From Inaction to Action

Penobscot Bay
No LL

Just after posting my blog yesterday complaining that we couldn't get radar repair help from Furuno, the Furuno technician called. Hooray. We made arrangements to meet at the public landing in Rockland. We sprang in to action. Hastily, we weighed anchor and set out fo the landing. Too hastily. It seems that there was a lobster pot directly under the boat when we first started the engine. Sure enough, it wrapped around the propeller. It didn't wrap tightly enough to stop the engine. We were
still able to motor in to the landing. When we got there, Nick volunteered to go swimming and to get the rope fragments away from the shaft. Thank you Nick.

The Furuno guy came. It took him only minutes to discover the problem. There was a screw-in cable connector in the back of the unit that wasn't screwed in tight. Oh no. All those months for such a simple problem! To diagnose the problem I have been up and down the mast twice, I disassembled and reassembled the cable wire terminations at the base of the mast three times, but never once did I check the cables at the back of the display unit. Oh well, the dunce hat for me today. Anyhow, it's
fixed and I'm glad even if a little embarrassed.

We left Rockland immediately and headed for another semi-wilderness place at Dix Island. We discovered that our coastal navigation skills are really rusty without the aid of our Lowrance GPS chart plotter. Our skills are fine for navigating 5 mile or more from shore, but here in the archipelago with numerous shoals and rock hazards everywhere, we need *precision* navigation. Libby drove while I constantly checked the charts, and our bearings to marks and our lat-lon from our hand held GPS. We
did OK. Oh well, the practice will be good for us.

While Libby made dinner, Nick and I hopped in to the dinghy and went over to nearby High Island. We landed near a pier made of massive rectangular granite blocks. High Island had been used as a granite quarry. The pier was granite, the foundations and cellars of building ruins were granite, a road leading inland was granite, every bit of infrastructure on that island was granite. It makes extreme sense doesn't it?

After a short hike inland, we found the quarry. It was a very deep pit, and it was filled with fresh water. I tried the water. It was fresh and it was plenty warm enough for a nice swim. I went skinny dipping in the pool while Nick did a little rock climbing. Nick took a picture of me swimming from 200 feet above. I'll post it if it turns out good. The little side trip was fun.

This morning, we are en route to Boothbay Harbor. It is 25 miles as the crow flies and 50 miles by water. We'll try to stop along the way at Eastern Egg Rock where we may be able to see puffins. Winds are SW at 5, sunny and temperatures expected to hit 80F(27C). We'll have to do half the trip by motor and hopefully the other half under sail.

We also have a plan for the coming week. We'll try to find a deep sea fishing excursion in Boothbay, and we'll also receive mail and Lowrance parts. Then we'll leave for Portland, ME. I reserved a car to pick up in Portland Friday to return on Monday. We'll drive Nick to Vermont, then we'll drive to Albany NY to visit my sister Marilyn, then return to Portland. I was very proud of my Internet skills on the car rental. First, I discovered that cars cost $115/day in Rockland, or $70/day in
Portsmouth, NH, but only $59/day in Portland. Then, I searched the web for Avis coupon codes. I found a page listing 20 or more codes. I tried one code after another that didn't work. Then, I tried one more time. PRESTO; the price dropped to $33/day. What an enormous difference -- $115 to $33!