One of the keys to happy cruising is situational awareness and responding to changing circumstances before they become acute. While it may seem strange that "getting away from it all" requires paying much more attention to what's happening, the truth is that "it all" is all the elements of our modern society that make it possible to ignore what's going on to a very large degree. Leave your stable niches behind, and you better be paying attention!

A great example of this is the weather: We don't normally pay rapt attention to the weather more a 1000 miles away from us, or the forecast for much more than tomorrow. If the weather does something unexpected, you close the windows, drive a little slower, decide to watch a movie instead of going to the park. On a boat, our lives are profoundly influenced by weather and, when a hurricane is roaming the seas, EVERYBODY pays attention. Will hurricane Earl come and whack us? Or will it just be a rainy weekend? By the time we know for sure, it will be too late to go anywhere and all the "hurricane hole" harbors with good protection will be filled. So, although Earl won't get here until Saturday, we moved Northern Symphony over to a mooring in Northeast Harbor this afternoon (not a bad lunch break for this working stiff!).

The picture shows the view looking down the harbor: that narrow space between the headlands is the only way in and no big waves get in through that gap, especially as a couple of islands cover the direct line into it. To our northeast, where the strongest winds come from in a hurricane, we are only a hundred feet from a tall, rocky hill. Not surprisingly, Northeast Harbor is generally considered the most secure harbor around and boats like us are already coming in to ride out the storm. The usual reservation systems have been abandoned for the "first-come, first-served" protocol of a storm refuge and prudent mariners are either already here, or will be within 24 hours.

Of course, this means we'll be here until Sunday, at least. We've been told that Northeast Harbor is a great town to hang out in and there are free buses from here to Bar Harbor so we won't be cooped-up below decks all the time. We also have good cellular and data connectivity so I can work comfortably from here as well...providing it stops being so hot! Hard to believe we needed our heating system just a week ago in Nova Scotia! It was 96F today....