2022: Maine Part III - Camden and Isle au Haut Duck Harbor

 6 August 2022

Depart: Rockland anchorage 9:00

Arrive: Camden anchorage 11:30

Distance: 9.5 nm

Sierra enjoyed the Lobster Festival yesterday that she wanted to go again today. Since it was free except for food and the bouncy houses that wasn't a bad suggestion. However, we had limited time and more places to visit, so it was time to bring up the anchor and move on. 

Our next destination was Camden. Jeff and family enjoy a hike and had Mount Battie on today's agenda. 

Sights on the way to Camden  ...

Sailboat raising sails

Under full sail

Camden harbor was full of boats and mooring balls. They could not offer one for our size boat however, so we anchored behind the lighthouse shown below.

According to the guide book, there are only a few places where a hiker has to "scramble".  I decided to stay on board and do boat chores. The only scrambling I am willing to do has something to do with eggs - not trails! Cleaning the boat sounded a lot better than hiking up a hill to me. Everyone left me!

View of Penobscot Bay

Violet

Sierra at the World War I 
Memorial Tower

Views from the trail ...

As I waited for the gang to return from their hike, I noticed that a fog was creeping in and getting closer and closer. Eventually, it became "pea-soup" thick and I wondered if Clark would be able to find the boat on his return with the dinghy.

Same lighthouse as in picture above -
hardly visible now.
It eventually disappeared altogether!

Another boat in the anchorage.
The boats slowly disappeared into the fog to
reemerge later in the day.

Sure enough, when Clark and Jeff arrived at the boat, they said that although it was bright and clear on shore, they had trouble finding their way through the fog. They saw a dark-hulled boat and went there first only to find it was not the right boat, and they had to look again to find ours.  When he went back for the rest of the gang, he told them to expect heavy fog and a chill in the air - nothing like what they had on shore!

By late afternoon, the fog had cleared and we could see again. 

Sunset at Camden, Maine

The two older girls enjoyed sewing so much that when they had free time, i.e. mostly travel time, they worked on another project. They made book marks out of plastic canvas.

Violet multi-colored bookmark on left.
Sierra bookmark on right - it spells "B O O K" and
has a heart at the end.
Zoe's bracelet (we made the other day) up top. 

I had several books on board for the girls ranging in age from 2 to 8. All the children books are over 30 years old and ones that my sons read as children. Zoe loved the pop-up Mickey Mouse books that still popped up (mostly). Violet enjoyed the Dr. Seuss and Berenstain Bear books. On average we read about 5 of those a night. Each night Violet would select a set of books from the shelf, and we would climb onto my bed to read them. Sometimes she would read to me. Sometime I would read to her. Sierra most times climbed in with us to hear the stories. While we did book club, Devon and either Jeff or Clark washed and dried the dinner dishes - a big win for me and the girls.

For Sierra I brought a wide assortment of books from foolish fairy tales to reference books. She read a large number of the books I brought including some I downloaded to my Kindle. She particularly seemed to enjoy looking through the bird book. For many of the birds it showed the male and the female colorings. As she turned the pages, she would say "Male", "Female".  Nothing else - not type of bird, etc. Eventually I told her jokingly that it must be a very boring book as every page said the exact same thing. After that she delighted in saying male / female all the more.

7 august 2022

Depart: Camden anchorage 8:10

Arrive: Isle au Haut, Duck Harbor anchorage 11:23

Distance: 24 nm

No fog this morning as evidenced by the picture below - same as one hidden in the fog above!

A friend told me if I was going to Maine to watch out for "rocks and pots"!  With large tide changes, some very big rocks disappear at high tide! As for "pots" I have never seen so many is tight quarters as in Maine. No matter the depth - there they were. We had to be vigilant always.

Views along the way to our next stop ...

Anchoring at Duck Harbor was a bit challenging as we had a narrow strip of water with high rock walls on either side of us, and other boats already anchored in the harbor. According to the cruising guide, the best trails start from here.

Narrow Duck Harbor shown on trail map

Given the situation, Clark decided we needed to have a stern anchor in addition to our bow anchor to stop us from swinging around into rocks as the tide changed.  Thankfully we had Jeff on board to lend us his muscle strength. 

We had to get the second anchor out of storage in the lazarette and attach the chain and rode to it. Once assembled, we had to let out enough bow line to drop the stern anchor off the swim platform, and then pull the bow line in to have them both set with us near the center of the two.

For this hike, Clark stayed on the boat while I went with the kids and grandkids. Clark was too nervous about the precarious anchorage to go for a stroll through the woods. He did dinghy us over so we could enjoy the trails. He had one thing he wanted to see - the water fountain which turned out to be an old-fashioned water pump that struggled to provide water due to the drought conditions.

Looking at anchorage through the trees

Devon and Sierra on rocky shore

Views seen along the hike ...

We had some rather rugged terrain.

I wanted proof that I was there!

As we stood at the top of the trail, we could see lightening in the distance. After yesterday's fog event, I wondered if the clouds we saw rolling in would present a problem getting back down the trail. With the two potential weather issues, we decided it was time to get back down to the boat.

The weather turned out to be nothing. No storm. No fog. We even got a sunset picture.