Day 6: July 4, 2015
We both slept very well last night. It helps when we are securely anchored in a
well-protected cove with no wind. We
were up at our usual 5:00 hour and I prepared my favorite primo sausage gravy
served on toast. Wonderful!
I charted out our next course on our trip to Mt.
Desert Island and realized that it
was a 35 mile trek so we scurried around and
got underway at 7:30. The water was glassy but the 65 degree wind was
biting. We kept ourselves warm with a
bunch of hot coffee. The sun shone
brightly for the first part of the trip but soon clouded over making the entire
trip chilly. We both bundled up with all
of the warm clothing that we had brought along.
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| Lighthouse guiding the way into Fox Is. Thorofare |
The course that I set up took us across large bays
and narrow thorofares past many beautiful homes and interesting sights. We passed the fishing village of Stonington
in the Deer Island Thorofare. It is what
I would expect a Maine fishing village to look like. In the harbor there were probably 100
commercial lobster boats. The village
that was visible from the water consisted of homes of pastel colors with white
framed windows. Across the thorofare, there was a huge granite quarry. Most all of the dock and buildings right
along the shore are built on huge cut granite stones.
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| Lighthouse with fog horn blowing every 10 seconds |
Again today we were plagued with lobster trap
buoys. Until today we had carefully
avoided getting caught in them, however, in this part of the coast, the
lobstermen put two floats on their trap and the line that runs between these
floats hovers just below the surface. So, if you cruise between them, you catch
them on your keel, rudder, or much worse, your propeller. We got hung up on them twice; both times hung
on the keel or rudder and luckily we
pulled free quite easily.
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| Fishing Village of Stonington |
As we approached Mt. Desert Island, we passed
through a sailboat race. There were
probably 15 boats competing. These were
one design classic wooden boats, the type of which I was unfamiliar.
Our destination, the fiord named Somes Sound, makes
a huge deep slice into the heart of Mt. Desert Island. The walls lining the waterway are steep and
tree-covered with numerous huge homes along the
shore. At the extreme northern end is a relatively small cove, Somes Harbor. Like most harbors we have encountered, it is tightly packed with private mooring balls but we were able to find a place to drop our anchor in the very back shallow water of the cove. The tides here run about 11 feet and our parking place at high tide had 14 feet of water so we assumed we would be ok.
The town of Somesville had a complimentary dock that
allows visitors to land their dinghies (for a suggested $15.00 parking
donation). We took Dink to the dock and walked into this lovely little town. One of the main island roads passes through
the middle of the small town and the bumper to bumper traffic was amazing. We walked down to a building which had a sign
advertising their museum and garden. It was closed but I looked inside and
immediately a lovely lady came to me and asked if I wanted go into the
museum. I said yes and she apologized
and said that she had just closed but would get me a map of the area and that
the museum would be open the next day.
It turned out to be their Historical Society Museum. We vowed to return.
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| Somes Harbor from museum |
It turns out that the museum and the library across
the street are stops for the free Island Express bus that passes hourly. The map showed that there are a number of
routes that these buses take all of which are free courtesy of LL Bean and the
Friends of
Acadia National Park.
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| Museum entrance way |
We hiked back to the dinghy dock and returned to the
boat for dinner. We opened a bottle of
wine to celebrate our arrival to Acadia.
After dinner we prepared a blob carrot cake with cream cheese icing.
While it cooled we entertained ourselves
with a rousing game of dominos. Bed time arrived at 9:00.
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