August 7 -- Cutler Harbor to Eastport

After coffee, but before our blueberry-peanut butter-maple syrup porridge, we motored out of Cutler at 7 am, shortly after low tide. We noticed a big round rock in the passage.  I said to Bennett:  “Wow! I didn’t know that was there; we were lucky not to have hit it coming in yesterday.” As we passed it we saw and smelled that it was not a rock at all but, alas, the above-water part of a huge dead whale that had washed in during the night.  

The early part of the passage took us past the entire west coast of Grand Manan Island, Canada, about ten miles long and about ten miles from us, off the coast of Maine with a flat mesa top, next photo. The day was bright and sunny, but unlike the prior four days, there was virtually no wind. Our main was up but it did no good. Dividing the thirty miles we had to go by the five hours of good tide left to us, meant a speed of six knots and we were making that speed without too many RPMs on the engine. And as the tide built, we slowed down the rpms further and found that we were being carried along by three knots of current. Here is what three knots of current looks like in a flat sea.

Witty is serenely enjoying the ride on the Bimini top, but unimpressed with the beauty of the rugged granite and pine rimmed Maine coast.

We passed West Quody (stack of checkers) Light

and continued NE past the east side of Campobello Island,








 including this fish weir,

before rounding the northeast tip of Campobello marked by Head Harbor Light or East Quody Light, with its distinctive red cross,

and turning to the SW toward Eastport along Campobello's west coast. We saw some whale watching boats and then suddenly-- a whale, a live one this time, or about 30 feet of the back of this gigantic majestic creature. Later several schools of porpoises or dolphins swam by.
Yesterday, after the local marina had told Lene that they had no available rental moorings, but only dock space at $2/foot, they called back a few minutes later and told her to call Bob at the Chowder House. Here is the Chowder House from our boat -- at high tide.Notice the FUEL sign to the left.  Same at low tide:

Bob offered us his big yellow mooring  --  free of charge. He would want to sell fuel to us but we do not need any. We did eat lunch at his Chowder House (oysters and lobster roll) and dinner too: two 1 ¼ pound soft shell lobsters with cole slaw and fries -- only $19.95! Lene brought her second lobster back in a kitty bag – they liked it. Bob offers showers for fifty cents in coin. And in talking with us, offered us the use of his car to go to the IGA to replenish our food supply.

We declined, walked into and about the town for a while, saw this fisherman statue,

and after shopping, got a ride home from Dana. Everyone in this town knows everyone else.

Two interesting things about Eastport: First, maybe because it is so far east, cell phone service is not from Verizon or AT&T, but by a local company called "Rogers" (no relation). Hence use of US cellular providers is with roaming charges. Associated with this is that while we are still in Eastern Time, our computers and cell phones say it is an hour later like in Canada!

Second is the ferrys. They are flat barges with bow and stern like the LSTs of WWII: they are raised to form a flat bow while underway, but lower down to provide a drive platform for people or cars to walk between beach and ferry once the tug drives the barge onto the beach. And they have a small dedicated tugboat, attached by a bowsprit to a pivot point  sticking out amidships on one side of the barge. There is also a red line on each end of the barge, on the side where the tug is attached. When the tug has pulled the barge off the beach (very near our mooring) the deck hand releases the red line attached from the barge to tug's quarter, the tug pivots on its bowsprit to present its other side to the barge whereupon the deck hand secures the other red line to its quarter on that side.

And in the morning, sunrise over Campobello: