy but I want a full bridge..........
September 9th, 2019
CALM AFTER DORIAN
Dorian has swept past and she was very kind to us with gusts of only 25knts and some rain. This gave us a day to work on Pearl with a full engine service and some other jobs that were stacking up. The next day we left at dawn in, as you can see from the picture, the calm after Dorian. A very long day motoring from dawn to dusk saw us drop the anchor in Gloucester. We have time for one tourist visit and although Gloucester looks nice we just can't resist a trip to Plymouth which is where the Mayflower Pilgrims first settled. As such the anchor was up at dawn once more and we are now motoring to Plymouth where we will sort out shopping, laundry, gas and refuse this afternoon so that we have all day tomorrow to be tourists. It looks like it will be an interesting place historically but also for it being a thriving fishing port. In addition, they produce a lot of cranberries here which is something that I have always wanted to see grown.
September 6th, 2019
SHELTER
I sent the drone up this morning to show you how amazing The Basin is in terms of shelter. The entrance to the left even has a convenient dog leg in it. The basin is sheltered all about and the holding is excellent.
September 6th, 2019
HURRICANE DORIAN
We have had a few emails asking where we are and if we are OK with regard to Hurricane Dorian. One email said they couldn't quite work out where we are on the blog. Looking at the picture you can see where Dorian will be tomorrow at her closest around midday tomorrow - we are at the end of the pen. At the moment, we are expecting up to 35knts of wind and lots of rain. If things worsen the good news is that yesterday we arrived in the Hurricane hole I referred to with a picture of the chart a few days ago. Its an amazing place and gives us great confidence.
September 6th, 2019
LIFE ON PEARL
I give you CARRIE our clover named after Stu's Mum who recently passed away. Bed ridden, we bought this Clover in a Can as a gift to grow by her bed. She loved to follow our trip via numerous post cards and we sadly didn't get to give her the clover so she is now sailing the high seas with us in spirit.
As you can see BRIANNA is still going but needs feeding so we are keeping our eye out for a garden center which are none too common when sailing.
September 6th, 2019
SCALE
This shows the scale of the Wyoming with me standing in the bilges.
September 6th, 2019
DOUGAL
Theres only one name for this little fella - I name you Dougal (From the Magic Roundabout).
September 6th, 2019
BATH
We had a lovely trip up the Kennebeck River to Bath where we had a day exploring the excellent Maine Maritime Museum. I could go on and on but we really enjoyed the section on lobster where my many questions were answered. I certainly didn't know that they could live to a hundred years of age and grow to four feet in length. Females can walk up to a hundred kilometers to their nesting site!!
The other amazing thing was the size of the ship building business so far inland. During the second world war Bath built 82 destroyers. They also built fishing boats and Harold Vanderbilts famous Americas Cup yachts Endeavour and Ranger.
As we have sailed these parts I have often reflected that the trees we are seeing are not as mature as I would have expected and the answer lies in ship building. Hundreds of huge sailing ships were built in Bath and they hoovered up woodland in the process. This picture gives you an idea of their size thanks to the life size sculpture representing the six-mast, 426ft Wyoming which could carry 6,000 tons of coal.
Bath was built around ship building and in an old sketch of the town you can see the rope works that ran right through its center. John D Smith spent 45 years spinning 64,940,666 fathoms of thread walking ten miles a day totaling a staggering 140,850 miles. Half of it backwards....the equivalent of nearly three times around the world backwards.
The picture also shows the modern and busy ship building industry that presently exists to churn out US Navy ships. That's Pearl on a mooring to the far right.
