I mentioned earlier that the meals were amazing. The portion of the Steven Taber’s galley not taken up by tables and benches is about the size of a walk-in closet. You can stand near the ladder, but need to stoop or double over in other places. The only source of heat is a circa 1901 wood fired stove, and a hand pump supplies water to the sink. Yet the remarkable young lady who rules this galley, planning and preparing all meals while still lending a hand on deck, cooked breakfast, lunch, and a complete Thanksgiving Day meal that day – turkey, potatoes, vegetables, freshly baked breads, homemade cranberry sauce, gravy, and desert (3 pumpkin pies!) for 22 passengers and 6 crew! All this, after turning out at 0430 each morning and sleeping in a bunk wedged under the helm. Other masterpieces included lasagna, a New England boiled dinner, soups, chowdahs, stews, salads, muffins, scones, hors d'oeuvres, deserts - the menu is more what you’d expect on a cruise ship. I guess this is why the hatches felt a little tighter each passing day.
Just prior to dawn, the early risers were greeted with the clearest night
of the trip, with the stars out in force now that the moon had set. The
calm waters of the protected cove mirrored the multitude of anchor lights
that festooned this popular anchorage. In the morning, Captain Barnes
guided the Steven Taber over to a mooring near a towering modern ship,
the only one we encountered all week. Castine is home to the Maine Maritime
Academy and its training vessel, the State of Maine. After nearly a week
of sailing on and with tall ships, it was easy to believe that she, not
us, is the anachronism. Castine also holds claim to being the oldest continuously
occupied settlement in New England and is listed on the National Register
of Historic Places. It would take a full day to explore all that this
beautiful village has to offer - her ruined forts, the ubiquitous lighthouse,
18th and 19th century Georgian and Federal style homes, friendly inns
with fragrant gardens and majestic elm trees (that’s right –
elm trees!); but alas, the week is drawing to a close and Rockland is
many miles to windward. The Steven Taber weighed anchor and began beating
south.
Tacking
up West Penobscot Bay, we kept watch for but never spotted the minke whale
reported by the schooners upwind. Eventually we sighted Pulpit Rock off
the port bow, with its decade’s old osprey nest standing like a
lighthouse marking the narrow entrance to Pulpit itself. The Steven Taber
slowly squeezed past into this incredibly beautiful harbor on the northwest
coast of North Haven Island. As a stunning red sun slipped over the side
in the west, an equally stunning orange moon started aloft in the east,
one night short of being a blue moon.
We were roused earlier than usual Saturday morning by a new voice of the
Steven Taber. Every 2 minutes, a crewman in the bow pulled a lever on
an odd-looking box, which protested with a wail you’d expect from
a wounded moose. Pulpit was awash with a fog that hid both its beauties
and dangers. The Steven Taber was carefully inching past the harbor’s
rocky guardian to the freedom 
of
the open bay. There she found the welcome gift of a rising breeze holding
steady from the SW, sweeping the fog into dozens of ghostly islands scattered
about on the white-flecked expanse.
The Steven Taber is more Clydesdale than quarter horse. Old photos aboard
show her docked, with rails almost awash, under the weight of stacks of
pulpwood piled on deck. Her stout beams and timbers attest to the awesome
strength designed into her for the yeoman tasks she performed in her youth.
The week’s mostly light airs rarely let the Steven Taber explain
why she is one of the few elders still among us. However, that morning’s
passage back to Rockland provided a thrilling demonstration. The SW wind
rose quickly to at least 25 knots, powering the Steven Taber on a long
broad reach. Her full bows shoved aside the whitecaps rather than carve
through them, without even a tremor in her deck. Her broad beam would
consent to only a few degrees of lean, while the few Bermuda rigs to be
seen had their leeward rails buried. Only rarely did our scuppers belch
water onto the deck. I tottered on the spray-doused foredeck, trying to
stay clear of the crew as they expertly handled the headsails each time
we came about. Out in the scattered fog banks, the topsails of other windjammers
could be seen beating, reaching, and running to their homeports of Camden,
Rockport and Rockland. We rounded Rockland Breakwater Light, still with
a “bone in our teeth”, and then spilled wind to pass through
the busy harbor to an eggshell landing at Windjammer Wharf. The Steven
Taber was home again.
But not for long - the crew immediately began making her ready for guests
arriving that afternoon, an unusually quick turnaround. We went below
for the last time. As we packed our duffels, the 
cabin
somehow looked bigger than it did five days ago. On deck we swapped email
addresses with all our new friends, thanked the captain and his friendly,
competent crew for a memorable voyage, and walked up to the shop for a
couple of embroidered shirts before heading south for home.
We will be back.
Back Yard Yacht Builders
A non-commercial association of amateur boat-builder enthusiasts.
All our wooden boats are Stevenson designs.