July 27 and 28 -- Blue Hill to Sawyer Cove to Bass Harbor

The dinghy had a lot of water in it this morning but I was able to lift it enough, hanging from the davit bar, that most of the water was able to drain out of the aft drain hole. Then raised and secured it. We had a lazy morning, with not very far to go and I spent some time figuring out a few nice spots for the next week before our big trip to Eastport. Ilene did not like the writeups of the harbors on Isle au Haut, that I proposed, so we have crossed them off our list.  The Moonrakers had told us not to miss Mistake Island, while "down east". We have been to Mustique but I had not heard of Mistake. The book gives it very good grades so perhaps on the way up or back from Eastport we will stop there instead of Roque, which is nearby.

We left Blue Hill (a Parthian shot of the hill and the YC mooring field where were moored in the foreground)

at 11: 30, headed for Sawyers Cove on the west coast of MDI. The distance was 10.3 miles which took us three hours. We were not in any hurry, the weather was nice sunny and warm, so we unfurled the genoa only, as soon as clear of the harbor. We enjoyed speeds of 7.1 to 1.8 knots depending on the winds which came very slow but at other times, sustained at 16 knots.  The winds were from the west giving beamy starboard reaches heading south. But we needed several jibes once we made the left turn. Without engine and with only the genoa this was the challenge: keeping up enough boat speed while furling our only sail, turning and running it out again. Good practice for solo racing.
Our course marked the completion of the circumnavigation of Long Island, the one in Blue Hill Bay, 4.4 miles long. We had passed east of it when heading north to Union River Bay with Mendy in the rain, north of it when heading west to Blue Hill, and today headed south and then east we passed its west and south sides to close the circle.

Sawyers Cove is a niche with about three houses on its shores, about five mooring balls, two small moored sailboats on two of them and a moored rowboat – and us.

We arrived before 3, expecting the possibility of company. But no one else came in. A quiet afternoon and evening. We thought to lower the dink and explore this cove, but no -- we are getting so lazy. Sunset over Long Island.

Next day we motorsailed to the Morris Yacht Company mooring field in the outer harbor of Bass Harbor, at the SW corner of MDI. Morris makes very beautiful yachts. It plotted as eight miles. Extreme dense fog delayed our start till 11 am. We could not even see the mooring ball in the photo above. and by 11 the tide was running north against us and the wind gave us a starboard beat, with one tack to the harbor entrance. I used main and small jib; we made about four knots, on average. But it rained, steadily. Even with foulies, I got quite chilled.

The zipper that closes the top of the Doyle stack pack (the blue cover which encloses the mainsail when it is down)  tore. I caused this by using the electric winch to haul up the mainsail before fully opening the zipper, causing the leech of that sail to jam against  and break the zipper. It is irreparable so we will have to get a new zipper installed -- a sturdier replacement. The problem is that the whole sail, enclosed in the bag,  has to be stripped from the boat, taken from the boat, picked up by the sailmaker and then remounted when repaired, which are big jobs. In the meantime, the sail is safe and can be secured by lines, but the kitties will not have their favorite perch.  And, we will have only the use of our headsails while it is being repaired.
We plan to take hikes here, visit the history museum, the lighthouse and the nature trail. But for now these plans are on hold, rain checked. Bass Harbor is almost exclusively lobster boats. It is a new harbor for us as was Sawyer Cove. We did get ashore for dinner at the only real restaurant in town, The Seafood Ketch, a warm and friendly place with lots of cheerful help. We were seated next to two elegantly dressed older ladies, (well everyone is well dressed compared to us) who live here in the summer and come from the Upper West side of Manhattan and from Pelham, near City Island.

We have made some plans: They include several harbors on Swan Island and then, on August 3, Lene’s friend, Simone and her friend, Todd, will meet us in Northeast Harbor and we will do a day sail with them, weather permitting. August 4, we will sail from Northeast Harbor to Bar Harbor to meet Bennett, who will fly/ drive there to accompany us from there to Eastport and back during the period August 5 – 13. From then on it is all a matter of heading back to New York, very gradually, this time, outside of Cape Cod Bay, via Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.

July 24 -- 26 -- Carrying Place Cove to (and in) Blue Hill Harbor

This morning was sunshiny so we were able to get a picture of Perry Long’s Lobster Shack, in Carrying Place Cove from our mooring. Thanks again Perry!

And here is the view from there of the western coast of Union River Bay, lined with homes, one of which is Barbara’s. The houses are not at the top of the tree line, but at the water's edge.

