Wake at 4:30 courtesy of a lobster boat. There are only a few lobster pots in the Mud Hole, yet lobster boats - maybe the same one, maybe different ones - keep coming by close to SPARTINA.
Cold and windy, a front passed through last night with a little rain. Glad to see blue skies. Wearing layers and at the dry suit, a single reef tucked in the main, under power 8:50 out of the Mud Hole. Outside the anchorage at 9:05, sails up and sailing close to the wind. Making 3.6 as seals watch from the rocks.
I like to time my tacks, but with so many rocks and ledges between Mud Hole and Roque Island, it is a matter of tacking from rock to rock. Sail up as close to a rock, islet or ledge as I can, often using lobster pot floats as my depth finders, come about and then follow that tack to the next rock. It is breezy and fun and lots of spray on a sunny morning.
10:10 leaving the cut with Great Wass Island to port and Harbor and Mistake Islands to starboard. 10:30 making 4.5 towards Mark Island. 10:55 4.8 towards Great Spruce Island, crossing Chandler Bay, the only open water I will see before reaching Roque Harbor.
11:10 in lee of Great Spruce Island, calm water and easy sailing.
11:30 tacking to Roque Harbor between Great Spruce Island and Double Shot Island. Rocky and shallow on either side, I watch the lobster pot floats and use them to make my tacks. Working into both wind and the ebb tide, the water is clear enough that I can see the rocks below the surface.
11:40 in Roque Harbor and can see the beautiful what beach to the north. At noon begin a series of five minute tacks, gps showing 5.5.
The final tack takes us across the stern of the sloop SEEADLER. There is a man in the cockpit and he has been watching the tacks up the harbor. He tells me the boat looks good, and I thank him. I also ask him if he plans to dinghy into the beach this afternoon, could I catch a ride. He says he'll be glad to take me in.
Anchor down 12:45. Set up the boom tent and then the man, who introduces himself as Scott, comes over in the dinghy. He tells me he and his wife already walked the beach in the morning, but he is happy to run me in and then pick me up when I am done. How nice!
Riding in on the dinghy, I ask Scott where he keeps his boat. He says Green Island. There are a few Green Islands in the Bay of Maine, I ask where is this one located. He tells me just off the northwest corner of Mount Desert Island. This rings a bell for me. I ask if there are two houses there, one on the mainland and one on the island. He says yes. I tell him I anchored there last year, and in fact I anchored there in the middle of a family reunion. He tells me his wife is part of a big extended family and there are a lot of reunions there. I mention "there is a piano in the house on the island, right?" He looks surprised, asks how I know that. I tell him I could hear them playing the piano late into the night of their reunion dinner. He smiles. The world sometimes feels very small.
Back on SPARTINA I check the weather. I have a couple of days but need to make sure I find protected waters somewhere along the coast.
15.69 NM
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