Alvin Koo
A Different Time and Place
I sailed twice in May on the Grace Bailey in Penobscot Bay about midway along the coast of Maine. It was fantastic.
It starts with a gangplank angling down about 45 degrees to a floating dock 12 feet below the wharf. Maine has some mean tides. The ramp is stepped with two inch high humps of wood that act like mini stairs. Already this is not the Ritz.
 | | The Grace Bailey, Mercantile, and Mistress sit at their dock in the center of Camden's inner harbor. (Photo by Alvin Koo) |
Eager crew members are waiting at the head of the wharf to help you with your bags. Otherwise, you might feel this is how it was to head out to sea with your duffel a hundred years ago.
The Grace is an all wood ship, and as you climb aboard, you can picture Errol Flynn or Peter Pan swinging from the yard arms, except of course, there are no yard arms. The Grace is a gaff rigged, two masted schooner. Pretty salty talk, huh? It's the square riggers that have yard arms. Still, the Grace?s foot and a half thick wood masts are impressive.
You get squared away in a cabin the size of most closets. Down the forward hatch, where we stayed, six cabin doors are jammed into a foyer no bigger than a kitchen table. Six cabins plus the head. You should see the foc'sle where the crew lives.
You are issued a basin, cup, towels and bedding. No this is not prison, this is first class. The basin is to use for washing your face or brushing your teeth. There is a barrel on deck with fresh water and a four inch deep brass ladle. The Grace is about going back in time. You're paying the big bucks for the extra ambience.
As the Grace gets underway, another thing is apparent. The Grace has no engine. A yawl boat pushes the Grace out of the harbor. We will take that boat wherever we go. The Grace doesn?t have a lot of things.
There are no phones, no TV, no air conditioning, no heaters, no winches. This last is important because it means you need people to haul up the sails. About six on each line. They teach us this thing called "six, eight, heave." It keeps us together. Passengers are not only encouraged to participate in the sailing, they are necessary. I doubt if the crew of five could raise the sails themselves.
The Grace, however, does have lights and refrigeration. We cook on an antique stove. There is a certain delight that comes with eating fresh baked muffins from a wood stove. And the smell of the wood burning wafts over the deck.
Out of the harbor we go, six eight heave, the sails go up, the Grace heels over about five degrees in a soft 15 knot breeze under sunny skies.
We slip between islands with names like Lasell, Lime and Job heading Down East with the wind at our back and a fair sea. Penobscot Bay is about 50 miles across in mid-coast Maine. It has an estimated 200 islands ranging from Islesboro where many rich people have huge mansions to Isle au Haut, home of author and former swordfisherwoman Linda Greenlaw.
We slip past islands just barely above the sea, populated by seals, and islands heavily forested with spruce and cedar on a granite bedrock. We spy dolphins in the bay. Slowly the wind dies, and as the sun sets, we enter Bucks Harbor, the anchor drops, the Graces spins on the hook, and the smell of steak cooking on a barbecue held over the side of the rail and lobster boiling in a shallow three feet wide iron bucket drifts by. Dinner is served.
 | | (Photo by Alvin Koo) |
We eat corn on the cob, fresh salad, and rolls with the steak and lobster. Dinner is always accompanied by some dessert baked in the wood fired oven. This day is fudge brownies. Sometimes, it's chocolate cake. Maybe we had chocolate the day before?
By 8:30 p.m., it's full dark and people are beginning to drift away to sleep. The crew with a little help from the passengers wash up the dishes, and people gather in small groups in the galley or on deck to whisper about the day's events. There is something about eating with a salt breeze that makes people ready for an early night's sleep.
 | | (Photo by Alvin Koo) |
By seven the next morning, everyone is up and chattering away. A mist and light rain has begun. The air is dead calm. The sky gray. It is a typical Maine kind of day. Beautiful in its own cold way.
After blueberry pancakes, fruit, muffins, and bacon, we do a short shore tour to downtown Buck's Harbor. The gal at the one store, combination diner, wine shop, tells us this is really part of Brooksville. It's off of 176 if you're driving down from Bucksport, which is on Route 1, the coast highway. The houses are all white clapboard or brown stained cedar shingles. It feels like a different time and place.
 | | Hauling anchor. (Photo by Alvin Koo) |
Later on that day, we slip down a shallow passage to Gilkey Harbor to a small cove not far from the Dark Harbor boat yard. We go exploring but do not find the supposed ice cream store that probably opens later in the summer. Later that evening, guitars and song break out. It is amazing how many words to how many songs a group of people know together that they do not know by themselves. We sing until late in the night. At least 10 p.m., by my recollection.
 | | (Photo by Alvin Koo) |
The next weekend, I go again. Penobscot is sunny, the wind is 25 to 30 from the northwest. We scud along at 10 knots, throwing a dancing wake, the Grace heeling with a bone in her teeth. Look it up, it's all good nautical talk. We race from Gilkey to Owls Head and back in an afternoon.
The next weekend, I miss the boat. It leaves on Wednesday instead of Friday. My sailing is over. It's been great. I hope you get to go someday.
[Papa Al, BTAB, was born and raised in Hawaii and is a writer by trade, a small business owner, quit smoking facilitator and singer. He has been editor of Pacific Business, the Kalihi Press, vice president of Aloha Airlines, and owner of Koo & Shiraki Consultants, Beaches 'N Creme Yogurt in Waikiki and Papa Al's Restaurant in Hanalei, Kauai. Papa lives on his boat at the Ala Wai Harbor in Waikiki. (BTAB -- Been There and Back). He leads "Heart of Hawaii" tours and is also author of the book, Stuff Nobody Told Me.]
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