We were underway for about 3.5 hours to cover the six miles from here to the Kollegewidgwok Yacht Club, just inside the twisting entrance to Blue Hill Harbor. The Harbor is located in the northwest corner of Blue Hill Bay.  The course was again “U” shaped. Any guess as to why the six miles took 3.5 hours?  Well the first half, heading south in Union River Bay was a beat against an incoming tide. When we beat, we can sail at 45 degrees from the wind, meaning that each tack puts us on a course that is 90 degrees from the last. But with the boat sliding back a bit in normal conditions and with the incoming tide pushing us back a lot more, the pleats of the accordion, as shown by our track on the chart plotter, were much more acute than 90 degree angles. In the picture below, the thin horizontal blue line that runs all the way to the left is Union River Bay, two miles wide at the wide spot in the left half of the picture and we beat to the end of Newbery Neck, the point of land pointing right at the right side, before turning right, coming off the wind and heading toward the right side into Blue Hill Bay. This photo is from the top of Blue Hill and in its left side is Cadillac Mountain. They call the tops of these mountains "summits" rather than "peaks", because they have rather flat tops.

Any guess as to how to pronounce this Club’s name? On the radio they just say “Yacht Club”; it’s easier that way.  Actually, it’s: college, like the post secondary school, widg as in widget and wok like the Asian frying pan, with none of the four syllables accented more than the others. Some say this is Native American for “Where the mountain meets the water”. We were here in 2008. 

The club charges $30 for a mooring and has no restaurant, showers or TV. It does have internet, provides launch service until 6 pm, and accepts cash or checks only. They have a very active youth sailing instruction program and sell gas and diesel. I want to fill up on diesel just before we leave for Eastport. The people here are very friendly.  Each Thursday Night they have a pot luck dinner for up to 100 people from their 250 members, some of whom do not have boats. They have no winter storage facilities. They have five launch operator/dock staff and an equal number of sailing instructors for the youth program. A busy place for the duration of their brief six week season. Today we dried our stuff and cleaned and rested. Home cooked food tonight by Chef Roger.

To get to town it is a 1.5 mile walk, a hitch hike or a dinghy ride -- no taxis here. The problem with the dinghy ride is that one must arrive and leave the town dock within three hours either side of high tide because at low tide the dink sits at the dock but on the mud; so if you miss your return, you have to wait another six hours.

On the day after our arrival we went ashore on the incoming high, shortly after 10:30 am with the knowledge that we had to get back before 4:30, to be sure of sufficient water. On other days when the tides have different times, one can stay ashore as long as 18 hours by coming in on one high and leaving on the next, but this day the daytime high was at 1:30 pm.

We had thought to hook up with Donna and Bill, of  Moonraker, who we met at Valley Cove for grocery shopping; they have the use of a friend’s car here. But we found a market right near the dinghy dock which had all we needed and which agreed to hold our purchases for us. We called Donna and thanked them for their offer, which was not needed. Then we hiked to the top of Blue Hill, 938 feet above where we started – sea level. This hill is almost three times as high as Flying Mountain, but only 60 percent as high as Cadillac. Why do we climb these hills? One could answer: “Because they are there”. But part of the answer is also because there is very little else there. We had climbed this hill in 2008 and then, less familiar with the geography of this region, I had not realized its central location. From here, it being a clear day,  we saw the Penobscot Bay region and Camden Hill to the east in the background, and the hill on Isle au Haut, to the south, but too faint to be recorded on film.

 ILENE is one of the dots in the Club's mooring field, near the entrance from the larger Blue Hill Bay:

The other end of the harbor is cradled by the town.

The hike begins in town and is about 1.5 miles uphill on roads to reach the base for the one mile climb. There are stone steps and the hike is rugged but not a rock scramble. We saw this wildlife on the way down.

Back down at the base I suggested to Lene, whose hip was getting stiff, that we hitch hike back to town. A nice young couple from Bangor gave us a ride.

We had lunch at a wonderful breakfast and lunch place in town called The Mill Stream Deli, Bakery and Barbecue.  The sign continues, "Local love -- be a part of it." They bake their own breads rolls and cookies and smoke their own meats. You place your order with Pop at the counter and Mom brings it to you. I love finding these delicious gems. There we met a musician, from Texas, via Yale, and his mom and his cousin, a marine biologist at Brown who specializes in jelly fish. He works summers at the Stonington Opera House.

