August 20 and 21 -- Belfast to Rockport to Harbor Island, 19 and 18 Miles

The first passage, to Rockport was rather boring—no wind, though I did run out the Genoa, twice, hoping for a bit. It was an ambulance run. Witty was ailing. What he needed was one of those subcutaneous fluid shots. We got an employee of Rockport Marine to drive us to the vet and the regular taxi service was less busy later in the day to drive us back. During the ride to and from the vet’s office, we finally got to see a bit of Rockport beyond a one block radius of the waterfront. But we declined the fine dining in favor of Lene’s delicacies. Dr. Edelbaum was very professional, friendly, successful and inexpensive and the Whitster now has a chance to use another of his nine lives.

But the next day was a fun passage to Harbor Island. We hoisted main and Genoa in Rockport Harbor, feeling some puffs from the port side as we headed south. But the wind was insufficient and we motored for the first hour at 6.5 knots, the sails doing nothing. Ah, but then we were able to turn off the engine and sail all the way to Harbor Island. We had the wind to port and it got to be a very broad reach as we reached the turn to the west in the narrow straight between Davis and Benner Islands. At this turn the excitement, though it was done rather well with Lene steering as i handled the sails. We gybed and left Penobscot Bay for Muscongus Bay with a very broad starboard reach up Muscongus Bay to the anchorage. I even tried wing on wing for a while, but the need to avoid a shoal area spoiled that. We had the tide with us all the way, south, west and then north, and we had the luxury to go slow, as slow as 3.2 knots for a while. We completed the passage between 9:15 to 2 pm. Yes, there are lobster traps everywhere in Maine but the infestation is not as great here as in the eastern Penobscot and the Mount Desert regions – and the floats are rarely toggled outside of those regions.

The anchorage at Harbor Island is actually the space between that island (to the right) and nearby Hall Island to the left. It is guarded by massive shoals to the south, only a bit of which are above water at high tide as here.

and hence protected except from Northern winds. The problem is that the area near Harbor Island is shallow, with ledges, a bit showing here.

So the anchor must be set seemingly dangerously close to the Hall Island shore,

though we had no problems on our second anchor drop With a lot of rain (but not wind) forecast for the next day, we were in 24 feet of water at low with 100 feet of snubbed chain and planned for a lay day. We were the only boat in the cove when we arrived, reminiscent of Nova Scotia,

but two other sailboats pulled in while we hiked on Harbor Island (the only humans on the rock) after dinking to the beach. It is a private island owned by the Lev Davis family, but they welcome boaters asking only for decent behavior regarding garbage, fires and pets. We went over to Harbor Islands west shore where Lene st on a rock while i explored a bit. She is seen only slightly but the sun on the water looks great.

Interesting rock formations on the beach; God is an artist. These layers are not horizontal, as you might expect, but rise vertically toward the sky! /the last of these has my shoe in it to give a sense of its size.