SAILING WITH OUR PARENTS

Julie and Jack Bonham Cozens

(The Bonham Cozens family spent five weeks last summer exploring the coast of Maine aboard their 50ft Germervescence. Julie and Jack, who were nine and seven at the time, give us their recollections in their own words.

Eve, who had more than a little to do with their memories actually reaching paper, has kindly added a few explanatory notes.)

Jack

I loved everything: fishing boats and seals and lots of forests full of pine trees. It was fog, fog, a bit of sun and fog, fog. I remember the museum(1) that we went to with all the portraits of the boats, and the huge anchor that you had to wind up. Once, when we were ready to leave an island(2), we put up the sails and we tried to pull up the anchor but it had a lobster-pot stuck on it, so Mummy tried to get it off with a pole, and then she asked me to go and get a knife. She lifted up the anchor a bit more. By this time it was getting quite windy and dangerous and so she cut if off. Then we set sail. There were often hundreds of lobster pots all around us so we had difficulty in getting through them. They were all colours and had flags and sometimes they were quite annoying.

The OCC Rally(3) was good too -- we had a party and everybody came and we had a barbecue and I played frisbee with Jim and the other boy from Taichi. We invited all the people to our boat to drink and to eat nuts and to talk. I liked Maine particularly because it had nice scenery and everybody was friendly. In one port(4) it really rained and we ate ice creams where they made it themselves, and that's where we bought our raincoats.

We saw eagles and other big birds. We were frightened to go too close because they were nesting. We saw fish and lobsters and crabs. Daddy liked eating lobsters and we ate sweetcorn with butter. We saw seals swimming along with their whiskers, and then they dived down. Once Julie had the binoculars and saw four buffaloes ashore(5). There were not so many mosquitoes as expected.

One day(6) we met Tony and Jill in Gammy -- somebody had lent them Gammy(7) -- and we were sailing past, and they said they had been all round the big island with the mountains(8). We walked up a mountain(9) and saw a wonderful view of many islands in the sea, and it was unusual because there was no fog.

They are very kind, the Americans -- there was a yacht club(10) where I played table tennis with a boy. In the same place, we were sitting on a dock and we met a man from Russia. He was upset because the English had done something wrong to the Russians. I quite liked the school where they made boats(11). We saw lots of big boats(12). They have these funny sails and they are quite old fashioned. They had two or three or four masts, and they have huge sails. We went quite close.

One day we made a sort of spider's web with string in the cabin and we did this to amuse us because there was lots of fog and we couldn't go swimming because the water was too cold. But that didn't matter because we had lots of things to do. I learnt how to play poker dice, and we did dressing up. I dressed up as a pirate, Mummy was a clown, Daddy was a loony chap and Julie dressed up as a princess.

I thought the fog was fun, because I don't see fog much in France and I liked how I didn't see the bottom of islands and I saw the tops so it was as if they were flying above. On a big island(13) we went up a hill, and had a wonderful time in the forest, and I loved it because I love climbing rocks. I learnt to row the dingy. Julie and I went off in the dinghy right to the dock(14). We had to be careful about the current and the wind.

I like living on the boat because it's nice and cosy, and I like my cabin a lot except sometimes I bang my head on the bunk bed. It's good to get away from everything and have a nice smooth time.

Julie

First we arrived in a plane, and somebody took us to the boat(15), and we got on board and settled down, and it was very nice to see Gem again. The next day we went out shopping and we saw a boat being lifted out of the water. Then a few days later we headed out to Jewel Island and went on a picnic, and climbed up a tall tower, and there were lots of ruins.

We landed on an island(16) and made a hidey-hole, and we were left on our own and Mummy and Daddy went back to get a picnic. We saw ospreys and their nests but we didn't go too close because they had chicks. Then we went up a long river(17) to Bath -- not the Bath in England but the Bath in America -- and we went to a museum and we saw some model boats. Outside in the harbour, there were old wooden boats and they were absolutely lovely. They said they gave the Maine Museum Book to all children who were born in Bath in England, and me and my brother were born there, so they gave us this very nice book with lots of pictures.

There was a little island off the coast(18) with wild flowers, and there was this old abandoned wooden house with lots of holes in the floor. We thought Jack had been bitten by mosquitoes but actually he had chicken pox. Then Tony and Jill Vasey came to cruise with us(19). It was very foggy and I was on deck with a foghorn and I was blowing it every minute. We heard sounds very near, and Tony was on the wheel and, suddenly, it came out of the fog -- this huge fishing boat heading straight for us -- and Tony quickly turned the wheel and we went to the side and missed it.