While dinking back to the boat we cut the outboard engine when a school of three seals frolicked in the water in front of us. After resting up, we dinked back to the Club with our dinner and got a ride back to town with the launch operator, “Wish”, who was coming off duty.  After dining on a park bench shown below, we enjoyed theater. The New Surrey Theater Group presented “The Music Man” in the hall above the Town Hall.

The cast was large and enthusiastic, with six musicians as the band. One of the four barbershop quartet had become ill, so they were a barbershop trio. The audience had many family members of the cast and crew. This small town had fun putting on this musical. It sort of reminded me of High School musicals when my daughters were that age. There were a few good voices but the people of Blue Hill, Maine, like those of River City, Iowa of 101 years ago, are not professional actors, just sincere citizens. Thus their amateurishness added to the authenticity of the experience. The grandparents of two of the participants, Bud and Arlene, who live in Florida in the winters, gave us a ride back to the YC.

Our last day here it rained all day, as predicted. Not having to get anywhere, we just hung out, except for a trip to the Clubhouse to use their wifi to post this blog. Breakfast, however, was a treat. Bill and Donna

came over from Moonraker and gave me another opportunity to make (and eat) blueberry pancakes.

A quiet day, reading  and home cooked dinner.

July 23 -- Valley Cove in Somes Sound to Carrying Place Cove, Surrey

Underway from 8 to 1, on all points of sail and winds from 15 to zero knots with all different sail configurations, dressed in very heavy duty foulies, a gift from Eve Feinstein, widow of Selwyn Feinstein. These are excellent and have a bottom opening fly zipper in the trousers so one can micturate without getting completely undressed.  The rain varied from almost none to near torrential. We made speeds of up to eight knots without the engine when the wind and current were right, and used the engine to supplement our speed when it dropped below five knots. About 26 miles in a "U" shaped course, south, west and then north. it would have been a beautiful sail past wooded rock islands if the sun had been shining.

Mendy came out dressed to work (except you cant see his sea boots in this shot) and helped me until about two hours before the end, when he got cold and I sent him below to warm up.

How did we get to Carrying Place Cove, a place not mentioned as an anchorage in any of the cruising guides? It's a long story.

Our first proposed destination was to anchor off the east shore of Union River Bay, in front of Barbara's house there and dink in and land on her beach, to enjoy a home cooked meal at her beach front summer home. Using Google Earth, with her street address, we got the Lat and Log of her house and put it in as a waypoint. But that proved a bad choice of anchorage for two reasons. First, the chart showed a rather narrow shelf of land with 30 feet of water at low tide, bordered by less than six feet on one side and 60 on the other. So putting out 100 feet of chain on the anchor ran the risk of getting stuck on the rocks if the wind blew us toward the shore, and drifting away if the wind dragged our anchor off the ledge. When we got there, by car, another problem emerged. If we had dinked in at low tide and secured the dink to the bottom, we would have had to wade/swim out at night to get to it at high tide, when it would be afloat. Or if we arrived at high tide and wanted to leave at low, we would have had to carry the dink across 40 yards of a flat of slippery seaweed covered small rocks to get it to the water.

Where else could we stay, nearby? Well the cruising guide said that Patten Bay, which includes the town of Surrey at its head, had a decent anchorage at 9 to 15 feet at low tide and gave the phone number of a local establishment. So there must be some way for visiting sailors to get ashore there. But several phone calls established that this town dock has very little water at low, and it being a full moon, the low would be very low. The dink would he sitting in the mud at low and we could have to wait there several hours in foggy cold weather. This would be a ten mile drive each way for Barbara to pick us up and bring us back.

Her other dinner guests included two neighbors who are sailors and their wives, from New Hampshire, and her daughter and granddaughter, who drove up from NY today. One of the men suggested Carrying Place Cove, in the town of Surrey, on the opposite western side of Union River Bay, two miles across the water, but fifteen miles each way for Barbara to drive. There is a lobster pound there, he said. Its proprietor let us use his mooring, only 30 yards from his floating dock. No charge!

Excitement toward the end of the journey, however: Ilene has been nicking herself with the small sharp kitchen knives, but this time she sliced off about a bit of the end of her left ring finger! Between 1/16 and 2/16". While making lunch. No arterial spurting but Barbara drove us to her local excellent new hospital in Ellsworth, where it received medical attention. And Lene is to do no work with her left hand for the next few days, so nurse Roger gets a chance to help her. And she is forbidden to use knives until she takes a knife safety training course, Captain's orders!

