It was rainy this morning but luckily it cleared up enough so we could leave Blue Hill. Our destination was an anchorage near Mount Desert Island so we could do some more hiking. There was not much wind so it was a motoring day and we set the autopilot to follow the route Bill had laid out. There were not many lobster pots out there and we had already decided we didn’t really need to worry about them. We had hit a number of them already and they just bounced off our bottom. A lot of the pots here have a second line attached to the float with another float on that line because of the large tidal range. It’s not a good idea to go between them, we knew that but that hadn’t been a problem so far either. The picture above was not taken today, it was too dreary out for pictures. The picture, from a couple of days ago, is an example of how bad the lobster pots can be, today it wasn’t anywhere near this. We were going along and we heard something hit the boat, we always turn around to look to see what we hit. All I saw was a little piece of white foam floating away, but then I realized the boat wasn’t going as fast as it was before. Bill said I was wrong, but I really thought the boat was stopping. Then Bill looked behind us and saw we were dragging a line, which was attached to a lobster pot on the bottom of the bay in 90 feet of water. Luckily the line hadn’t wrapped itself around the prop but had probably hung up on our rudder so it didn’t take too much effort to get it disconnected. We put the boat in neutral and Bill messed around with the line with our boat hook. The white foam I saw floating away was a chunk of the float we had hit. Now we know we need to be more careful and hopefully we won’t catch another pot.

When we got to our destination of Bass Harbor, Bill said something that reminded me that we knew someone here. She is a friend of one of the midshipmen we sponsored years ago in Annapolis. We had met her at the Annapolis boat show a few years ago. According to the business card we had for her she worked right at the yacht makers’ shop we were going to anchor in front of. Well, that we tried to anchor in front of, the anchor wouldn’t grab. There were lots of empty moorings there and we decided to call her and ask her what the deal was with the moorings. I had her on the phone when some other guys came by and told us just to take a mooring, no charge. It turns out she no longer works in that location, but she isn’t that far away so we decided that tomorrow we are taking her and her daughter to a lobster pound for dinner. I have no good idea of what a lobster pound is yet but she says it’s a Maine tradition not to be missed.

We went to check out the town this afternoon and after walking around a bit we decided to finally try a lobster roll. Not only have we not had any lobster yet since we’ve been in Maine this time, neither of us has ever tasted a lobster roll. We’ve heard a lot about them, and they are certainly very expensive, so you expect that it’s going to be incredible. Well really it’s just some lobster meat, mixed with mayonnaise and shoved on a hot dog roll. I’m really not sure what the big deal is.

We are going for a hike in Mount Desert tomorrow. We will take the free bus to Bar Harbor, where Bill has already picked out the restaurant for breakfast, and then take another bus to the start of the hike he has planned for us. We are looking forward to it!