Today's forecast for sailing was promising. There were even small craft warnings... gusts to 25 MPH. None of it happened. After a few wisps of air along the northern end of Egemogin Reach, the sky solidified into a solid gray mass hovering with no intent and the wind died. We motored from 11 am until nearly 7 pm when we pulled into Tenants Harbor just ahead of a fog bank. We did spend the day moving with the tide though which runs at several knots through some of these channels.
As we were about 5 days ago, we are again stuck under a stalled cold front. The forecast now says it will clear early in the AM and tomorrow will be very windy.
We ate tonight at the Cod End, a waterfront fried fish place right on the water. One of those places where you can dinghy over and the food is served right on the dock. I made friends with a dog, a small Belgian poof, or a fluff or a flossy or something. Little Oscar was frightened by his 'parents' smashing their lobster's shells with big rocks on the picnic table. He backed up into my lap. I scratched his ear. He was grateful.
It was on this very dock that on the evening of Sept 11, 2001. I learned about what had happened that morning in New York and DC. This evening I saw the woman I'd spoken to about Afghanistan that evening when I'd said, "We've got to got over there and got those guys in Afghanistan."
She'd looked at me and asked, "How are you going to do that?"
Saturday - Potts Harbor, Maine
When we left the harbor this morning, a short time after Oscar and his parents, it seemed at first the wind forecast had again been without merit. But we were soon flying along on a crisp sparkling day with the water boiling under London's hull. If you could have taken all of today's wind and divided it between yesterday and today, we would have had two good sailing days rather than one dead and one wild one. By 10 am we had a reef in the main and were altering our course to be more offshore and off the wind for easier sailing. At noon we had passed the mouth of the St John's river and then the island of Seguin a little after two.
Peter F. at the tiller off Seguin.
Heading up to beat into Potts Harbor for the night slowed our progress as the tide was racing out. But we had the anchor down a little after 6pm. We had hoped to eat at the Dolphin restaurant, but the groups of people waiting on the pier and along the shore, were the sign of a long wait. We ate the frozen beef stew Peter F had found in Tenants Harbor.
During the day we came upon one of those big birds we take to be Northern Gannets resting on the water. We also saw the flopping black fin of an Ocean Sunfish, several porpoises and seals, and one bald eagle.
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