September 15 Monday:

 

Rain and wind were forecast for the night but I didn’t anticipate the strength of the foul wind.  The updated weather forecast on the VHF radio, which I checked in the depth of night, wasn’t encouraging.  Winds southerly gusting to 60 km veering to westerly reaching 70 km were expected.  My anchorage was too exposed and I’d get out of here at first light. 
 
After releasing the shore line, I hauled in the bow anchor.  It was heavy to lift off the bottom and when it surfaced I saw the reason.  Between the flukes and the shaft of the Danforth was a blackened, waterlogged tree limb.  The anchor had never set in the mud and would have dragged this limb along the bottom as the wind strengthened.


Just across the river was a more sheltered anchorage behind the tree line. It wasn’t perfect but as the wind shifted to west it should improve. I resigned myself to passing the day there. Soon Naomi was at anchor with a stern line ashore. This was a good time for house keeping chores including getting washed up, doing a laundry and cooking meals.

 
The book I took along was Four Months in a Sneak-Box by Nathaniel Bishop. In the late 1870s, the author purchased an east coast duck hunting boat and took it down various rivers, including the Mississippi, and over portages to the Gulf of Mexico and Florida. Mostly, he stayed aboard his little vessel at night on obscure muddy stream banks. The characters he met, the description of his life on the river, the shanty boat and steam vessel traffic and the unexpected portages all made his river cruise more demanding than mine. As in most travel literature of the period, Bishop digresses at great length on topics that interest him but which I skimmed over. Overall, he is one of the pioneer dinghy cruisers whom I have an affinity with.

During the evening, a full moon rose which blotted out the Milky Way but left the major constellations in place.  As I looked up, Naomi’s mast pierced the centre of the Northern Cross. Closer to the horizon, a timid big dipper appeared to slowly enter the tree-tops, then hesitate and back out again with all its stars maintaining immaculate formation. This illusion was caused by Naomi gently yawing on her mooring lines.

September 16 Tuesday:

click here for full-sized chart image (left half)
click here for full-sized chart image (right half)

What a contrast with yesterday! There wasn’t any wind at all. I motored the complete length of Washademoak Lake, with only a provisions stop at Cambridge Narrow, before arriving at a petite light tower on stilts. This tower signaled to me I was out of the lake and now into Washademoak Creek. 

Soon I left Washademoak Creek, backtracked up the Saint John River, and then puttered to the steamer wharf at Queenstown. This village is comprised of a cluster of large weather-beaten old homes which exude airs from a more prosperous past. After securing Naomi to the Queenstown wharf, I went exploring. 
 

Early in the evening, a large sailboat slowly approached. The crew was hoping to moor at this wharf, but I had beaten them to it. There is only room for one vessel on the wharf head and the flanks were too shallow and short for them.  Since a shoal draft Wayfarer could lay to the wharf ends, I offered to line Naomi around from the wharf face to its side.

The couple sailing this vessel thanked me for shifting berths and then asked me over for drinks. Their yacht’s cabin had standing room, comfortable settees, berths, chart table, heater, refrigerator, enclosed heads and a warm wooden interior. When I returned to Naomi I knew I should think that even though their yacht was pleasant, I wouldn’t trade Naomi’s Spartan interior for anything. However, I would at that moment, gladly have traded my chilly boom-tent enclosure for a cabin like that.