• Email this page
• Print this page
• Comments
• Feed

Aboard Grace Bailey
Day 1: Camden to Holbrook Island Harbor, Castine

Ben McCanna

(page 1 of 4)

On this, my fourth windjammer trip of the season, I consider myself a bit of an expert at packing.

Of high importance to me is the messenger bag containing a digital camera, minicassette recorder, red wine, and other important tools of the journalist trade.

In my duffle, I pack two pairs of Carhartts, a hoodie, socks, underwear, t-shirts, a wool sweater, winter cap, down parka, and gloves.

My toiletry bag holds toothpaste, a toothbrush, aspirin, deodorant, and the pack of baby wipes I purloined from my son’s nursery. (After a few stagnant days at sea, nothing boosts your confidence quite like a brisk, whole-body rubdown with a few baby wipes. They’ll keep you as powder-fresh and soft as a baby’s bottom — a big plus aboard a ship with a limited supply of hot water.)

Of highest importance, however, is my dry bag. In it I keep a sleeping bag, a foul-weather jacket, and foul-weather pants.

Every traveler packs a rain jacket, but few think to buy matching pants. So, before you take a trip on a windjammer, you must do two things: 1) buy a reliable pair of foul-weather pants; 2) pray you don’t need them.

Today, as the Grace Bailey departs Camden Harbor and slips into dense, drizzly fog, it’s clear my prayer has gone unanswered. It’s a mid-June morning—nearly the official start of summer — and yet it’s a wet 58 degrees off the coast of Maine.

This isn’t unusual. The mean average temperature on the first day of summer in Midcoast Maine is 63°F. In many coastal Maine households, the furnace still kicks on during the wee hours of a June morning.

For someone arriving to the Midcoast from Boston or Baltimore (where the corresponding average temperatures are 70°F and 78°F, respectively), 58°F can be an uncomfortable surprise. Add in a full day of drizzly weather, and you could quickly become intractably morose.

But foul-weather gear is a remarkable thing. Like spacesuits or scuba gear, foulies allow you to explore an otherwise inhospitable atmosphere, and you might be surprised by the novelty of it.

Hell, you might even enjoy it.

And so it goes with my experience. I’m dressed head to toe in waterproof fabrics and leaning against the rain-beaded rail on the Grace Bailey’s quarterdeck, but I couldn’t be happier. Sure, it’d be nice to feel the sun’s warmth and spy the gently rolling Camden Hills off our port beam, but there’s something deeply authentic about this experience. The cool, damp air has chased many of the passengers toward the warmth of the galley stove, and, for the most part, the few that remain on deck are crewmembers.

This is how it used to be.

In the days when cargo was king, a coasting schooner like the Grace Bailey would’ve set sail with the barest of crews. The holds, which now house up to 29 passengers, would’ve been filled with timber, and a mere two or three men would’ve raised the sails, weighed the anchor, and driven this lonely vessel from port to distant port.

If an award could be given to historical accuracy, today’s sail is a worthy candidate. Apart from a few brave passengers, the forward deck belongs to the mate, Andy Gardiner (whom you may recognize from the Mercantile’s shakedown cruise earlier this season), and the deckhand, Santiago Taussig-Moore.

This is a rapscallion pair of sea dogs if there ever was. Wide-brimmed sou’wester hats obscure their eyes from view, leaving nothing upon which to base your first impressions but their scruffy, grinning mugs.

Posted on Monday, July 21, 2008 in Permalink