After several days of relative isolation in Pulpit and Seal Bay, we made the call to move directly to the Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island. We considered doing some meandering on the way with a couple of stops in between, but instead opted to push through in one quick trip, and maybe meander on the way back towards our jumping off point for home.
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| The Pot Infested Waters of Jericho Bay |
It was an easy and pleasant trip through lobster pot infested waters. This picture really doesn’t do them justice, and at one point we figured that the sheer number of pots in a certain no-wake zone in the Deer Island Thorofare were done more out of a perverse desire to passively enforce the speed limit rather than to actually catch lobsters. How could there be that many lobsters right in one spot? I have no idea how a catamaran could possibly navigate that particular stretch of water.
The trip involved crossing Jericho Bay and slipping through a couple of “thoroughfares” which are not nearly as congested as they sound. Except the lobster pots of course.
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| Deer Island Thoroughfare Light |
The sailing that day was light and mostly down wind, we tried to sail as much as possible through the worst of the lobster pot minefields but eventually we ran out of air. The reason for this is simple, not only is the sailing usually more fun and fuel efficient, but far more importantly nothing under the boat is moving. If I’ve going to run over a lobster pot I’d rather do it without wrapping any ropes around my propeller. So if we are sailing at least the propeller isn’t spinning up trying to suck pots into it.
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| Bass Harbor Light |
Maine has a number of scenic lighthouses, nestled among all the other ruggedly beautiful features of the coast. Sailing there is just one beautiful sight like this after another, alternating rocky shores, empty islands, fishing villages and lighthouses.
Our original plan – almost until we got to the turning point for it – was to initially visit Southwest Harbor on Mt. Desert Island, then move to Northeast Harbor a couple of days later. They are quite close to each other and easily reachable by fast dinghy, however as we later found out they are quite different in character and facilities though both nice in their own ways. As we approached it seemed that based on our cruising guides moorings in Northeast harbor were more readily available and less confusing so we opted at the last moment to head for Northeast.
At this point we were blissfully unaware that Hurricane Earl was working it’s way out of the Caribbean and how that would affect our plans, however when we arrived in lovely Northeast Harbor we quickly found out that we had a new wrinkle in our vacation plans…
