I had obligations that kept me in town until around noon on Thursday 03/28/2024.
But now with the coming of spring we have much longer daylight hours, so I figured if I pulled out around noon I had at least 7 hours of daylight to work with.
I pulled out of my slip in Bar Harbor at about 12:30 PM. It seems unusual for me to be leaving in daylight since most of my recent trips have required departure in darkness.
The weather was sunny & warm, but there was a sometimes-brisk NW breeze blowing through the harbor. No worries, it just pushes me out of the slip a little more easily.
For years I used Apple's iTunes for my music. I would purchase songs on my laptop and then plug in my 20+ year old iPod to transfer the music to it. Then, on the boat I could plug my iPod into the Aux port on my stereo system and it worked fine for many years. But now Apple has dropped support of iTunes in favor of Apple Music, and I've had some trouble transitioning to the new world.
But I think I've got it now. I've got a subscription (of course) to Apple Music and I got Apple support to help me transfer all my music over from iTunes into Apple Music. And I've learned how to "acquire" new music in Apple Music, since you don't actually purchase each tune like we did under iTunes. I have a Bluetooth speaker on the boat and my phone controls it. All good! Gotta have some tunes while I'm plodding away at 7 or 8 knots for hours at a time.
Here is a map snippet showing my track for this trip. I was headed to Bat Cove, which is in the northern end of George Inlet, about 20 miles from town.
Here's a better map snippet of just the cove. It's not named on the chart, so I circled it in red.
I still have the big "condo" shrimp pots lent to me by my buddy down at the harbor, although I've only set one at a time. They are so huge I'm not sure my puller could handle two of them. I got one of the "heavy baited" and ready to drop. When I got into the vicinity I dropped it not far from Bat Point. There are a lot of private cabins in this area and there were a few smaller boats in the area that looked to be working pots as well.
After dropping the shrimp pot, I got the anchor ready to drop and slowly made my way into Bat Cove. The entrance is not tricky, as it is in other coves I have entered. It is a straight shot, but you do have to stay in the deepest part of the channel.
At about 4 PM I got safely anchored in about 80' of water in the back of Bat Cove. That's a little deeper than would be my preference but the weather was extremely calm, and I expected no drag on the anchor this night. I had logged a little over 21 nm to get here.
My first task after getting the boat secure on the anchor was to deploy the raft and get the motor on it.
If you're going to make the kind of trips that I make you have to have a reliable and safe way to get to shore. I've had this raft for many years now and it is truly a work horse. It has a fiberglass floor, so it is very stable. I used to power it with a 4 HP Suzuki outboard, but my wife did not like the gas fumes, so we switched to a Torqeedo, which is an electric motor. It is roughly equivalent to 4 HP, but the grand kids don't like it because it's too slow for them. I like it because it is much easier to mount on the raft than the 62 lb Suzuki. The Torqeedo breaks down into 3 parts, with the heaviest, the battery, only weighing a little over 10 lbs.
I had to get Nova my dog to shore for "dewatering." She got a little overanxious and jumped out of the raft while we were still about 15 or 20 yards from shore! I had a life jacket on her, and it has a handle on the top, so I just reached over and yarded her back into the raft, a soggy mess of course.
After the boat and the dog were secure, I brought my two crab pots down and got them baited and ready to drop. I've dropped crab pots in here before with only very limited success, but since I was staying overnight, I thought it would be worth a try for crabs. I set each pot one at a time from the raft not far from where the boat was anchored.
I think this is a very beautiful area when the weather is nice, like it was this day.
You can't tell it from this photo, but there is a road there. You can drive here from town. It surprised me the first time I came here because it seems so remote. While I was here on this trip, I saw a 4-wheeler drive by and one vehicle.
This one was taken right before dark in the evening.
There is a "wanigan," for lack of a better term, up near the head of the cove. Here's a shot of it in March of 2023.
And here are a couple shots of it now.
I'm speculating that a bad winter storm came through and just destroyed it. I never knew what its intended purpose was.
Luna (the cat), Nova and I had a quiet evening on the anchor. It was dead calm. I set the anchor alarms, but I don't think we even moved. I had checked out a couple of videos from the library to bring along and we watched one of them after dinner.
Luna usually only appears after we have stopped moving. Then she positions herself to supervise our activities in the cabin.
I ran the diesel furnace sporadically over night, but it wasn't particularly cold that night.
In the morning after a dewatering shore excursion for Nova I went out in the raft and pulled the two crab pots, one at a time. Both were empty, which was a bit disappointing given the time and effort I had put into baiting and setting them. But that happens from time to time you just have to deal with it.
We just hung out on the boat for the morning. I was reading on my Kindle app and doing crosswords. Truly I never get bored on the boat.
After one last shore trip for Nova, I secured the raft for travel and pulled the anchor and pulled out of Bat Cove a little after 1 PM. The weather was still sunny, warm & calm.
I headed for the shrimp pot and pulled it with no issues. The new Scotty pot puller I am using is working well.
I got only about 20 shrimp, but they were all nice big fat ones. I realized after I got home that I had neglected to take a photo of them. I did, however, get some photos of the gazillion sea lice that came aboard with the shrimp pot.
After pulling the shrimp pot I just set a course for town and mostly let the autopilot do its thing while I listened to Apple Music.
The ride back was uneventful. I think Nova is starting to understand that being on the boat is just a regular part of our lives. For the first couple of trips, she mostly hid out when we were underway. Now she usually sacks out on the couch even though I always bring her dog bed with us.
We were in the slip at about 4:15 PM, after logging a little over 43 nm for this trip.
I had in town obligations for Saturday or else I would have been tempted to stay out an additional night since the weather was so nice.
I am preparing for my annual mid-April trip to Wrangell for a haul-out and maintenance session which I do every year at this time. This year I have a "buddy boat" that is running up there with me. Should be an interesting trip this year.
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