SAILING THE COAST OF MAINE

By SUSAN BUTLER

September 18, 1983

Sailing Down East in Maine for the first time is like traveling backward in time. The rocky headlands and islands composed of granite, sculptured, scoured out, chiseled by glaciers, bear few marks of civilization. The place names remind us that it was the French who first explored and settled there, that it was the home of the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Indians.

SUSAN BUTLER is a writer who lives on Martha's Vineyard. Samuel de Champlain first explored the Maine coast in 1604, establishing a colony that he planned as the first settlement of the Acadian territory, claiming it for France. When he saw Mount Desert Island, it appeared as a line of seven or eight treeless peaks and so he called it Isle des Mont Desert. One of the most spectacular sights Down East, the island's Cadillac Mountain, is, at 1,532 feet, the highest point on the Eastern Seaboard, and it boasts the only natural fjord in the United States, Somes Sound. 

There are towns on the Maine coast, of course, tourist towns, but they differ in degree and size from those in more populous, gentler climes; fishing villages are more the norm. Even the charming but busy (by Maine standards) town of Camden, for instance, with its antiques stores, restaurants, inns, windjammer cruises, is looked at askance by many of its neighbors.

The New England cruising authority, Roger Duncan, of Stonington, on Deer Isle across Penobscot Bay from Camden, notes: ''Having seen what happened . . . to Camden, Stonington people are in no hurry to promote tourism.'' Everywhere Down East there is a genuine helpfulness about the people, but also a deep reserve, a feeling of ''respect me and I will respect you.'' A feeling of privacy. 

The best way - in keeping with the wildness of the coast - to explore is under sail. And the very best time of the year to do it is in September, just after Labor Day. There is, historically, less fog than in the summer months, schools has started, the crowds have gone home and the harbors and coves are as deserted as they ever will be while the weather is warm. For days you can sail, it seems, alone. Hours, a whole morning, can go by without another cruising boat in view; only lobster boats break the horizon with any regularity. 

It is also a lot easier to charter a boat for a week's cruise, the minimum time that should be considered. It is possible, in fact to charter out of Mount Desert - pronounced, for reasons no one can agree on, with the accent on the second syllable, as in dessert - upon a few days' notice. There are three companies one can agree on, with the accent on the second syllable, as in deerage, whose offices are in Southwest Harbor but whose boats are in Bass Harbor. There are two smaller yards on Somes Sound: the John M. Williams Company with five boats for charter, and Bar Harbor Boating, which has 11. 

 

Be prepared to have your yachting credentials thoroughly checked out. All the boats are privately owned, in top condition, and both owner and chartering concern want to make sure they are returned in the same condition. You will be asked for bank references, sailing references (not lightly given) and a history of your previous yachting and chartering experience. If there is still doubt about your ability when you arrive, you may, if you charter from Tom Emlen of Bar Harbor, be asked to take him out for a brief sail. Bob Hinckley, at Hinckley's, can supply a skipper, either for the duration of the trip, or until you get your sea legs. 

If one started out driving in a leisurely fashion to Maine, which takes about eight hours from Manhattan, a perfect place to spend the night would be a tiny (seven room) French inn called Le Domaine on U.S. 1 in Hancock, a half hour from Mount Desert. The inn is known for its immaculate, comfortable rooms complete with books, back issues of Architectural Digest and excellent wine and food. A typical dinner might start out with Belon oysters fresh out of the nearby Dama riscotta River, go on to include South Carolina quail wrapped in double- smoked bacon cooked with whole garlic cloves, or Maine crab meat cooked with white wine, butter, parsley and fish stock, gratineed, accompanied by a classic tomato proven,cale and wind up with a fruit tart. The owner and chef, Nicole Purslow, is a granddaughter of Pierre Monteux, whose Domaine School of Conducting is across the road. 

The drive the next morning is a pleasant one. Wisps of steam will be just starting to curl up from the roadside stands as people begin to heat up outdoor cauldrons of sea water to cook lobsters in. You will drive through Somesville at the head of Somes Sound, catching glimpses of the fjord as you go. 

If you are chartering from Hinckley, as we did, and your credentials are in order, checking in with their office in Southwest Harbor is made easy by the small staff. Within a quarter of an hour you can be on your way to Sawyer's grocery store on the main street in Southwest Harbor (parking in rear) to buy supplies. They are used to people stocking up for a cruise, helpful and patient as the items pile on the counter. Everything must be bought. Not only all the food - the fresh fruit, vegetables and meat the store carries - but also soap, paper items, canned goods, salt, pepper and charcoal for the tiny stove that warms the cabin on chilly nights. 

·         It takes five minutes to drive the three miles to Bass Harbor. When you get there, the boatyard crew that has been readying your boat will help you get ice from the ice machine and stow your gear. Before casting off, walk over to Rich's wharf to buy crab meat to take with you, and to watch six expert women rhythmically swing their mallets, cracking the crabs and picking out the meat at the rate of six pounds an hour. The leg (lump) meat is $6 a pound. Lobsters are also available for about $3.50 a pound. 
 

