The pay phone is alive and well in Maine.
Cell phones work on line of sight and since
most of Maine goes up and down and the
whole state is carved out of granite, we
haven't had much luck with ours. We found
this great red phone booth in, of all places, Boothbay.























We left Boothbay in the clearing fog, heading out to Seguin Island. The peasoup fog came back about halfway out of the bay. We had less than 100' of visibility and we entered Sequin's very rocky narrow anchorage before we could even see the island. It was extremely nerve wracking to know that there were rocks most of the way around us, we could hear the surf, but we couldn't see much. Thank goodness for radar, good chart plotter, current hard charts, oh, and e-charts on the computer/GPS combo. As long as they ALL lined up, we kept moving in, slooooowly.

We dinghy'd ashore and took the tour of the museum and climbed the lighthouse. The caretakers, Michael and France, were talkative and friendly, telling us about their 3 month stay on the island. We're very interested in doing something like that ourselves, so it was great to get first hand info from them. This is the view from the top, looking north. You can see that the fog hung around all day

Michael also has an arrangement with one of the local lobstermen. He stopped by the boat with an offer we couldn't refuse. Adjima checked them out, carefully. We just added a few boiled potatoes and butter. Tonight we're making our own lobster rolls on Steve's fresh-from-the-oven rolls.

And under the category of "Things That Go Bump In The Dark": nothing, but nothing, gets a sailor's heart beating faster than those 4 little words "We're on the rocks". Uttered by Steve at exactly 2310 as we were jarred awake by the unmistakable sound of our rudder crunching against a rock(s?). The bottom of the rudder is only 5 feet below our heads when we sleep, so it was a rude awakening, and it was a terrible sound. We had come in at low tide but somehow the low tide and wind combined to push our stern around the mooring toward shore and under there somewhere, was (probably just that one) rock. We bounced on it a few times while Steve sprinted to start the engine and I tried to get my pants on upside down. It was foggy, cold, wet and really dark and we could hear the surf very close to the back of the boat. We bumped it in gear enough to stay forward of the rock while Steve quickly plotted a course out. We were searching for a solution other than sailing around all night. If only a stern anchor...but no anchoring due to a cable area. Sacrifice the #35 CQR anyway? Then an idea; Steve dinghy'd off trailing a long line,(and a gorgeous bright green bioluminescent trail that we were too busy to pay much attention to), tied it to a park mooring, and cleated it taught to a stern cleat. Steve stayed in the cockpit to ease the line as the tide slowly filled in. Inspection this morning shows no apparent damage and we were again off on another adventure. Whew!!

This blog was a collaborative effort.