August 10 to 13 -- Eastport to Cross Island, to Mistake Island and Back to Bar Harbor for a Lay Day

Going to Eastport we were said to be going “Down East”; so the return trip, the subject of this post, should be called “Up West”. For us, it was three passages in sunny but cold weather, mostly with wind and on a beat.

The first day we had a leisurely morning waiting for the earliest time to leave without strong adverse tide – 12:30 pm. The engine stopped within minutes of motoring away from Bob's mooring so we put up the main quickly and later tried the engine again. It ran perfectly the next three days.  Rounding East Quody Light, our furthest point, but only 389 nautical miles from our mooring at City Island – as the crow flies (but the boat can't go across land like that) I had the mixed feeling that from now on it was all homeward bound.
We had considered a 55 mile day to Mistake Island, to divide the mileage back to Bar Harbor into two legs rather than three, in order to get another day with Bennett -- to show him Frenchboro on Long Island. But as we beat back and forth in Grand Manan Channel to get southwest [Correction: Grand Manan is 21 miles long, not ten, as previously misrepresented.] it became clear that such an ambitious sail was not possible. It would have meant a night arrival in a new harbor. I should have known that coming home would be harder than going out: the prevailing winds, those that brought us down east so comfortably, are southwesterlies, and hence less friendly on the return trip. And this is true not just in Maine, but all the way home to City Island as well. More beating is in our future.

So we went to Cross Island, only about 25 miles (five miles further than Cutler) also a new harbor for us. We had quite a bit of heeling in 20 knots of apparent wind, using full main and small jib. Lene remained below and the rest of the crew are beat by the beating.

There were several periods, each lasting up to fifteen minutes, during which a very chilling frigid wind confronted us, amid the relatively warmer winds the rest of the time. We anchored in 12 feet of water at low tide with 60 feet of snubbed chain out, in a natural harbor formed to the southeast side of Cross Island by its nearby suburb, Mink Island.

There is room for a lot of boats here but we were the only one. The power of solitude struck me. 





The massed 1000 foot tall antennae on adjacent Cutler peninsula created an eerie feeling.

Next morning Bennett and I went exploring by dink, about two miles around the northeast corner of Cross Island, using InavX to avoid rocks. The Cross Island beach at which we landed, called Northwest Harbor, was not as nearly as grand as that of Roque Island, nor sandy. It consisted of pebbles, as in Nice, except without the warm sunlight and bikini clad women. In fact we saw no one at all. We walked up the side of a brook and then entered the forest primeval. Though these islands are built on rocks we could not find a firm place to set foot on, so covered with decayed wood, leaves, pine needles and moss is the ground. Except for two soft drink cans that we brought back to the boat for proper disposal, the woods were seemingly never visited by humans -- lots of mosquitoes but no humans. I picked up a beautiful white semi-eroded rock from the beach.

Once in it, you can't see the forest for the trees.

How perfect is this spider web.

Bennett in a rare patch of sun, and also in that patch, many new trees. His pant's rolled to keep them dry during boarding and disembarking from the dink on the beach.

We left Cross after lunch in the perpetual but unsuccessful quest for fair tide; later I verified that my calculations were correct, but we did not get the tide we sought and expected. It was 15 miles from Cross to Mistake. After 3.5 hours of beating, we still had nine miles to go so we gave up on sailing and motored into the diminishing wind. Part of the reason for this slowness was that in anticipation of strong winds we had used the small jib and reefed the main. And this was not a mistake given about 22 knots of apparent wind most of the way and the fact that we were heeled at about 25 degrees. Once we got into the natural shallow harbor created by Mistake Island to the east and a bunch of rocks to the west, the wind picked up strongly.
We had a scare. We had put down the anchor but it had not grabbed the bottom and we were dragging toward the rocks. I yelled to Lene to come up and hold the wheel so I could investigate the eddies swirling around us. Yes, we were dragging, and much too close to the lee shore in shallow water. I yelled to Bennett to raise the anchor and gunned the engine away from the rocks into the swirling waves and wind off our bow. The float of a lobster pot got caught by the anchor chain and was stuck on the anchor, about a eighteen inches below the level of the deck, on our bow, as we dragged its trap along the bottom. I was able to kick it off. In our second attempt, our anchor held, in the strong wind, with 100 feet of chain out in 18 feet of water at low tide. I checked it many times during the remaining daylight hours: the position of a lobster pot off our port beam relative to a particular rock on the shore was not changing -- so we were not moving.Whew! Sunset at Mistake Island.

After dark, things quieted down. In the morning we considered several very nearby harbors that would have been better choices for our stay. We did not go ashore at Mistake but noticed a tent on one of the big rocks, and the kayaks that had brought it and its inhabitants there.
The third day was not as cold, only three layers of clothing. And with lighter winds and full sails we were able to point close to our destinations, first Petit Manan, then Schoodic Point and finally in a more northerly direction up Frenchmans Bay to Bar Harbor, a total of 35 miles. We left before seven to catch a bit of weak favorable tide until nine and favorable again going north in Frenchmans Bay. During the middle segment the wind got too light and we motor sailed, but the end of the trip was great fun because the western wind was closer to our beam and we made speeds of more than seven knots, the only obstacle being the lobster pots which were much less prevalent down east.
Bennett treated us to a delicious dinner at the Reading Room restaurant at the posh Bar Harbor Inn. This photo overlooks the anchorage from the dining room's window. The red clouds are east and reflecting the redness of the sunset to the west

The fourth day was for chores and we said farewell to Bennett, who has been a big help and a lot of fun these past nine days. It turns out that everything we needed was within one block of the others, about half a mile from our landing: the Hannafords supermarket, the laundromat, the propane refill place, the Ace Hardware store (new top for the percolator, to replace the plastic piece which had been held on with duck tape), gas station for dinghy fuel, and Jordans, renowned for their breakfasts. I made three round trips, the last to bring back Hannaford's shopping cart.
I fear that I unjustly insulted Bar Harbor by referring to it as honky-tonk. It is that, but is is also a retreat for old, new and little money and is filled with outdoor activities. Many companies offer sea kayak rentals and schools, bicycle rentals and tours, hiking guides, rock climbing activities, horse drawn carraige rides in Acadia, trolley tours of the historic and natural sights and boat tours: to watch whales, see lighthouses, sail, act like a lobsterman for a day, see puffins, fish, sit on a big four masted schooner, etc. A bustling town.