I hate Northport. I hate Bayside. I hate the south wind. I even hate sailboats, at least mine.

This was the summer I was going to become the next Gardner McKay (test your memory, “Adventures in Paradise”) and sail all over Penobscot Bay, exploring the Island Trail, celebrating countless sunrises over the water with a cup of coffee on my safely anchored Catalina 27. I even invested $1,200 in a mooring.

Right.

My arch enemy and sometimes boat partner, Peter Clifford, decided to take the boat to Bayside, the shore section of Northport where he apparently relives twisted childhood memories every summer. If you know the area, you know the wind blows from the south almost every day from Rockland, where my new mooring sits, unused. It appears to be a sailing maxim that The Wind Will Always Blow from the Direction You Want To Go.

A half-dozen times we have hauled up the sails and tried to get out of Bayside. The diesel engine on the stout craft has been badly mishandled by one of the captains and will overheat in, oh, about eight minutes. This will give you a head of steam and get you halfway to the northern tip of Islesboro.

That is about it.

With the wind blowing from the south virtually all summer, you can’t get much farther toward Rockland. It appears that the islands and the shore have conspired with the wind and tide to make a southern passage impossible without an engine. For three, four or five hours we beat back and forth trying to get at least to Lincolnville, to no avail. One day it took three hours to get to Flat Island, about a mile from the mooring, when we decided it was getting too late and too dark to continue and turned around. Cursing the wind appeared to have no discernible affect. It took less than 40 minutes to make it back to the mooring.

The wind conditions are perfect-if you want to go to Castine. I want to go south to Rockland and at least visit my $1,200 mooring.

All I can think of is Ulysses trying to make it home from the Trojan War, cursing the winds. It is the sailing version of being stuck in the bottom of a well with no way out.

I have actually considered getting in the inflatable boat with its massive two-horse Honda engine and towing the damn sailboat to Rockland. I wonder if that would work?

Now that summer has unofficially passed, the goal of operating out of a Rockland base for island trips appears to be just another pipe dream.

Rockland offers dinner at Conte’s, cocktails on the motor vessel Monhegan, plus a half-dozen decent restaurants. Most importantly, it has the breakwater and an opportunity to get your head and sails together before heading out to the bay.

Bayside has whitecaps virtually up to the mooring, making every trip an adventure. Bayside has very cute cottages, but no restaurants or bars. All it has is the hospitality of Bayside’s unofficial mayor, Drexel White.

Each summer, fewer and fewer things work on the boat. Each adventure at boat yards leaves us worse than when we started. The very highest priority this winter (I hate to even say the word) will be to get the engine squared away, to the point it will run for at least 15 minutes before it overheats. Maybe we could even fix the running lights and the depth finder. This is a lot to ask.

One thing we will not do: divide the amount of money spent, including the mooring cost and boat yard fees, by the number of sailing trips. I just don’t want to know that number.

Maybe it’s time to look at motorboats.

Naaaaaaaah.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmears@msn.com.