Southwest Harbor and Somes Harbor, Mount Desert Island

Internet re-appeared after we picked up a mooring ball in Somes Harbor on the north end of the Sound, so this will be a quick catch-up. Peter picked up our guests, Floyd and Maryann Brown from Gold River, a couple hours ago in the dinghy. They are tired from a long journey from the west coast. We have all had lunch and now they are getting settled in to the forward cabin and resting. They will be on board for two weeks, exploring Penobscot Bay and Acadia National Park with us.

On Sunday, August 14, it was sunny and warm all day--what a treat! We remained anchored between Orono and Asa Islands and worked all day on Mantra. Peter was busy the whole time installing a new autopilot and I cleaned the whole boat and did four loads of laundry. It actually all dried on the lifelines.

We were going to kayak at the end of toils, but the wind had picked up, the water was choppy and the temperature had dropped, so instead we stayed on board and enjoyed watching seals and birds and taking in the lingering sunset.

Another gorgeous sunset

Sunset view toward the northeast

On Monday morning, August 15, we had breakfast and a visit from a guillemot before launching the kayak for island explorations. We went to the north tip of Orono Island where we could see white sand beach, but we were fooled. The whiteness we saw was a beach, but it was not made of sand; it consisted of finely crushed shells. In the tide pools were thousands of intact but empty half shells.

Guillemot swimming away from Mantra

Clam and snail shells in a tide pool

Crushed shell beach

After investigating tide pools and Canada geese there, we paddled over to Asa Island, pulling our small craft up on a beach in a small cove. We ended up walking all the way around the island, something that is not possible at high tide as the densely packed trees and other plants crowd the shoreline then. There were many types of wildflowers in bloom. Walking on rock just above the high tide line, we were delighted to find not just pink granite flecked with feldspar but a big chunk of white quartz with reddish-pink seams and other interesting blocks of igneous and metamorphic stone. I have just downloaded an app for identifying them.

Peter tying up the kayak

Gneiss with parallel dikes

Sea lavender at the high tide line

Rugosa rose

Seaside goldenrod

Peter studying quartz

Schist

Gneiss

Crab in a tidepool

Tidepools on Asa Island

Phyllite

After lunch, we set off for Mount Desert Island. Wind conditions were changeable, with breezes coming through the channels between the islands that face the Atlantic for good sailing and then lulls in the lee of the islands. At one point, two to three foot ocean waves abruptly ended in open water not because of rocks or shoaling but because the strong tide and currents were forcing them to stop. The scenery began to change as we sailed farther Down East, with hills and mountains rising up in the northwest, including the summit of Cadillac Mountain. We saw the first bare granite peaks since we left the interior of New Hampshire a couple weeks ago.

Mount Desert Island

We anchored just north of Southwest Harbor on Mount Desert Island about an hour before sunset. That evening's sunset was not as boldly hued as the ones we had enjoyed the previous two nights, but was lovely in its speckled splendor.

Sunset near Southwest Harbor

This morning around 8 a.m., we took the dinghy into town for provisions. I had read that Sawyer's Market was a good place, but we found most of the shelves totally empty. Other than tomatoes, there was nothing on my list to buy, although Peter was attracted to and bought a bumbleberry pie. People on another boat had suggested taking the free Acadia shuttle buses to the nearby IGA, so we did that. That store had almost everything on my list, but, sadly, not fresh basil. We would have had to wait for about an hour for the bus to come back, and then we would still have had to manage to carry eight bags of groceries, some of them quite heavy, about a half mile to the dinghy dock. The cashier gave us the telephone number of a local woman who provides taxi service, but when I called, she rather tersely stated that she was not available and we should have made plans before setting off to shop. Very luckily, the man in line behind us offered to give us a ride. He and his family were on vacation on Mount Desert Island from Long Island, and he told us about his ancestors in Southwest Harbor and spending the summers with his grandmother here when he was a boy. When we unloaded our provisions from the back of his vehicle, I noticed that the bag with the bumbleberry pie was missing. I had placed it on the bottom rack of one of the two carts we were using in the store. Very kindly, Jim offered to drive me back to see if it was still there, and it was. 

It's another blue sky day, but the southeast wind is backing to the northeast and then the north later today, bringing gusts up to 20 knots and rain starting tomorrow morning. We will move to another anchorage for tomorrow night for better protection.

Somes Sound