The dinner party was excellent both regarding the food and wine and the conversation. Barbara uses small flat irregular pieces of slate rock picked up from the beach, each with a guests name written on it, as place cards, a delightful decorating touch, listening Martha Stewart? And during the afternoon I got yesterday's blog out, did a small load of laundry, and took a shower. No showering for Lene for a few days. Also, during the afternoon Mendy expressed the wish to go back to Brooklyn, and because Barbara is driving to Bangor to pick up her sister next day, she volunteered to drop him there for a bus to Boston, his first leg home. Lots of phone calls established the times of the bus, railroad and their costs and reservations made. So when Barbara drove us the dink, Mendy got his things and returned in her car to sleep at her place. We will miss Mendy's inquiring mind and helpful attitude. He will be back in Israel by the time we get back to New York.
We hope to hook up with Barbara and her guests for a day sail in a few days.

July 21 and 22 -- Somes Sound

Backed out of the slip easily with no help needed, due to no wind or current and high tide. This was at about 10:30 for the 1.5 hour motor trip out of SW Harbor and north up the length of Somes Sound to Somes Harbor at Somesville, in the Sound’s NW corner -- about six miles. I took the shortcut behind Greening Island. I was not brave enough to take it in 2008. The shallowest was 15 feet at low and it was plenty wide enough. On the way north we fought the ebbing tide but the wind was behind us, though not strongly. Mendy and I set the Genoa for a bit of push.

Once in the harbor, we asked Bill, on “Victory,” a 34 foot Siedelman sloop, about what moorings were vacant so we could take a free one. The cruising guide suggests this practice. There are no rental ones in this harbor and no one to collect the rent  --  and precious little anchoring room. He told us to take the neighboring one which we did -- Lene steering, Mendy grabbing the float with the boat hook and me merely observing. After we were secure and the dink lowered and lunch eaten, Mendy and I prepared to set off by dink and the free shuttle bus for Bar Harbor. I had to pick up my camera battery charger which I had accidentally left there in Saturday’s lunch spot. Bill was in his dink and I asked him where the bus stop was. Bill came over and said: ”Take my car, it is a Chevy Volt electric car.”  How likely would that happen at home. While in town I made some phone calls for Lene because neither AT&T nor Verizon provides service in our boat’s little niche, mailed my postcards, got some drill bits, and some groceries and oh yes, some ice cream, before dropping off Bill’s car, leaving the keys in the car as he had requested.

Later, we dinked back ashore and were met by Barbara for dinner at Red Sky,

a more upscale place in SW Harbor and then saw a delightful performance of “A Couple of Blaguards” by Frank and Malachy McCourt at the Acadia Repertory Theater in Somesville. Their bittersweet reminiscences about growing up poor in Limerick, Ireland and coming to America were brought to life by two talented actors. Alas, only 22 customers in the house.

In the morning, Mendy and I dinked ashore to revisit Bill and drop off a bottle of wine with our boat card attached. The Chevy Volt

is good for 40 miles on a charge and uses virtually no gasoline. You start it by pushing a button while depressing the brake. It is so quiet that I had to test it to determine whether it was really on. Bill was there and we talked for a while, but alas, not long enough for me to be able to tell you how that “good ole boy” ended up in Maine.

Later we retraced our wake two thirds of the way down Somes Sound to Valley Cove, a little nook on its east side, well protected from the expected southerly winds. We anchored in 34 feet of water at high tide with 100 feet of snubbed chain. LENE.

Mendy had the helm most of the way and I taught him how to lower and raise the anchor. After lunch, we dinked to the rocky shore and hiked to the top of Flying Mountain.

This mountain is only 350 feet high, compared to Cadillac, five times as high. But it directly commands The Great Harbor at the south end of the island.


We climbed it and got these shots of: the western peak of Cadillac Mountain (rocky outcrop center),

Great Harbor with NE Harbor.

 

We had done this hike in 2008 and did it again partly to get some exercise and to let Mendy use his muscles. Our other reason for the hike was to make phone calls from the top, having had no cell service in Somesville or Valley Cove.

