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.