Day 49 – Frenchboro to Bucks Harbor
The row to the dock at Lunt’s Dockside Deli was long, we passed a surprising number of fellow transient sailboats in the harbor. The town of Frenchboro sits on either side of the shallow cove; steep hillsides provide good views even to houses far from the waterfront.
A small school, church, post office, ferry landing, and of course a dockside deli sit amongst a few dozen houses, many of which were for sale. It would be easy to be drawn in by the beautiful summer scene and, later, full of buyers regret in the fourth full month of winter.
We circled the heavily forested island, watched huge surf crash over the pink granite, and listened to its roar echo through still, moss covered evergreen woods. We met a couple sailing to Nova Scotia. We walked back with a buoy even larger than Andrew’s first find. Although as best as I could tell, it was exactly as useful to us, not at all.
We returned to Isla just in time for the huge car ferry to pass by; we had anchored directly in its path. The charts said nothing about this, but I couldn’t help but feel like we were about to be reprimanded as a uniformed man stared down at us through binoculars from the pilot house. We weighed anchor and left before the ferry set off again.
The wind grew stronger and stronger as we passed Marshall Island, crossed Jericho Bay, and came to the entrance of Eggemoggin Reach. Unfortunately for us a more appropriate name given the wind direction would have been the Eggemogg-in irons.
We filled the gas tank in the lee of White Island and motored directly upwind into the unusual north westerly, under the tall suspension bridge to Deer Isle, and into Buck’s Harbor, but not before Caly protested the day’s boat ride by returning her breakfast. Andrew’s dad had suggested anchoring in the empty eastern half of Bucks, called Lems Cove.
We found it full of moorings, which must have been a recent addition, sometime in the last forty five years that had passed since his days sailing on the schooners. We narrowly avoided taking a distracted wander over Harbor Ledge, a strong candidate for run-aground number three. We anchored in the only open space, halfway between Lems Cove and the Marina at the other end of the harbor.
As we ate dinner, the Heritage, a schooner bearing no resemblance to the previously pictured lobster boat, pointed her bow sprit towards the harbor and steadily drew closer. It became clear we were anchored where she would, the second time that day we were in the way of a much larger vessel. She anchored a bit closer to the entrance of the harbor than otherwise ideal, and let us stay put.