Half an hour after we returned to the boat and had a late lunch (Mendy’s second lunch) we saw a dink coming toward us to say hello. It was, we learned, Bill and Donna, from “Moonraker”, who had anchored next to us before we took our hike. They are retired IT people from Annapolis who have lived aboard for more than a year. Moonraker is a Bayfield 40, a Gozzard design, 45 feet long with the huge bowsprit, a classic look. We shared some wine (alright, I drank more than half the bottle) and nibbles, toured our boat and then theirs, and talked about places we have both visited, such as the Bahamas and places that are new to us (on the Canadian jaunt) and to them (like certain ports in Casco Bay).  A very pleasant couple of hours and we hope to see them again in Blue Hill in a few days. Tomorrow is predicted as a day to test out our foul weather gear. Yes, into every cruise a little rain must fall.

July 20 -- Lay day on Mount Desert Island

Well we began the day with blueberry/mango pancakes (a Maine-Caribbean dish) and ended with blueberry pie. In  between we used the availability of Kenny's car to tour the island. In the morning we had a visit from the Marina's mechanic, who fixed the third burner of our propane Force 10 galley stove and its oven and broiler now work too. I helped and provided the tools. While open, we also cleaned grease away from the inside, where we cannot normally go. The bill for half an hour's work, an astonishingly low $32.50!
Our guests at the dock:

This was my first visit to the summit of Cadillac Mountain, the heart of Acadia National Park, given to the U.S. government by the Rockefeller family. This is the highest point, 1500 feet, which is very little compared to the Rocky Mountains but the highest Coastal elevation on the Atlantic. Its magnificent views put me in mind of why Isaiah, promising that the Lord would reward people for being good, said: "I will cause you to ride upon the high places of the earth."

There is a four hour hike to the top, and four back down unless you take the bus. We usually like to climb mountains, but this time, in high heat, we used the air conditioned car. Cadillac was the French explorer who later founded  the recently bankrupt Detroit, and after whom the luxury car is named. To the east, the summit overlooks Frenchman's Bay, including Schoodic Point, background right, around which we will head off for the Eastport trip.

and Bar Harbor, the white buildings on the near coast, and northern Frenchmans Bay:

The great harbor is the view to the south, including the Cranberrys: the two islands in the middle, with the one to the left being Little Cranberry, from which our last sunset shot was taken, looking toward here.

To the west is Blue Hill, which we will climb with Mendy. It is the peak in the haze above Kenny's head.

There is a paved 0.3 mile walking loop around the summit, paved with a concrete studded with bits of the pink granite that the mountain is made of, a portion of which is shown above.

Our other stop was a low spot: Bar Harbor, once a playground for one percenters and now overrun by tourists and souvenir shops. We lunched here in one of the rare restaurants that has air conditioning. It's Maine -- who needs air conditioning?!

Back to Southwest Harbor where we engaged in a successful quest to find a gym for Mendy, whose only regret about sailing with us is that it takes him from his gym. Barbara, who sailed with me and five others from City Island back in June, and who is putting Kenny up for the night because he slept poorly aboard, came by for some wine and cheese. We plan to anchor off her house which is on the NE side of this island, in a few days.

We all had diner at a unique SW Harbor eatery, the Quietside Ice Cream Shop, a storefront diner on Main Street,

 except the food is soooo good that it is always busy. (Lobster roll!) We visited in 2008 and hope to visit again. It is operated and owned by a lovely friendly black woman whose husband is retired military and whose daughters also served our nation. Pictures of them and herself with others line the walls. I mention her race only because, except for Portland, Maine is so overwhelmingly white. She has a lot of kids working there and the place has such a homey atmosphere. Not elegant ambiance but friendly and oh that blueberry pie!

Then farewell to Kenny who is driving back to New York tomorrow and a cool quiet night's sleep.

July 18 and 19 -- Frenchboro to Little Cranberry to Southwest Harbor

A slow start this morning because at first there was killer fog, also no wind and the tide did not turn favorable until the afternoon for this ten mile journey. We said hello to our neighbors, Joanne and Paul of “Jura” from Belfast, Maine, a 31 foot boat made to look old fashioned, the way some folks like ‘em - classy classics.  They had arrived a couple of hours before us yesterday, after an overnighter from Nova Scotia and the boat like ours, though smaller in length, is equipped for the sea. This is their first year with this boat, having sailed wooden boats until now. Paul asked me how I use my whisker pole; their boat came with one but they have not used it yet. The true answer that I gave was: “Little.”  But he dinked me over to give it a try. The boat is cutter rigged with a small yankee rolled up on the forward forestay and an unfooted staysail hanked on the inner forestay. We fooled around in zero wind and got it attached to the staysail, which required a releading of the yankee’s sheets. The pole is of fixed length, not variable, and would not work with the yankee. Next time they will try it with wind. They were heading for Isle de Haute, which is an island we have not yet visited.

