Merchants

Galley Cove was just about our favorite place....we knew weather was supposed to come in later in the evening, but we had a leisurely morning until the wind whipped up around mid-morning. We sailed off the mooring, and put in too reef lines since we had to cross both Blue Hill Harbor and Jericho Bay. It was good we did. As soon as we rounded the top of Bartlett Island we dropped the main to the first reefing point, and did the same for the jib. The wind was easily 20 knots, and we enjoyed zipping along in an area we had never been before. It took us awhile to tack toward Pond Island Light, but by the time we got there (3 hours or so) we got socked in with thick fog. We turned on our fog horn (it sounds every 2 minutes), radar, dropped the sails (to quicken the passage) and fell into the limited visibility routine. The difference in Canada is they don't go lobstering in the summer time, so there are no pot buoys to constantly have to dodge.

We continued on for another few hours in the fog (seemed minor given our 11 hour fog stint) and the first bit of land was Enchanted Island the "harbor island" of Saddleback Island in Merchants Row where we will stay with our boys. We headed to McGlathery Island, but it seemed too crowded so we kept going. We checked one or two places which didn't seem like they would be good in the upcoming SW thunderstorms, and settled on Merchant Harbor. It too, had several boats, but we went way up beyond them all to the most protected spot, between ledges, rocks, Merchant and Harbor Islands. We had to pull the anchor and set it a second time to feel comfortable with the 90' swing from our anchor. By this time, where we were was hot steamy sun, mystical fog coming in and out of neighboring islands, bit it was OK here. We swam, readied ourselves for a big storm, ate, and hunkered down.

The storm was really bad on the mainland, but fine where we were. We went to sleep fairly easily. About a half hour after we fell asleep we heard a bump, Peter jumped up saying we hit a rock. He started to look around and take up the anchor line some, we got the big light out and felt we hadn't dragged the anchor...in the end we were wondering if the sound was our dingy which we secured more, etc. It's hard to fall back to sleep in this situation, but we did. In the morning when the tide was super low again, and we looked out we saw that it would have been possible for us to tap a rock if we had swung a specific way. As our neighbors left through the fog, we moved once, and then again to the prime spot since we decided to stay another night due to impending weather. This gave us time to explore the Maine Island Trail island we were next to, Harbor, finish books and rest. In our new spot we were a little more rolly at high tide, but way away from any bumps in the night.