Mt Desert Island

Have finally made it to Mount Desert Island (pronounced dis-zurt) and we are holed up in a small town called Northeast Harbour in the South.  We pulled in here yesterday evening (Friday 7th) after having spent two days in Blue Hill which turned out to be a great little place.

Inner Blue Hill Harbour

Thought I might describe some of the life on the boat as best I can.  Generally we wake up earlyish - Calley is normally the first one up.  One great thing is that we do not have any alarm clocks and typically wake up when it gets light which is around 0600 to 0630 just now.  We will normally start the day with school but that only happens once every two days at best just now.  Typically Nic and Calley will adjourn to the aft cabin which is the biggest and sprawl out on the bed with their text books. pens and paper, while Sam and Scott take the main salon and the dining table and make a similar mess.  Calley has the advantage as she does much of her schooling lying down but there is a downside as sometimes she just falls asleep.  Sometimes we can make use of the outside table in the cockpit if the weather is pleasant and there are not too many distractions.  School normally takes the whole morning but we are now managing to get it completed by lunchtime with only the occasional run in.

Some mornings are just completely impromptu as yesterday was.  Scott and Calley took the dinghy out early and rowed around the boat to get some pictures of it in some pretty thick fog.  On the way back to the boat we spotted some mackerel schooling nearby and soon Sam and Peter had rods in the water and caught two almost immediately before the fish moved off.  However not long after, as the fog lifted, the water was that still that you could see the fish schooling in different spots around the bay at different times, so Peter, Claire and Sam jumped in the dinghy and headed out.  Nic on board Dulcinea acted as a spotter and would watch for the schooling activity through binoculars and then direct the dinghy to wards it.  It was a pretty successful morning with the dingy returning with nine decent sized fish.

Dulcinea in Maine fog

Sam and the mackerel haul

After school if we are moored somewhere we will head ashore or we may start a transit to another destination.  Regardless Sam will have a lot of homework to do which he will either get into straight away or wait until we are sailing the next day.  Then there is all the day-to-day stuff which has to be done regardless....cooking, cleaning, tidying up etc.  Luckily the boat is not that big.  In addition Scott will poke around and do his best to tackle any outstanding jobs or maintenance items which he can do.  Typically at the moment Nic is taking care of all the victualing and Scott looks after the boat and the cruising planning.  We have given Sam responsibility for the dinghy and he is quite adept now in handling it and knows what has to be done to get it ready or to stow it away.

Sam chauffeuring passengers ashore

Blue Hill Harbour was a great little spot.  Claire and Peter had already been in earlier in the morning and had wandered around and enjoyed themselves with a lobster and vino lunch.  We went in and headed to the library to get an internet connection.  Not having the wifi easily accessible is proving the biggest pain at the moment for everyone.  There are lots of times we would like to be able to go online whether to pay bills, access accounts, carry out school work or search for parts, but with the coverage up here it is not possible and since the Satcom system is not yet activated we just have to make do.  In a way its nice not to have the internet all the time but there are those times when you really need it.  We are assuming that as we move south the connection will once again get better.

Finished the library visit

After a couple of hours in the library we wandered around the little town and managed to meet up with Claire and Peter in a wine shop which had an impressive array of cheese and pate including a Spanish blue cheese which came wrapped in a chestnut leaf.  That was dinner sorted.  The tidal range here is about 3m and Blue Hill Harbour is quite shallow so we had to get back to the boat before we were left high and dry.  Back at the boat we went swimming and Scott checked the hull once again to look at the damage spot and to see if the line we had been tangled up in had done any damage but all looked good.  The kids and Peter were swimming just in bathers but Scott was lucky enough to have the use of his wetsuit.

The wine and Cheese Shop

Peter educating the kids

The evenings here are comprised of getting dinner ready and relaxing in the cockpit for an hour or two.  Also at night is when we will start the genset to charge up the batteries and provide hot water for washing up and any showers.  On this evening we managed to lay out a spread of cheese, wine and pate and enjoy the sunset.  The weather is getting colder and although we still get some beautiful days there is more rain and cloud about and the nights are getting cooler.  Luckily we will be heading south soon.

After the mackerel session, lunch and a quick swim we pulled the anchor and motored out of the bay.  Before starting the days journey Peter and Scott tried to calibrate the electronic compass and look at the deviation on the magnetic compasses.  This process involves alternatively steaming around in circles or following straight line courses along known bearings to try and ascertain how accurate the compasses are reading.  The weather was perfect for this as it was flat calm and very little wind.  After everyone was suitably dizzy we headed off to Northeast Harbour. 

Calley passing the time during a transit

The wind was coming directly from the direction we wanted to go so we had to motor all the way.  We did attempt to sail  but once the sails were up the wind dropped and backed.  Luckily the boat motors really well and we can comfortably sit on 7 to 8 kts.  The scenery around here is spectacular and seeing it from the water is probably the best way.  There are lots of small islands which, like most of Maine, are covered in forests going right down to a rocky shoreline.  As we came around the south end of Mount Desert we could see the swell in the ocean pounding some outer ledges.  Luckily we turned into the shelter of the bay leading to the harbour.  There has been a notable drop in the amount of pleasure boats on the water although the lobster boats and their pots are still everywhere.

The foredeck mooring crew

We will stay around Northeast Harbour area for the next few days before we start heading South.  We have decided to take advantage of Peter being here and sailing straight through from here to Newport probably starting around Tuesday next week and depending on how the weather shapes up.  It will be a total run of over 200NM and will involve an overnight sail which will be the first time we have done this with Dulcinea and a completely new experience for Nic, Sam and Calley.  Nic is quite apprehensive about the trip and so having Peter around will be a real help.

We had a little question time onboard for likes and dislikes and am glad to report no major dissention was voiced at this stage  (although it could be its all being suppressed).  Calleys likes included swimming and eating and her dislikes were being sick and washing and drying dishes which I think she has done once.  For Sam he likes the swimming , fishing, seeing all the new places and taking care of the dinghy but predictably is not keen on the school and homework.  He did also have “being yelled at” as one of his dislikes so will have to try and moderate that.  Sam really thrives when he is outside with something to do whether its fishing, swimming, helping on deck etc.  Nic likes us all being together, seeing the new places and learning sailing but is still getting used to shopping by dinghy, short showers, limited comms and a freezer which has a condensation issue.  (last item was addded to spur the maintenance man into action I think).  For Scott its all great although its annoying that we have to disassemble the sofa to get to food storage sometimes and a couple of systems issues refuse to be resolved.   

Thanks for the comments to the blog.  As we have mentioned before its great to hear from you.  

Think I hear the school bell so must be going.

Kids in Blue Hill