I got to work, shining and waxing a bit of the starboard coach roof and its stainless. It amazes me how little of this project gets done in two hours. 

When I was finishing, three men in a dink from “Bluebird” out of Essex CT. came by. They had taken the mooring next to ours. One quipped: “We have lots more stainless for you to polish on our boat.” Another, George, recognized the Saga 43 and said that there was one at his Club. “Yes," I said, "Bob’s Pandora; we visited their home in June on our way here!” Bluebird had come in third in her class in a race from Maine to Nova Scotia. One man was a cat love who Lene and our kitties amused.

We got underway in the afternoon and jibed our way NNE to and through the entrance to the big bay at the south side of Mt. Desert Island, called The Western Way. This big bay off of which Southwest Harbor and Northeast Harbor are in those relative positions to each other within it and from which Somes Sound, America's fjord runs north almost cleaving the island, has two entrances. The more westerly entrance opens to the south and is called the Western Way while the other is an entrance from the east side, north of the Cranberry Islands, called the Eastern Way.

The wind was behind us but light, but tide was with us. We were wing on wing for about half an hour which was a challenge partly because we were very close to rocks on our port side and more significantly because this point of sail (with the wind directly behind and the genoa out on one side while the main is on the other to spread maximum canvas for the wind to push against)  requires you to steer a very straight course which it the opposite of a lobster pot dodging course. The trip was leisurely, about 3 hours for the ten miles. 

Our only prior visit to little Cranberry was in whiteout fog in 2008. That year we had a date for dinner at the Ilesford Dock Restaurant with folks from home who me met accidentally near here and who came by ferry. The restaurant let us stay all night at the dock for free– no one else was crazy enough to move their boat strictly on instruments in that fog. It was a truly memorable night an while the restaurant was good, its reputation in my mind, was impossible to live up to. Sunset from the restaurant.

Its owner said that so unlike the tourist laden Bar Harbor, at which cruise ships disgorge their hordes, Ilesford, the town on Little Cranberry Island, is mostly all winter or summer residents and cruising boats. They directed us to a free mooring owned by someone who was away.

We awoke to pea soup fog and spent the morning cleaning the boat's interior before motoring at noon the four miles to Dysart's Marina in Southwest Harbor in lightening fog, where we are staying two nights at a dock for the benefit of our guests. These are Lene's brother, Kenny, and his son, our nephew, Mendy. They drove ten hours from Brooklyn. During the afternoon I cleaned the exterior scrubbed the rugs, filled the starboard water tank and filled the water bottles while Lene did the laundry. 

Here we amidst big expensive power boats kept in immaculate condition. Bruce and Joan, of Hollywood, are our neighbors on "Spirit of Zopilote" across the dock from us.

We are the small fry in this place. We welcomed our guests, loaded their stuff aboard, used their car to reprovision  (we have been warned that Mendy, a body builder, is a "big eater"!) and dined at Fiddler's Green Restaurant. Back at the boat, a lightning storm, too far away to hear the thunder, entertained our guests. Kenny will be with us two days, leaving Mendy for a longer time. Mendy was with us several days during on the Club Cruise last August. Basically this was a work day.

A Mysterious Blog Event Occurred On July 17 and 18

Readership of this blog has never reached more than about 1500 page views per month, about 50 per day.
Until now.
On July 17 and 18 there were 4300 page views in about a day. The statistics tracker says they were from Germany and they ended as abruptly as they began. No feedback, just an inexplicable mountain on the graph.
Any ideas about how or why this could have happened?

July 17 - Stonington, Deer Is. to Frenchboro, Long Is.

Too much excitement today. After a leisurely breakfast a big beautiful three masted schooner, Victory Chimes

had pulled in next to us and anchored to take its passengers ashore for an hour. We had last seen her in the Eggermoggin Reach around labor day 2008. We raced her then, though she did not know it, and we won.

When we got ready and raised the anchor -- it came up only part way. We tried to unhook it from the bottom by using ILENE's motor, powering forward and then back, sort of like trying to rock your car out when stuck in the ice. No luck. This was a new experience for us. We needed a diver and made calls. Anson Bell agreed to try to help. I lowered the dink, went in to town to get him, watched him don his drysuit, all the while wondering how much this was going to cost us. He said his charge is based on the amount of air he has used from his tank. After his first dive he came up and said "You are caught on another bigger anchor and if you give me a piece of line and a float, this job will cost you nothing!"

