July 15^th We left around 9:00 to catch the ebbing tide. It was a warm and sunny day with very light winds. We had a local sailor travel with us to show us the way out. Not that we needed him but he was traveling in that direction and it didn’t hurt. There were a couple of tricky spots with the current and all. 

   Everything was great until we turned the corner onto the Sheepscot River. The temperature immediately dropped 20 degrees and the wind picked up to 10-15 South of course. And then the fog rolled in!! Any wiser person would have just turned right around and called it a good lesson but no we had to keep going. And the going just got worse. This was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done. The fog cleared slightly so we thought we could keep going. Ha! Visibility was about 200-300 yards and then the waves built. We were heading over 8 to 10 waves as the wind blowing against the tide made the waves steep and close together. We couldn’t see shore at all and were sailing by GPS alone. The AIS didn’t show any boats around us but that didn’t mean much when the lobster boat roared by us. We crashed around like this clawing are way to the mouth of the river until about noon. There was a buoy here we were supposed to round but the GPS said it was 400 feet away but we never saw it. 

   The fog finally cleared and the wind relaxed and the waves sort of settled down into a less mountainous state. So we put up the sails and went sailing!! We sailed downwind around and between a bunch of rocky islands before sailing up into a little inlet called Christmas Cove. This is a nice place, tiny and filled with boats on moorings but it has its own character. We got a mooring jtust outside of the restaurant and went for a walk into town. The town of South Bristol was less than scintillating but it got us off the boat and we burned up a little of our nervous energy from the morning. There are a ton of really beautiful boats here, little ones and big ones.

July 16^th- We left a little before the tide change today and that seemed to work much better. Once we turned the corner on the peninsula we took off broad reaching across John’s Bay until we got to Monhegan Island where we turned and ran downwind. This is the type of sailing I came to Maine for. We saw seals and had a pod of dolphins swimming around  the boat for a while. We entered Tenant’s Harbor and turned into Long Cove where we anchored. We rode over to High Island where we ran into Les who is heading the Cape Dory cruise next week. He is  intragal in getting High Island preserved for public use. It is a beautiful typically Maine island. It is covered in spruce trees with the moss just dripping from the branches. And the shore is rocky as they come. At low tide there is a nice lagoon with a sandy bottom that makes a great swimming hole. The water is actually ( relatively) warm.

July 17^th It was pouring when we got up so we just stayed in bed and listened to the rain on the cabin roof. I have always loved that sound. As it was kind of foggy we decided to stay another day. We rowed over to the island again and explored it a little more fully. This time there was a falling tide so I didn’t worry so much about the dinghy floating away. There are some very interesting rock formations and the colors of the stone is just amazing. We met up with a bunch of kayakers there who all turned out to be graduates of Sterling College in Vermont. One couple lives in Enosburg and used to hang out at CSC . The fog rolled in big time and by sunset I couldn’t see 100 yards. The only way I could see the boats around me was because of their anchor lights.

July 18^th The fog was just as thick this morning and not even the lobster boats were moving. It was incredible how sound travels in the fog and just how small your world gets. Visibility was less than 50 yards so we decided, you guessed it, to stay here another night. 

    The fog finally cleared out by around 12:30 and Tom G in his Bristol Channel Cutter stopped by and offered us a ride into town. Town was the dock a general store and a couple of other houses so it didn’t take long to check it all out. We did meet Les again on the dock and had a nice conversation with him.

   Thunderstorms blew in in the evening and the wind picked up quite a bit. After a series of storms blew through and not much rain the night calmed right down.

July 19^th We departed long Cove finally and had a very nice reach to the mouth of the Muscle Ridge Channel on NW 5-10 winds. Then we beat up the channel until we were near Dix Island and the wind petered out. From here we did it all, motored , sailed, and motor sailed until we entered Rockland Harbor. Then of course the wind picks up from the NW. Anyway we finally got tied to a mooring at the Journey’s End Marina. Another boater stopped and offered to tow me in and showed me where everything was. 

   This is another quaint touristy town. The main street is filled with shops and galleries selling the same old stuff except this time it says Rockland or Maine on it. Still it has a nice feel to it and there     are more gorgeous boats than you can imagine. We are interviewing marinas for hauling the boat and this place seems like it has what we are looking for so we may spend the winter here. Well the  boat might anyway.