Harpswell to Camden and another Amor Fati

Date. Aug 2 Miles. I forgot to check Weather. today foggy and cold

Am currently all muffled up because its so cold and foggy here but I know it will clear in about an hour and then it will be too hot. Those pictures above are the fog rolling in We are heading off to Nova Scotia tomorrow and expect to arrive some time Friday. I hope we don’t get caught by fog but the weather seems mild.

It was nice to get back to M’Aingeal on Friday and we spent the day shopping and preparing the boat for Nova Scotia. On Saturday we had planned to stay up a river Damariscotta River halfway from Harpswell to Camden. Interesting rocks on the way, some dolphin. And Whaddya think this fin is?

It deserves a photo by itself. On passing Seal Island I could see no seals and think it should be renamed Fly Island and those flies bite so maybe ‘Biting fly Island’. It makes me think of, Butter island, Dismal Swamp which isn’t and Alligator canal, …although this time we went up Alligator canal we did actually see a wee one. At least in Florida we are more honest with Mosquito Lagoon.

As I said we INTENDED to moor in Damariscotta river and had booked a mooring. When I checked in Navionics I realized it wasn’t up the river but on an Island. Damariscotta Cove. Just at the mouth of the river I changed course and went to the island. It was beautiful, isolated but appeared to have only 4 moorings and nothing of the pump out station she mentioned. I called her and realized it WAS actually up the river as I had originally thought. It was too late to go back and I had fallen in love with the place. We were told by one of the sailors to pick up an mooring ball however later, when we had moored, the guy who lived in the only house on the island came down and told me they were private moorings…. his. When I said I would move, he then said it was ok but asked what was our draft as there was a large rock near the mooring. (To the non sailors that is how deep we can go.) He then muttered. you should be OK. I wasn’t overly convinced but Pat insisted we were fine. In the morning I looked over the boat and saw the rock. But I guess Pat was right we were fine.

Walking through the island was stunning. A small museum open and unmanned, hand written signs and that night the stars were incredible.

We had a great sail into Camden. BTW. apart from occasional overheating we have been ok with the engine.

We bumped into Tom and Paula from Orlando sailing club who are sailing on the Mary Day for a week. It was a great night. Pat was telling a story to Tom’s sister and friend who have NO experience sailing and he mentioned Mediterranean docking. I reminded him that they have no knowledge of sailing or docking so he explained “you have to dock in stern to’. I’m sure that really cleared it up for them.

Camden is a beautiful quaint town and and we are staying at the yacht club which is smack bang in the centre of town. We hear the town clock ring out every hour and the boom of the morning salute at 8 am and little kids flying past on boats They can’t be more than 10 years old. What a delight. Interesting people passing our boat and I’m not so sure about the name of the sweetie shop but I liked the cow.

Just a few more pics of the museum and the island. Next stop Lunenberg

and so it was