Well...we’ve done it. We travelled something like 3,000+ miles (6,000+ round-trip) to a little coastal town in Maine called Winterport and there we met Drumbeat. Let this be the first place I admit that although I had already seen a million pictures of her, I initially mistook a similar-looking boat a couple slips down for her. I knew Jon had jumped out of the car while I was still getting my camera out, and I came out of the van and was confused because I didn’t see him anywhere near the boat. HOWEVER I then looked a couple boats to the right and recognized the eagle emblem and it all clicked.
She’s dusty. Dusty, dirty, oily, and moldy in places. She’s also solid as hell and one fine-looking vessel. From the ground, she’s taller than I expected and I can only imagine how much bigger she is with the masts (it’s stored indoors so both masts are currently detached). Once on the boat, I was a little surprised by the size of the deck - it wasn’t as long as I expected and it gets a bit cramped as you walk aft. The cockpit is gorgeous - covered with dust, but very nice underneath. Inside, it’s much roomier - taller and wider - than I’d anticipated. The galley gets plenty of light (a must-have for me for living aboard). There is a giant (for a boat) ice-box in the galley. The propane stove’s been removed but we have an alcohol stove we want to convert to kerosene. I’d expected the inside to be beaten up since the owner said he’d mainly done work on the outside, but I was very impressed with the woodwork inside. We think they must’ve varnished before storing the boat in indoor storage for the past 2 years because all the woodwork inside is still shiny and smooth. The owners also left behind a ton of dishes, silverware, tools, clothing, books, maps, charts, pots, etc.
The living room has two settees, a couple of bookcases, electronics, and lots of storage. It’s much wider than I’d expected. The cushions on the settees and dining table bench are made of the type of material you use for cheap outdoor furniture. We both hate it so we want to upholster them. One of the settees folds out into a double bed and it’s a decent length - a little short for Jon but not too bad.
The bathroom needs work. We want to take out the toilet and holding tank and put in a composting toilet. That’ll also give us extra space where the holding tank is now. It’d be nice to also put in a shower; it does not have one currently. The floor was pretty grungy too. I was impressed with the overall size of the bathroom, however.
All of the sails and various other things are stored on the v-berth currently so it was hard to get a good idea of that space; it looks doable though. There is a shelf on the starboard side that we’ll use as another bookcase. There is also a large hatch with a step leading up to it that can be used as an emergency exit, which I appreciate.
It was hard to stay in the boat for a long time because apparently the engine has been leaking oil for possibly 2 years, and the fumes are strong. That’ll be the first thing we’ll need to clean up next year, when we’re able to see her again.
In case you couldn’t tell, we bit the bullet and are now the proud new owners of Drumbeat, our future home. She’ll stay in Winterport for the next year. It’s exciting and scary. Before we gave the go-ahead, I really had no misgivings about it and afterwards it just seemed like something we did, like just a thing that happens in life. I’m not sure at which moment Jon was sold but I’m sure he’ll talk about it in his post. I think we both pretty much knew it was unlikely that we WOULDN’T end up buying. Now that it’s all said and done and we’re back home in Washington state recovering from jet lag, I kind of wish we were back in Winterport actually =].
AND NOW a few tidbits about our trip! We took off for Maine from Pennsylvania on Sunday night shortly after 11 PM and drove as far as we could between 3 of us. We had to wait until the laundry finished, hence the late start. We hit Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut all that night and finally stopped at a truck stop in Connecticut. At night the roads of Connecticut looked pristine with lots of deer; daylight revealed all the flaws in the roads but the area was still very pretty. We got some coffee and Dunkin Donuts and took off north again early Monday morning, going against all the rush hour traffic heading to NYC (I think we skirted the city but didn’t actually get to see it). We continued through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, finally stopping in Portsmouth, NH to meet with the (former) owner of Drumbeat. First we stopped downtown for an overpriced lunch and walked around a bit. We found a Celtic gift store with all things Irish and an awesome record store called Bull Moose. The record store had construction going on and a sign out front which read “I Assure You We Are Open” which of course drew me in. I was tempted by some NIN and Nirvana vinyl but didn’t give in, and was disheartened by some Katy Perry vinyl (Why?). I liked the town and we got to explore more on the way home.
We followed Drumbeat’s owner up to Winterport. It’s a tiny town on a river which leads to the Atlantic. We explored the boat for a few hours and after the big purchase we found a cool pizza place called Winterport House of Pizza. The place also had board games, and dirty and dusty as we were, we celebrated with pizza, Maine Root soda, and board games. The pizza was pretty much the best thing ever at that point. We then spent the night in the van at the town’s only gas station. In the morning we got up early and had time to kill so we ended up back at the boat, then explored Tea Maineia, a nice little tea shop. On the way out of the area we stopped by a discount marine store that Drumbeat’s owner told us about, which gave me anxiety from looking at all the brand new boat accessories and how expensive they were, even at a discount shop!
After the store we drove to Portland, ME, which was exciting to me because now I can say I’ve been to Portland on both coasts =]. It was a cool city and we had some of the best clam chowder ever at a place called Gilbert’s Chowder House. We tried to walk around the docks but all we found were private marinas closed to the public. We went to some shops and found a very fancy designer yarn store, and a nice little pet store. I wouldn’t mind going to Portland again and exploring more. We only had 2 hours there and then we headed back to Portsmouth, NH to take care of more boat business. This time we also found a bay with waterfront access. There were lots of boats, snails, and a friendly dog that loves to play fetch. After that we found the beach proper but first headed back to town, led by a friendly shirtless male lifeguard, for a bathroom. Ice cream cravings hit (at least for me) and were satisfied, and then we spent some time at the real beach watching a sailboat race, exploring the beach and adding on to a community of rock statues. We drove to the outskirts of Boston that night (only about 1 hr away) and spent the night again in the van at a sketchy and dirty Stop ‘N Shop. I made sure the doors were locked.
Day 3 had us driving into Boston proper at rush hour, not a good idea and not a good first impression. We jumped into the first parking lot we found, which was $18 for the day, but we wanted to get off the roads. We mainly walked around downtown because it is an expensive city. We went to a Boston Tea Party attraction but only made use of their bathrooms due to the high cost for an actual tour on their boats. We then walked to the Boston Public Library and later to the Boston Commons and Boston Public Garden. The library was a bit disappointing - a giant impressive-looking building that’s closed off in a lot of areas inside with not a lot of books. The Boston Commons garden was from the 1600’s but looked like any other garden, except for the statues. It had lots of homeless people. We eventually took the subway to the Samuel Adams brewery and got a free tour, free beer, and free beer sampler glasses. That tour was the best! I highly recommend it. They gave samples of Boston Lager, Oktoberfest, and Rebel IPA. Oktoberfest was my favorite by far.
We’d initially planned for a 4th day but by then we were done, desperately in need of showers and personal space. We drove another 7 hours before getting back around midnight and then collapsing.
And that’s the story of how we purchased Drumbeat.
