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| Sailing Away Down East in Maine |
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I poked my sister Mary in the eye once swatting a flap of canvas from my face after a stake holding our pup tent came loose. After a cold night in Yosemite, I asked my friends to take me to the Ahwahnee Hotel so I could order room service and crawl into bed.
Indeed my disdain for mummy bags and boiled coffee has always posed a vacation dilemma. I like the rustic adventure of the outdoors, but I have an affinity, too, for clean sheets, nice meals (cooked by someone else, of course) and a daily shower. So I decided to set out on a three-day sailing trip aboard the Angelique, one of a fleet of 12 individually owned and operated windjammers that navigate in and around Penobscot Bay in Maine. Sailing, I figured, offered the thrill of an alfresco escapade without having to lug a backpack.
The Angelique, like many of the boats and schooners in the Maine Windjammer Association, harks back to the late 1800s, when commercial vessels and fishing boats crowded the harbors of Maine’s rocky inlets and numerous islands. The oldest windjammers in the fleet are the Stephen Taber and the Lewis R. French, both built in 1871. But each vessel has its own history, with some once used as racing boats or to haul timber, others to fish.
Today it is visitors that keep windjammers afloat, with many docked in Rockland or Camden, which was where I boarded the Angelique. The ship is a newcomer to the fleet (for sailors, it is technically classified as a gaff topsail ketch), built in 1980, but it retains the distinct charm of earlier vessels. Its smooth wooden deck stretched 95 feet long, and its sails were the color of earthy clay, with a majestic mainmast that rose nearly 100 feet in the air.
I boarded the Angelique at about 9 p.m. on an unusually rainy Wednesday in late July. Most of the schooners allow guests to arrive at 5 the night before a sail and, when I arrived, many guests were already nestled in their cabins for the night. Camden is as quaint as any Maine coastal town, although it suffers from too many souvenir shops and kitsch art stores muddling its otherwise unspoiled charm.
I was told there were only 14 other passengers on board (a rarity as most of the fleet is full up in July and August), which meant there would be plenty of space — the Angelique has room for 31. One can usually find a cabin in a pinch — but not the choicest, which fill up quickly — as schooners in the fleet are similar in size.
I went below deck to my cabin; so much for the promise of space. Two single-sized wooden bunks lined one wall, a small sink and dim bulb were on the other. And using the shared shower was like hosing down with a kitchen sink sprayer.
I was grateful I didn’t have to share; the top bunk felt as snug as an M.R.I. scanning machine, but not unlike bunks of similar schooners. Two thin towels hung on a bar near my sink, and bed linens — sheets and a wool blanket — were piled on top of the green mattress. This was already a lot like camping: I had to make my own bed.
Not yet ready to sleep, I went up on deck, where I sat under a tangerine-colored canopy and watched bolts of lightning brighten the Camden sky, the silhouette of a church steeple appearing with every flash. The night was eerily foggy, silent except for the intermittent patter of pea-sized raindrops overhead. But it was oddly exhilarating. This was the Maine that I had read about in Stephen King novels, where dogs go mad and lonely ghosts materialize in the misty haze.
Morning comes early on the Angelique, as on many of the ships in the fleet. At 8 a.m. the breakfast bell rang, and I and the other passengers gathered in the dining room for introductions and a hearty breakfast of blueberry pancakes, sausage and hot coffee. My new BFFs on the trip would include, among others, a family from Dallas, three couples from the Northeast, and a young man from New Jersey who enjoyed his first trip so much he decided to stay another three days.
After breakfast, Mike McHenry, our affable captain who has owned the Angelique since 1986, went over the ship’s rules. The heavy sails were hoisted by hand, which meant we would be asked to help. (Guests on all the schooners are asked to help out, the communal yelps of “Heave-Ho!” as familiar as lobster pots around the bay.) There was no itinerary: we traveled where the wind took us. And cellphone use on deck was discouraged. “Please, no calls to your stockbroker,” the captain said, eyeing a passenger who had already made a few. “Don’t bother the other guests.” I liked Mr. McHenry instantly.
Now we were ready to sail. The fleet sails a wide swath of the coast, a 100-mile rectangle from Boothbay Harbor to the outermost regions of Frenchman Bay, passing uninhabited spots of land where the cacophonous squawk of gulls pierces the quiet morning. A popular spot to anchor for the evening is Smith Cove, where the Angelique and two other windjammers docked one night.
On our first day, Mr. McHenry said we were escaping the fog, heading to a sunny spot near the top of Islesboro Island, a 14-mile stretch of trees and rocky coast that was settled in 1769 and once housed the largest commercial fishing fleet in the bay. Mansions with bay views (John Travolta and Kirstie Alley have homes here) could be seen from the deck, giant white boxes amid tall trees and rolling green lawns.
Once we got to the top of the island, we ate a lunch of freshly baked Irish soda bread, chowder with herbs and chunks of tender white fish, spinach salad and, for dessert, brownies. (The fleet prides itself on its home-style cooking.) It was too cold for a swim, so several people read inside the deckhouse, played board games or retreated to their cabins, as I did, for a nap. I was awakened by a fierce gust of wind that filled our sails, carrying us so fast it felt as if we were flying.
