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You are welcome to apply any part of this article to your own personal use. Please do NOT publish any part of the article or apply any part of it to any non-personal use without the express written concent of the author.
We went ashore from Mud Hole onto Great Waas Island, looking for a convenient place to pick up guests. We were expecting to meet an old friend, Karen, plus friends of hers, Frank and Ada. We were also looking for some place to access the Internet. I had 2 dispatches and Kit had 4 to post and we hadn't picked up our email messages in a couple of weeks.
Our first challenge on that excursion was finding a place to land Rampant, our dinghy so that we could go ashore. We explored all the way up to the head of Mud Hole which was a few yards from the road. At high tide we could get to within a few feet of shore, but would have to wade that remaining distance through some pretty thick, sticky, yucky mud. At low tide we could get no closer than a half mile from the road, and all of it would be in that self same mud. No wonder the name, Mud Hole!
We then looked for anywhere that we could land Rampant, a problem that was not easy to solve. The tides in the Mud Hole run in the neighborhood of 12-14 feet (3-4 meters) or more. The shore is steep-to. We could find a number of places to land at the current level of tide, but once the tide had run out a bit we'd have difficulty jumping down into the dinghy. We finally found a place where the rocks made a sort of stairway. It'd be okay for about 3 hours, but if we waited longer than that we'd have to wait about 9 hours for the water level to return.
Scrambling up the steep hillside we found the trail, then turned towards the trailhead. This particular trail skirted the water about 50 yards (45 meters) above the high water line, give or take a bit. We were mostly in a thick pine forest growing in a topsoil layer only a few inches thick over a base of hard, impenetrable granite rock.
The hike was refreshing to us sailors, not having been ashore in several days. Reaching the trailhead we found nothing but a dirt road leading off the island to Jonesport, the nearest town on the mainland. There were a few residences scattered around but not much else. Since we had reached the other side of the island we checked out Black Duck Cove for a possible place to pick up our guests. Nope, too exposed and no place to land anyway. We did find the home of Karen's friend, Chuck. From Chuck's home we rescheduled with Karen to meet at the town dock at Jonesport. Unfortunately we couldn't do our Internet work as Chuck had no computer.
But Chuck does have a fabulous garden, rivaling the best I've seen anywhere. It's several acres of garden with paths leading around and about artistically. Chuck does all the work himself.
The next morning as we were preparing to leave for Jonesport I overheard another boat making a cell phone call. The anchorage was so quiet that I could hear him from his boat as if he were standing next to me. He was calling to arrange for a diver to remove a lobster buoy and line that had wrapped around his propeller. I just couldn't leave him stranded as I had SCUBA gear aboard for just such a situation - although I had thought it would be used on Volant instead of someone else's boat.
The water temperature was about 55°F (13°C), not exactly tropical. The wet suit would be too cold for me, so we dug out the new dry suit. First I donned sweatshirt and pants that would provide insulation. After struggling into the dry suit we loaded the dinghy and made our way over to our neighbor. Into the water I went.
Brrrrrr! That water was cold! I was very thankful I had purchased a dry suit for this trip. This job would have been impossible in my wet suit.
Once I got down to the propeller shaft I was easily able to cut free the lobster pot buoy and about 2 yards of line.
Back to Volant, we cleaned up the SCUBA gear and headed to Jonesport.
Wow! What a lot of lobster pots were laid out along our route from Mud Hole into Jonesport. There were so many buoys that we could have walked across Eastern Harbor on them and never gotten wet. Threading our way through them without wrapping a single line on our propeller, staying in the narrow channel, and avoiding the rocks and other hazards was a major accomplishment.
Jonesport is a charming village. There was a hardware store a few blocks from the town dock. There we filled our spare propane bottle and my SCUBA tank. A convenience store across the street from the hardware store enabled us to supplement our groceries. An art gallery around the corner had a delightful exhibit of decoys.
The harbor, protected by a new breakwater, is loaded with moorings. After anchoring outside a fellow came out and told us we could rent one of the moorings for only $10 for the night. As the weather called for stronger winds that evening we accepted the offer.
Picking up our friends the next morning headed back to Roque Island. This time Volant picked up her own lobster buoy. We were able to free the buoy, but only after separating the buoy from the pot.
Frank and Ada provided 7 medium-sized live Maine lobsters for dinner for the 5 of us. If we could have taken a walk afterwards, we would have waddled.
After clearing the lobster pot on our way into the anchorage we started hearing an intermittent squeak. I had to go into the water to check it out. This I did the next morning. I struggled into the dry suit, put on the tank and dove. There was some line left wrapped around the propeller shaft, not enough to interfere with the propeller itself but enough to be problematic. It was good that I did check it out.
After the dive the weather deteriorated somewhat. A weak low was passing through the area. So we stayed put for the rest of the day, content to read, chat, nap and just appreciate the scenery.
Our next stop was Milbridge, Maine, the home of Frank and Ada, on Saturday afternoon. While the wind was light it did fill in enough that we were able to sail for a few hours, the first sail in weeks.
The cruising guides discourage people from going up the river to Milbridge. But after talking to the harbormaster, a friend of Frank and Ada's, we decided to give it a try. It seems that the harbormaster has a boat with the same draft as Volant, and he goes in and out all the time. He just waits for half tide or better so that there's enough water over the two or three shallow spots. And as he said, we had no difficulty going in and picking up our assigned buoy.
Sunday morning we left at first light for Northwest Harbor on Mt. Desert Island. Again there was no wind so we motored all the way. Again there were seemingly millions of lobster buoys to avoid, and again we were successful. A quick jaunt ashore provided us with 2 live lobsters, a bottle of wine, and information that the town's library should provide us with the Internet services we need to post to the web site. So tonight we'll be catching up on our writing and preparing the site for updating. With luck, tomorrow I'll finally be able to post 3 new dispatches and Kit will be able to post 5 new letters.
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