March 2012 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 23. VIEWS PILOTHOUSE
Several years ago Dad and I went on a three day cruise on the three-masted schoo- ner VICTORY CHIMES out of Rockland. We cruised around Penobscot Bay and around part of Eggemoggin Reach, and other areas of that spectacular region. The skipper of the CHIMES announced to the passengers that Penobscot Bay was one of the two best places for sailing in the world. He paused. Of course, at least one person called out, “What’s the other place?” He replied, “They haven’t found it yet!” And, he got the laugh from the passengers he expected. The views are splendid from around her deck. *****
My wife, Lois, and I were on PRINCESS
OF ACADIA, the large passenger and car ferry crossing the Bay of Fundy from St. John, New Brunswick, to Digby, Nova Scotia. It seemed like a good idea to visit the pilot- house. I inquired and we were permitted to go up to the bridge and into the pilothouse. The pilothouse was very wide and opened on each side to the bridge wings. We were inter- ested in seeing the navigation equipment and watching the underway operations in the pilothouse. When you are crossing the Bay of Fundy between St. John and Digby you can see all the way across the some 40 miles of water when the weather is clear. As we were in the pilothouse we could see the low shore of Nova Scotia way ahead of us. We had a panoramic view of the beautiful Bay of Fundy on a nice day from high up in the ship’s pilothouse.
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One summer Dad and I were running the smack ourselves. We were making three trips a week to Hancock from home, 80 miles round trip. In talking about views from the pilot house, I’ve described at some length the continuous beautiful views between home in Beals and the lobster pounds in Hancock. There were times, though, when we had thick dungeon fog to contend with, and obviously going in the fog was a whole different process from going in pretty weather. This particular summer we made a trip with pea soup fog both ways, a couple days later we made the next trip in thick fog, and two days later made another trip in thick fog. The fog persisted, and all told we made 13 consecutive trips in fog. The math of that is a month of fog and hence a distance of some 1,040 miles in the fog with no letup. We had no radar and no other electronic navigational aids aboard the smack. Of course, the ledges, islands, points, granite shores, and navigational buoys didn’t move around during the fog, but in those days there were sardine boats, other smacks, lobster fishermen and pleasure craft on the water along with us. Some we were in contact with on the marine radio, and others we had no knowledge of their locations. So, we ran by the compass, with the tachometer indicating our RPM hence speed, timed by the alarm clock in the bunk in the pilothouse, sounding our whistle, a lot of watching and listening and poking into the fog, and the grace of God. For those 13 trips the views from our pilothouse were very short range. *****
Late one afternoon we were heading home from the pound in Hancock, and since the visibility was good we took a little short- cut, which we frequently did when we had good visibility. We went through Schoodic Narrows at the end of Schoodic Point and headed across to Petit Manan Bar, some eight miles to the east’ard. I was down for’ard getting supper. I heard a short blast on the whistle which meant for me to come up to see what Dad wanted. He said for me to help him keep watch, as he couldn’t see because of extremely heavy rain that had suddenly shut us in. When I looked around I saw a scene such as I had never seen before. The rain had
come on very quickly and it looked like we were inside a shower curtain of a few hundred yards in diameter with the shower turned on full blast. The ocean was a leaden color with large seas that were not normal looking. The crests of the waves were very far apart, much longer wavelengths than normal. In between the crests the troughs of the waves were very smooth looking. Trap buoys were highly visible on the gray smooth troughs. The entire scene looked like something an impres- sionist painter might paint, but it hardly looked real. But it was real. A hurricane was approaching our area, and it was coming rapidly. We did not expect to get hit so early by its leading edge. Had we known of its rapid approach we’d have gone out around Schoodic Point and outside of Petit Manan Light, steering by compass rather than vi- sual. We proceeded to find the buoys on Petit Manan Bar and made for the buoy off Nash’s Island Light eight miles to the east’ard, and from there we had another eight miles home to Beals. When our view from the pilothouse included our mooring buoy, we were glad to be safely home.
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A highlight of summer in Beals was the Community Picnic. The picnics were joy- ously anticipated by many folks in town. My Grandfather Lad Simmons (Papa) and Mama (Thelma) would set a date for the festive event. Posters would be made and tacked to telephone poles in town, and the date was passed by word of mouth, announcing the Beals Community Picnic. On the established date, if it was a pretty day, Papa would bring his smack AEROLITE into Grampie Will’s wharf at Perio’s Point, and the many revelers would come aboard, carrying sumptuous lunches, chairs, blankets, sports equipment, clam hoes and clam rollers, and whatever else they thought they might need for a day on a wide, curving, sandy beach, where the sand was like sugar, where swimming could be done, where ball games could be played on the beach, where large clams abounded in the beach and could be dug at low water, where there was a “mountain” at the far end for climbing, and woods for lovely walks, and exquisite views from the beach. We’d get underway and head down the Reach. I en- joyed the view from the pilothouse, seeing all those people on deck, seeing the eastern end of the Reach and Loon Point and scenic Englishman’s Bay, and the scenes the rest of the way. Even though I was a small boy, Papa let me do some of the steering. We’d go in through the beautiful Spruce Island Thor- oughfare and then swing northerly and soon there would be that splendid strand of white sand beach on Roque Island. Papa would select a good place to anchor the smack and the anchor would be let go. Dad and other men would boat the picnickers ashore by dory. The festivities would commence and the day would be filled with food, fun, frolic, and fellowship. Later in the afternoon it would be time to head for home. Folks were boated back aboard the smack, the anchor hauled up, the diesel started, and we’d head for home. AEROLITE’s engine had a great sound. It seems that on more than one of those days we’d encounter a thunder storm on the way home and people would get wet. Too, a tradition was that on the way home Papa would, without warning, sound a long very loud blast on the smack’s air whistle, thoroughly startling the folks on deck. He enjoyed that, as did the crowd. The picnick- ers would be landed at the wharf in Beals after a wonderful and memorable day. The views from the pilothouse were of folks enjoying themselves in beautiful Maine scenery. *****
Are you enjoying the views from your pilothouse? I certainly hope so!
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