Today was an island exploring day with a little bit of a boat ride in between. This morning we waited until the tide was low enough so the islands we were anchored next to were all connected. The four of us dinghied over to the beach and started exploring all the islands. It wasn’t the best shell gathering island we’d been to, but Emilia managed to find some shells to take home. Both Emilia and Sam climbed on the rocks and had a good time exploring. Sam and Bill tried to walk across the water to another island but the tide wasn’t quite low enough for that.

We got back to the boat and motored around Deer Isle and into East Penobscot Bay. We sailed for a very short time, the wind either wasn’t strong enough or was in the wrong direction. We wanted to buy some lobster so Bill kept trying to get the attention of any lobster boats that were going by close enough but wasn’t successful at all. Guess we don’t get to cook lobster on the boat for the kids this time

The cruising guide said there were good trails to hike on Pickering Island, where we are anchored now. It said take the dinghy to the shore and look for the multi-colored rock. We didn’t really see a multi-colored rock but the trail was easy to find. We walked through the woods to the other side of the island and sat on the rocks long enough to look at the water we had just sailed through and recover from the hike. We walked back to the beach and got everyone back in the dinghy. My new trick is to let everyone get in without really getting wet and then to push the dinghy out into deeper water and jump on the bow at the same time. So far it’s worked pretty well.

The sky looked incredible at sunset this evening, as you can see in the picture above. I’m not sure what those clouds mean.

Tomorrow we will go to Belfast and get a mooring. We have showers waiting for us there and a new town to explore. We will end the day with a pizza dinner with a young family we met in the Bahamas. They are lending us their car to get the kids to the airport. Cruisers are the best!