Jack wasn't feeling well, and so when we came to an island(20) he stayed with Daddy on the boat and we went ashore, Tony and Jill and Mummy and me, and we went for a walk and saw a deer which was tame, and I stroked it and it was really soft and lovely. We had some good explorations on the islands, where there were all these pine trees and it was very shady and cool.

We had an OCC Rally, and it was really fun. You could go ashore and there were lots of people you could meet, and the grown-ups could talk to each other. There was a race planned and there was no wind, but Gem and a few other boats decided to do the race anyway. Further out in the Bay(21) there was quite enough wind really, and when we came back all the people came on to Gem, and we had crisps and the grown-ups could have wine and stuff.

At the Rally we met some people(22) and they said we could visit them(23). They had a cat and a lovely wooden house and also two really old fashioned motor cars, and it was lovely. After we left we saw some old boats with tall masts and big sails and long booms, and lots of people on them.

When we're sailing I go on deck with my lifejacket, or I stay down below, read and play games. But mostly we're on deck. Sometimes I helm the boat a little, because I know how to do it and how to follow the direction on the big compass.

Somewhere else(24) we went to buy lobsters in this big smelly shed, and there were lots of spiders' webs. We ate supper at a restaurant, and we met some very nice people and they asked us to come and have breakfast the next morning. We went and we had pancakes with blueberries and strawberries with syrup all over them which was delicious. Afterwards we went biking and played baseball.

There were lots of lobster pots with buoys. One day when we were sailing quite fast we got one caught round our propeller and stopped moving(25). Another boat came by and saw we had troubles, and a man got into his dinghy and came over and he helped us unravel it from our propeller and it went bobbing away on the water. Afterwards we met up with them in Winter Harbour and they had a little girl and we gave her some of our old games. In a bay(26) nearby -- it had lots of little islands and all calm waters around -- we went in the dinghy, and we saw some seals and a young seal on some flat rocks, and they were all bathing there in the sun because it wasn't foggy that day.

When it was really thick fog you couldn't see anything and it was pretty dangerous. It was cold and we went below and learnt lots of new card games. It was foggy for many days(27), and we used to stay on the boat because we wouldn't have been able to find the boat again if we'd gone ashore. If you were on the land you couldn't see the boat, and if you were on the boat you couldn't see the land.

We went to Hurricane Island(28) with the Outward Bound School where there were older children who went there to climb and swing along on ropes to a platform. They did sailing and canoeing too. There was another place where there were lots of wooden houses on the beach(29), and it was very pretty. We swam there, but only dipped into the water quickly because it was very cold. In the evening we saw a wonderful sunset and you could see the last rays of sun glinting through the trees and it was very beautiful. We took photos of it.

At the end of our cruise we left Gem in a harbour(30), and while Mummy and Daddy were packing up the boat we climbed with some friends and a dog right up to the top of a mountain to a funny tower, where we had a picnic looking down to the sea.

Maine is very different from other places we've been to. There are lots of little islands, and I like the trees. There were lots of birds and we saw a whale, I think.

I've got a window looking out from my bed, and when we do night passages it's nice to fall asleep looking at the waves. You wake up in the morning and you go on deck, with water all round you. If you're anchored off, no-one can call on you or ring the doorbell, and you're just out there, and it's like home floating on the water.

(1) The superb Maine Maritime Museum in Bath

(2) Damariscove Island, a tiny island with a narrow harbour

(3) Held in mid July at Ram Island, near Castine

(4) Boothbay Harbor, a popular resort

(5) Blue Hill Bay

(6) En route to Somes Sound

(7) Harvey and Pam Geiger, OCC

(8) Mount Desert Island

(9) Flying Mountain, above Valley Cove in Somes Sound

(10) Kollegewidgewok Yacht Club, Blue Hill Harbor

(11) The WoodenBoat School, Eggmoggin Reach

(12) Windjammers sailing out of Rockland

(13) Isle au Haut, Duck Harbor Mountain

(14) Frenchboro' (Lunt Harbour, Long Island)

(15) In South Freeport, Casco Bay

(16) In the `Basin', New Meadows River

(17) River Kennebec, twelve miles upriver

(18) Damasicove Island

(19) The Vaseys joined ship at Christmas Cove

(20) Monhegan Island, ten miles offshore

(21) Penobscot Bay, northern part

(22) Edmund and Mayotta Kendrick, OCC

(23) Salmon Point, Deer Island

(24) Little Cranberry Island, south of Mount Desert

(25) In Fox Island Thorofare, between North Haven and Vinalhaven

(26) Seal Bay, sheltered and secluded

(27) In the Mount Desert and Frenchman Bay area

(28) Off Vinalhaven's southwest coast

(29) Crescent Beach, near Owls Head, Penobscot Bay

(30) Camden. Gem laid up at Wayfarer's Marine.