This cove is beautiful! We woke up watching a couple small harbor seals cruising by the bank.
We'd ended the day with a new autopilot part, received by our friends in East Blue Hill. I wasn't sure the part would fix our temperamental, works some, but hasn't worked at all in days, autopilot. The prospect of needing a new autopilot this season had me a little bummed out. I'd also gotten a phone number from Jake for a diver, to get a trap lie out of our wheel. The thought of bringing in a diver, well, you can imagine how THAT made me feel.
The mate on the boat moored across from us went swimming early in the morning, and I decided if SHE could go in the water long enough to swim, that it wouldn't take my breath away to go in. I grabbed my mask and fins, and in I went. The water wasn't bad! I quickly pulled the line away from the wheel, one breath, no knife, and came up grinning! You know, the water wasn't THAT cold, and I'd wanted to see what those rocks on the side looked like.... I snorkeled to the side of the cove, enjoying looking at the smorgasbord of bottom type. There were lots of mussel shells, a couple of big scallop shells, and lots of small crabs and starfish.
Then I went into hunt mode! I picked up more mussels than I actually made it back to the boat with, since I dropped a couple. I really needed a bag! There was a thermocline at about ten feet, so I stayed above that, snorkeling at low tide (which is as good as diving 25' at high tide!) Ellen said I was in the water about 30 minutes, and I wasn't shivering yet... it ain't Florida, but, it sure was fun!
I came out, took a hot shower, and climbed into the recesses of the wiring system hid in the depths of the bathroom, installing the flux gate compass. In the process, I found a poor connection on another feed, and I became much more optimistic about the repair job working. We got underway, and swung the compass, which was easy in the glass calm conditions. I did a little initial tuning, and, thank you, Lord! the pilot worked today.
We passed this interesting boat, who appeared to be buying lobster from the local fishermen.
We only were underway for a little over 16nm, exploring in and out of the islands, before anchoring less than ten miles from where we started as the crow flies.
We took the dinghy in to explore two different islands, and returned and ate mussels and left over spaghetti for supper.
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