August 15 -- Manset, Mt. Desert Island to Buckle Harbor

A bright cheery sunny but cool day with about 15 knots from the west. Our Hinckley mechanic, Robin, heard our story and said it was the fuel filters. He would have replaced both but in view of the fact that Bennet and I had replaced the Yanmar filter in Eastport, we changed only the Racor. Some call the Racor primary, because the fuel flows through it first; others call the Racor filter secondary, because is only an auxiliary or secondary piece of equipment. Confusing terminology, right? Robin gave us Hinckley’s view that the installed Racor filter, set to catch particles larger than two microns, is too fine a filter and gets clogged too easily and should be replaced with a model that lets particles through smaller than 30 microns. “The engine can handle them”, he said. We did this and time will tell whether Hinckley is correct.

After replacement we took her for a spin and the vibration problem and lack of power (only three knots at 2500 rpms) were demonstrated, though the engine neither stuttered nor shut down. “Maybe something is caught on your prop,” Robin said. A $hort haul-out to in$pect the prop and $haft was $uggested. But this could not be done until the tide came back in, at 3 pm. So I donned the wetsuit we had purchased for just such a purpose in the cold Maine waters before our first trip here in 2002.

The only thing mysteriously missing was the mask, but Lene had a pair of old swimming goggles, except the plastic strap holding the two eye coverings had broken so I tied them together. I also wore Selwyn’s diving belt of lead weights (not in the photo) to counterbalance the body’s natural buoyancy. In this getup, the water was not as cold as I had feared. There was nothing caught on the prop or rudder other than a small amount of seaweed on the rudder, which I pulled off. The knife did not get its chance to be used. Lene and I emptied the aft compartment, the guest stateroom/storage closet, to remove its panels under which the engine is bedded. The objective was to look and listen for vibration of the shaft. But then Robin and his boss returned and they did the looking and listening, first on the mooring, and once we slipped the mooring, during a second test run. A miracle: no material vibration and lots of power. I do not know why or how this happened or whether it will last but the problem is resolved.

We took on 22.7 gallons of diesel at 2264 engine hours, settled our bill (considerably more gentle than I had feared), and after lunch took off.
We viewed a “one design” race taking place in the harbor.

Because all of the boats are identical there is no need to handicap them. We then sailed south, through the Western Way for the last time this summer, and trhen west through Bass Narrows, across Blue Hill Bay and into Buckle Harbor from 1:30 to 4:45 - about 12 miles. Beating through the accursed toggled lobster pots against the tide, but the sun was shining and we had a great sail, without the engine. When I had visited Bass Head Light during our time in Bass Harbor, I noticed that sailboats were crossing near but not ”in” the channel. So I looked at the chart and while the channel is dredged to 22 feet, the surrounding water is no shallower than ten feet at low tide. So this “straight and narrow” guy did not sail in the channel, but crossed it on the diagonal, close hauled.

Buckle is another lovely natural with no houses, stores, etc. But there were lots of biting insects. ILENE‘s cabin is fully screened but humans and felines like to go in and out sometimes, which requires opening the café doors. People have said that Maine's bugs are particularly intense this summer so we may give Buckle another chance on a future cruise. Entrance to Buckle with Mt. Desert Is. mountains still in view and some of our neighbors.

It is a popular spot and there are about half a dozen boats here on their anchors but with lots of swinging room. So we finally did get to Buckle for the first time, after all.