It seems that the owner of the larger anchor would pay $1000 to get it back! A win win solution for all! I took him back after the anchor was up, while Lene circled on ILENE, rejoined her underway, rehoisted the dink and we were off.

But this time, after exiting the Thoroughfare but still amidst rocks, I drove us onto a lobster pot line. How do you know when this has happened? Well you slow to half speed and can see a line dragging from the back. So we tried to turn in a circle to shake it off our rudder, which was made difficult by the genoa, but eventually, after a few exciting minutes, it shook loose and we were on our way again.
But winds were light and we had a way to go so we raised the mainsail too and had up full sail. But later, for about a half  hour, out of nowhere, after which the wind died so we had to motor, we had 23 to 25 knots of wind on our beam, while dodging lobster pots. We were overpowered and heeling too much and my little anti-heeling tricks were not helping. So we furled the genoa. Then the wind subsided, so we put up the small jib. Then the wind died so we motored the last four miles.

Frenchtown is the only community on Long Island, which is not very long. It has 40 year round residents which doubles in the summer. So everyone knows everyone. No hotels and one deli. The deli maintains half a dozen moorings available to visiting boats -- for free!

The people who live here are lobstermen and their families. The town is built around a niche in the island, with a small island off from its mouth providing protection, like a natural seawall. The inner end of the bay dries at low tide. This is where the church, school and library are situated. Yes, they have a public library that used to be open 24/7 but some kids did a bit of vandalism and now they close at five. It is small, but on a books per capita basis, it is huge! They manager left the place open for us to lock up after ourselves when we left. The library has a good internet signal and I worked on the blog there. No airport either; you come on your own boat or this daily ferry.

I came here twice in 2008, once with Lene, and it is one of my favorite spots. They have trails in the woods. At home such a trail would be worn to dust by thousands of feet. Here the moss that you walk on is two inches thick!
And at some other parts of the trail, if you look to one side there is the conifer forest primeval while on the other the side the ocean is crashing on the rocks. But we are not hiking this time. ILENE is the last boat to the left, with the deli in the foreground. From the mooring, on a clear day, the mountain of Mt. Desert Island is in the background about 20 miles away.

July 16 -- Winter Harbor, Vinalhaven to Stonington, Deer island

Only about eight miles today, crossing the eastern half of Penobscot Bay, before entering, under motor, the Deer Island thoroughfare. It runs east west, like the Fox Island thoroughfare, but south of Deer Island. Stonington is on its north side. We anchored here, very close to town, outside the moored boats on one side and with the channel on the other, in 24 feet of water.

We sailed here with Genoa only, on a broad starboard reach, at speeds of about five knots or less in two hours and it was a fun sail, in warm sunny weather, the first in open waters without motor for quite a while. Except for the lobster pots that is. Lobstermen and pleasure boaters (mostly sailors up here) have to coexist. Here in this Mount Desert part of Maine, however, the lobstermen use two floats, one to hold up the line leading down to the big trap at the bottom and the other, called the toggle, as a pickup float, in case the first is dragged underwater by the strong rushing tidal currents. The problem then is to avoid passing between the two and thereby getting hung up on the connecting line. The pairs form these barriers, as much as fifteen yards wide. And you can't believe how thickly they are sown. Today, we were going east while the tide was running north so the tide both spread the pairs of floats out across our path and pushed us down onto them if we tried to pass to the right of them. So while we should be steering the boat and trimming the sails for the course we are on, and navigating, instead we are varying course to avoid the barriers and in doing so, depowering the sails.

We took outdoor showers in the cockpit, normal in the Caribbean but here it is often cooler.

Two days ago we were in Rockport and now Stonington. Get the picture? No, these towns were not named by Hanna–Barbara; Fred Flintstone does not live here. Rock quarrying was an important part of Maine’s economy.  I visited the Granite Museum, one room, filled with a model of the quarry, at the height of its operation, 103 years ago and lots of other information. The towers of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges and many other landmark buildings of that era are made of Deer Island granite. 2000 people, mostly immigrants from eastern and southern Europe worked here. At the docks the big blocks were loaded onto wooden boats for shipment to New York and elsewhere. Some of the boats that were lost at sea and memorialized in Provincetown and Portsmouth, were carrying stone. But concrete and steel did in the Granite industry. Now only four men work the quarry, part time, creating blocks that are sliced into kitchen counter tops.

