Day 58, August 14 -- Somesville to Buck's Harbor -- 27NM

Twenty seven miles today -- five and a quarter hours. No wind at the start and them from the SW, in our faces. We exited Somes Sound and the Western Way. I saw small dolphins and then I saw that one lobster float was moving! No, not a lobster float but the head of a seal! I swerved to avoid him and he dove to avoid me. No contact, no foul. We transited the channel that crosses the bar off Bass Light.

It seems so narrow until you get there and have sailed over it before. Fifteen feet is plenty of water if you stay in the channel which is straight and marked by a red and white at each end. Go close to the near one and then get your course over ground to go to the other -- piece of cake. Then we crossed Blue Hill Bay where this windjammer was going the other way behind a rock ledge.

We transited Casco Passage, another slot that looks narrow until you get there but is wider than it seems on the chart and well marked. As we got near Eggemoggin Reach, one of about three major wide passages connecting the Mt. Desert area with the  Penobscot Bay area, our course was NW and the wind was sailable.

Out came the Genoa and with changes in wind and in our direction while dodging lobster traps, we made anywhere from 7.4 to 3.5 knots. We had no rush so the 3.5 was pleasant. And once into the Reach, no more traps. I wondered why: (A) by law, (B)  the lobsterman don't want to go so far from their docks or (C) the lobsters don't like living in the Reach. The Marina said the answer is "C".

Elsewhere in Maine's waters the lobster floats are so thick that they preclude use of automatic pilot and require constant mental exertion. It is just a straining experience. Hmm... three floats: Is the fourth, the second one of the second pair but missing or drawn under water, or is it a pair and a single? And which two comprise the pair? A question that is made more problematic by the fact that the lobstermen generally do not paint both floats of the pair the same color. You have to dodge, but which way? If the current is flowing from port to starboard, you better dodge to starboard because in going the other way, the current will drag you back into the traps. It is a puzzlement. But lobstering is a huge part of the economy of Maine.

Here in Buck's Harbor, Lene noticed it first --  another boat came past and took the mooring next to us: "Stern looks familiar. Windows, same. Double forestay solent rig. It is another Saga 43!" she said, and she was correct. Bill and Marilyn aboard "Loon", three years younger than ILENE, up from Oxford, Maryland.

Loon has been across the pond and back, serious open ocean passage making. We dinked the hundred feet over to Loon and got acquainted with her people. He is an attorney and she a feline geneticist for the NIH, studying diseases in cats to learn more about them in humans. Nice interesting people. She is a cat lover and was interested in our crew.

Then, I'm in the outdoor shower, lathering my body but my head stuck out above the privacy enclosure.I hear "Roger!" Its Ken, from the Harlem YC. He and Camille now keep their 30 foot Nonesuch, "No News" in Maine and drive back and forth to NYC.Sadly, even though we are both on vacation, our "schedules" prevented us from getting together; wait til the Going Out of Commission dinner at the Harlem in October.

This was our third visit in Buck's Harbor and again we ate at the excellent little restaurant behind the market and were not disappointed. We have been disappointed in the wifi and cell phone service in Maine so far. It was better in Nova Scotia. Pretty harbor, this its western half in the evening calm.