·         Unless fog closes in, you can sail so that you are never out of sight of land. As one island vanishes, another appears, possibly deserted, possibly with one or two houses standing back from the shore. You might start out by heading into the Casco Passage, north of Swans Island, and sailing northwest up Eggemoggin Reach, stopping the first night at Benjamin River, a cove entirely ringed by farms, with fields sloping down to the water, usually quite peaceful. An appropriate first meal would be lobsters boiled in water you have pulled up in a bucket from the sea. There is no better way to eat a lobster, and no lobster that can compare with it.

it.

Continuing up Eggemoggin Reach the next day you will pass under the Sedgwick Bridge, 

which links Deer Isle and the mainland. Then a good sail if the wind is southwest, which it usually is 
(the prevailing southwest wind earned for the Maine coast the descriptive term Down East because the coastal schooners,
 sailing east, were always sailing down wind) would be to head up around the north end of Islesboro, a long skinny island 
that lies in the middle of Penobscot Bay. As you sail through Gilkey Harbor you can get a good look at Charles Dana Gibson's massive but now crumbling home sitting on a knoll on neighboring Seven Hundred Acre Island (a misnomer: the island measures some 500 acres). The waters are full of seals; it is just a matter of time until one is sighted. 

 

Because there are so many islands just off the coast it is impossible to stop or even to see each one. Following are a few of the  

places you might include in a week's sail. Isle au Haut should be high on the list. It is one of the most beautiful islands, 

with just a narrow slit of a cove, about 75 yards wide by 200 yards deep, called Duck Harbor, 

where there is room for exactly three boats. 
In summer, forget it; in mid-September make sure to get there early in the afternoon.

·         Once safely anchored in Duck Harbor, go ashore and climb Duck Mountain (314 feet high the chart says; it seems much higher) which rises straight up out of the cove. The way is marked by cairns. From the summit you get a breathtaking view of the island. If you descend as the sun is setting, you will see colors you will not forget. Isle au Haut is part of Acadia National Park and the Park Service ferries people out to the island on ''Miss Lizzie,'' the mail boat, but even a few campers cannot take away from its beauty. 

 

·         It is a great adventure from there to follow the shore and go through Isle au Haut Thorofare, which is narrow, rather shallow, but well marked, and the channel between Isle au Haut and Kimball Island. In navigating it you will go through the remains of a mussel bar that was dredged with a suction hose that removed the mussels but not the boulders; go carefully. In fact, follow the advice given in what should be the bible of the Maine coast, ''A Cruising Guide to the New England Coast'' and enter it ''on the high side of half tide,'' when the water level is high enough to allow passage but slow enough so that you can see the boulders. Continue from there through the Burnt Island Thorofare separating Isle au Haut from Burnt Island, even more of a challenge, being just as shallow, rock stewn, but narrower. 

·         Going from Isle au Haut to Stonington on Deer Isle is one of the most delightful passages. There are so many islands - over 20 - so close together that it is a little bit like threading your way through a maze. All are uninhabited at this time of year and offer good anchorages, occasionally granite ledges, occasionally sandy beaches (Maine version - small pebbles) and spruce ringed coves. The musseling is excellent. If you anchor off an island called Devil's Half Acre, for instance, you will find the shoreline a carpet of mussels. Before going off in the dinghy to gather them, put on your boots; the mussels are covered with barnacles, and mired in the black, glacial mud the coast is famous for. It is only five miles from Isle au Haut to Stonington as the crow flies, but don't rush through. Spend a day or two on this stretch. Stonington is a fishing village. The main street is short, perhaps a few hundred yards long, the town is small, having a year-round population of 1,200 (slightly higher in summer). Like many of these islands, it is famous for its granite; like many of these islands, its granite ended up in New York. The Triborough Bridge is built of Deer Isle granite, the granite pillars for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine came from Vinalhaven. 

·          

Blue Hill Bay is good sailing, particularly if fog seems threatening. 

There are plenty of dolphin and seals in these waters to watch if the wind dies

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  One of the most delightful coves to anchor in is Dogfish (a euphemism for shark) Cove on Bartlett's Island in Blue Hill Bay. 

Deserted at this time of the year, except for lobster boats, it teems with wild life. As we turned into the cove we saw a seal 

playing. An osprey wheeled overhead, then perched for hours in a dead tree guarding one shore. Loons, which used to be 

confined to lakes but have now spread out onto the coast, swam in and out of the rocks. Eider ducks paddled by. A great blue 

heron stood immobile on the stony beach. On one side of the cove a sheer granite cliff drops straight into the sea; on close 

inspection we found its side, below high water mark, to be covered with mussels that we pulled off while sitting in the dinghy. 

 By the time you are sailing back to Somes Sound, and Mount Desert is a familiar sight, 

you can appreciate the Down East saying, of those who live on Mount Desert, that they ''sit on their view,'' 

further refined by the residents of the nearby coastal town of Sorrento across Frenchman Bay to ''they walk on our view.'' 

·        

 When you are cruising in Maine, unless the fog shuts down and the world becomes, to paraphrase Roger Duncan, 

''two waves wide,'' it is difficult to be out of sight of either lobster pots or a craggy shoreline. 

It is for this reason that cruising is so pleasant. One is constantly challenged and constantly interested. 

Add to this the sunlit misty mornings, deserted coves, jagged coastline, incredibly fresh shellfish. All this and sailing, too.