I hadn't been out on a "real" trip for a while.
Just a lot going on in my life keeping me in port.
But the stars & planets all aligned to allow me to get out for an overnighter.
I know it may seem that I keep going to the same places, and to a large extent that's true.
There are only a limited number of docks available within my cruising range, and now that I have my dog Nova, it's just so much easier being at a dock.
If I have to anchor out, which I've done, I have to run Nova to shore in the raft, which is certainly doable, but can be a pain in the neck sometimes.
Since I was leaving on a Thursday I had to wait until I walked my son's dog around noon.
I pulled out Bar Harbor at about 12:15 PM, in cloudy but calm weather conditions.
I had both Nova, my dog, and Luna, my cat, with me on this trip.
The ride out was mostly uneventful. This time of year, I would normally pilot from the flybridge helm, but I haven't yet solved the challenge of how to get Nova up and down the stairs and keep her contained on the flybridge. So, for most of this trip I once again piloted from the lower helm station.
I came across these little inflatable rafts zooming past me. This is a tourist thing now. They let the tourists run these little rafts around. It looks like fun, when the weather is nice.
I had my shrimp pots ready to deploy and I dropped them in Traitors Cove, just before you turn into Marguerite Bay proper.
I could see one boat at the dock but there was space for me in my preferred spot on the left side of the dock as you face it from the water.
(I must confess that these photos are from Friday morning when the weather was much nicer.)
My neighbor, the Princess Bay, was a 38' Bayliner, minimally equipped. By that I mean an open flybridge, with no radar arch or mast and no radar.
I came to learn that the 2 guys staying on the Princess Bay were working on the logging road.
I have had many people tell me that they have had serious issues with mice coming aboard while at this dock, but for myself, I've never had an issue. With my current boat I don't think they could get inside the cabin even if they were able to get aboard the boat. The guys on the Princess Bay had these little "cups" on all their mooring lines, I assume to try to keep the mice from coming aboard.
With our long daylight hours this time of year it's not getting dark until almost 10 PM. After dinner I deployed the raft and the motor. Then I pulled down my 2 crab pots and got them baited. I ran out in the raft and dropped them over in front of the lagoon where I've done well on crabs in the past.
In the morning, I took Nova on an off leash walk up the road. My hope was to make it up to the first bridge (about a mile) and get some photos of the lake. But the guys working on the road had it closed off, blocked by heavy equipment. If I was alone, I might have been able to walk my way around them, but with Nova along I just couldn't get around them.
This huge culvert that I photographed on my previous trip is still sitting there.
I decided to pull the crab pots from the raft after we got back from our walk.
Pot 1 had 3 crabs in it, 2 of which were legal sized males.
Pot 2 had 7 crabs in it, 5 of which were legal sized males.
So, I ended up taking 7 crabs home from this trip.
I filled my cooler with water and put the crabs in there to keep them alive until we got home. You have to cook crabs within a short time after butchering them or they build up toxins (or so I've read.)
I pulled my 2 shrimp pots, which are one 1 ground line. I was so excited to actually get some shrimp that I neglected to take any photos until later in the process. We behead the shrimp, rinse them well, and put them in quart zip lock bags. This was a decent haul for me since many of my previous attempts were fruitless, or "shrimpless."
There are a bunch of rocks at the entrance to Traitors Cove and from time to time there are seals lounging on the rocks. It seems like there are either lots of seals or no seals at all. On this trip there were lots. I quickly mounted my telephoto lens and got a few shots on my way out of the cove.
I decided to stop in at Loring and process (behead and rinse) the shrimp and get them into the bags and put most of the gear away and clean up the boat a bit. I'd rather do all that work at Loring than back in the slip.
I left the Loring dock at about 5 PM and made it into my slip in Bar Harbor at almost exactly 7:30 PM. I did pilot from the flybridge on the way back, but I left Nova in the lower cabin. About every 30 - 40 minutes I would go down and check on her and let her know that I was still around. She seemed to handle it pretty well.
Mileage for this trip was 57.2 nm.
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