Cruising Maine July 2012 XI Thursday, July 19, 2012 Horseshoe Cove, Cape Rosier, Maine Water temperature 61 F

We came into Horseshoe Cove yesterday and picked up a Seal Cove Boatyard mooring. At 4 PM, UPS delivered our new engine mounts to Seal Cove Boatyard and I was ready to start making the needed permanent repairs from our encounter with a lobster float. I worked on the engine for about an hour getting ready to start replacing the mounts in the morning.

When we caught the lobster float, the two starboard engine mounts sheared. This morning I connected the main halyard to the mounting foot on the front starboard corner of the engine. Cranking the winch with a moderate amount of force raised the engine enough to slip the new front engine mount into position. That went remarkably easy, so easy it worried me. Getting a fair lead to raise the back starboard corner of the engine with the main halyard was more of a challenge. I connected the halyard to the lifting eye on the back of the engine and took up the slack. With a fair amount of force on the winch handle, the back starboard corner of the engine was lifted enough to take the pressure off the old mount. The engine would have to be lifted over another inch to allow the new mount to be slid under the mounting bracket. To avoid having to lift the engine that high, I removed the mounting bracket, an easy thing to do, and then with the engine mount attached to the mounting bracket, reattached the mounting bracket to the engine.

By 10 AM the new engine mounts were installed and I was staring to work on aligning the engine. We were coming up on high tide and at high a dinghy can be taken inland on Horseshoe Cove, up two reversing falls and into a salt water lake that is inaccessible at anything other than high slack. I knew I could finish aligning the engine in a couple of hours so there was no reason not to put that job on hold and go dinghy exploring. The first reversing falls we went up already had plenty of water over the rocks but the water was swirling around and it looked like a drunk was steering the dinghy. When we got to the second reversing falls, we approached very carefully and did not like what we saw. The water wasn't deep enough yet over the rocks and it was still a waterfall. We turned around and went exploring up some of the side branches. There were some houses on the shore but they were all some distance back from the water in the trees so from the water it looked like you were going up a river through the woods. It was an attractive area with many canoes pulled on the bank.

After killing some time, we went back to second reversing falls. By now the tide had come in some more and there was sufficient water over the rocks for us to go up the falls. We circled around the salt water lake and then headed back to the boat.

After a couple of hours fussing around the engine was aligned, the tools put away and the boat tidied up. In a few weeks my hands will be clean again and the broken fingernails trimmed away.