Here is the Main Street.

 Stonington is now a lobster town (I had lobster quiche for dinner!) with lots of boats running in and out past us making waves and noise.
ILENE's mast is easily recognized, the only sailboat, surrounded by lobster boats. and a fifty more are moored to the right.

And they start at five am (like the party boats at Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn) a major problem warned the cruising guide. But not for us because our two felines wake us up then anyway. We had planned to attend a concert of Baroque music at the Stonington Opera House,

but the concert was in a church, four miles away, so we took a much shorter walk to a nearby lily pond

 and retired early. The lobstermen quit early and we had a very quiet evening and night. Cold though, in the low 60’s, while back home in NY, daytime highs are in the high 90s.

July 15 -- Rockport to Winter Harbor

I had to dink in to pay for the mooring this morning and saw these other great wooden boats. It seems that Rockport Marine specializes in the TLC of wooden boats, I saw two guys on one of them and hailed them. They said we don't own her, we only work on her. "What, it takes two guys to maintain one of these?” The reply: “More’n that!” And with the price of talented labor, my estimate is that it takes more per year to maintain one of these beauties than it did to buy one when they were new. And if someone drops a winch handle on that varnished brightwork, forget about it!

Lene got us underway while I was talking with Bryan from Headsync who sold and installed our Spectra Ventura water maker. A very well run organization. When I get stuck I call Bryan and he gives me the answer. And I write down the answers so I won’t have to call next time. Some of my friends are mechanical geniuses and can install their own and understand how they work. For me, a step by step checklist with all parts accurately named is needed for the watermaker. The bottom line is that restarting after winterizing is now easy and we made our first ten gallons today.
Passing one of those passenger schooners under full sail.

The trip east across Penobscot Bay, once we cleared the Rockport Light

, was easy but by motor, very little wind and too close to the bow.  We were able to put up the Genoa (the lazy man’s sail configuration) near the end of this six mile stretch and then crossed between North Haven and Vinalhaven, two large islands that fill in the eastern side of western Penobscot Bay via the Fox Island Thoroughfare. This well travelled well marked east-west passage is lined with homes, each with a boat in front, like this one.

It reminded Lene of the Intercoastal, except for rocks, height and pines instead of mangroves, low and sand.

The cruising guide said that it is a challenge to sail the entire seven plus miles of the Fox  Island Thoroughfare. Once in the thoroughfare the winds were diminished by the land and our course required us to sail with the wind off the starboard quarter, not our most favorable point of sail in light winds. And we were handicapped by having only one sail. But we made it, without the engine, though its availability as a safety device was comforting. We made speeds of 1.8 to 4.8 knots, mostly somewhere in the middle. Then we sailed south along the east coast of Vinalhaven to the mouth of Winter Harbor and motored in.

Winter Harbor is about two miles long and 100 yards wide, not a river but a narrow bay, beautifully unspoiled and serene

with no services, restaurants, and only two other boats and of course, lobster boats. We are on 70 feet of chain in 18 feet of water at high tide; as little as eight feet of water when low tide arrives. Here I am setting the snubber.

 At high tide the straight shot to our nearest neighbor, half a mile away, is water covered; only the tiny white tops of the rocks at the extreme right are above water. You have to pass to the right of those rocks, with the sand bar to the left.

 These cliffs are on our north side.  

There is nothing to do here but work on the boat, explore by dink,

play on the computer (except it is so remote that the internet can’t get to us), read and oh yeah, eat! I polished up the ship’s clock and remounted it. Not as shiny as I’d like, but good enough for now.

Winter Harbor is not a haven for lobsters, however. They are fair game everywhere. We saw our first lady lobsterman, or I suppose she should be called lobsterwoman or better yet for the cause of gender neutral language: lobster catcher.

I also plotted out our trip to Canada here. Actually we are not going to stop in Canada as such, and thereby will avoid two customs stops. Here is the planned logical route, up and back, starting in the other Winter Harbor, the one on Schoodic Point, on the eastern side of Frenchman Bay (which has Bar Harbor on its western shore). Roque Island (37.4 miles), Cutler (17.4 miles) and then (going around Campobello Island - -which is Canadian) Eastport (30.3 miles). No overnight passages; Lene is happy. We will plan for about eight to ten days for this to provide time for weather delays and to explore the nice spots. Some of these, like Winter Harbor, will not permit posting.