We departed Castine under overcast skies and decent visibility, bound for McGlathery Island in the Merchant Row Islands. We heard that there was a state maintained island that offered great hiking and a chance to see some wild sheep there. We steamed into the wind for the first leg of the journey; however we were able to hoist sail once we made our first southward turn down Penobscot Bay. We had a nice sail down the bay and were able to maneuver our way right through the islands of Merchant Row and up to McGlathery. We steamed around the eastern end of the island to save time and get a good spot in the anchorage. Once we arrived, we were the second boat in and we had plenty of room to anchor. We anchored in 23ft of water at mid ebb and we were very encouraged by the scenery laid before us.

After squaring away, our first order of business was to go ashore and explore. We really wanted to catch site of this "wild wooly" that was rumored to roam this island. Also, the rocks there were fairly unique and just cried to be explored. It's really amazing how entertaining it is to climb about on these rocks that are so foreign to us down south. Typically, we have to travel to the mountains to see rocks of this sort and we are not used to having them rise right out of the ocean waters in such splendor. We tried to walk directly through the forest so as to see evidence of the wild wooly sheep, but the forest became so thick that we could not easily pass due to all the coniferous deadfall which blocked your way like so many rows of punji-stakes. We moved back out to the water and decided to walk the perimeter of the eastern island which is joined to McGlathery by a sand bar exposed at lower water. We saw island meadows, bogs, climbed huge rocks, and saw stunning scenery on all hands. There was a multitude of "lobstah" floats washed ashore which had been hung from trees in various locations by hikers, I guess in hopes that the lobsterman would see them and retrieve them. Here and there it almost gave the impression of a big Christmas tree with the brightly colored floats hanging from the conifer trees. We never did see evidence of any sheep, but we did see deer sign.

As we made our way around the smaller island and back to the boat, we noticed that several other boats had anchored and more were coming in. Apparently this was a fairly popular spot, and for good reason. We held hopes that everyone would choose their anchorage carefully and that there would not be any boat bumping games in the small cove at night. There ended up being about 9 boats in the anchorage at sunset. We had no bumping boats during the night, but we did see another boat alarmingly close to the rocks at low water when we awoke the next morning. As it turns out, he did not choose his anchorage so carefully and he had to move his boat really early in the morning both due to proximity to another boat and to the rocky shore which loomed up out of the water at low tide. He suffered no damage, only some lost sleep.

Austin & I went for a final hike in the morning before we would depart this beautiful island. We set our goal to walk part of the perimeter of McGlathery, and to climb the 125ft summit on the SE side of the island. As we rounded this larger island we found even more stunning rock formations than before. We found exceedingly large freestone granite & marble boulders deposited there by the glaciers, amazingly large and expansive formations of granite, cool pockets where the water lapped into the rock and made strange noises, and a lot of "lobstah" floats. We added any floats we found to the occasional Christmas-like collections we found hanging here and there. Due to the culture of coastal Maine, the little arrays of colorful lobster floats handing in the trees by the rocks actually added a little appeal to the atmosphere, rather than detracting.

Once we arrived on the SE face of the island, we saw a thinned area through the woods and up the slope towards the summit. We picked our way carefully up until we were standing on the summit, under a canopy of conifer trees and standing atop the most beautiful mossy forest floor you can imagine. According to Austin, it was like "natures Temperpedic". You could just lie down, curl up, and go to sleep there on the soft and spongy forest floor. Through the trees there was ocean blue all around and the forest was thinned out for some distance. We elected to make another attempt to walk through the forest and across the island to the boat. We set our bearing and begin to hike, until I stopped cold and noticed a game-camera installed on a nearby tree. It seemed that this camera was placed either by a hunter or by some state organization who takes an interest in game or "wild wooly" management. We stood for a minute and pondered the situation. There was only one thing to do...........it was time to moon the camera. When those biologists check the film on this camera, they will see something white, wild, and wooly, but it won't be a sheep!

Cap'n Monty
s/v Song Of The South
At anchor at McGlathery Island, ME