Sunday morning, after a great breakfast and being bored of staring into thick fog - again... we conjured up a plan to go to Northeast Harbor to stock up on provisions, take a hot shower, and fill up on water. Throughout the morning, while we sat snug on our mooring, the fog rolled in leaving only a few yards of visibility. Other times it would lift and you could see the wharf of the fisherman’s coop, or the heavily rigged barge for the fish farm about a quarter mile away. Our exit from the harbor was not visible but we knew it was there...

The day before, we listened to the marine forecast calling for winds of 15-20 knots with gusts to 25 knots, seas 4-7 feet, visibility less than a quarter nautical miles in fog - ugh. That morning we listened to the updated forecast and the seas were reduced to 2-4 feet but still strong winds and heavy fog (something fishy with this forecast - just sayin). Given the revised forecast we decided to rig up for the winds and head out for our next adventure. As we left the mooring, the seas rolled a bit but when we headed outside the protection of the harbor the seas increased to six to eight feet about every five seconds.

Picture yourself sitting on a roller coaster at the Yarmouth Clam Festival or any of the Smokey’s carnival rides, present at every festival in Maine during the summer. The ride climbs a steep upward trajectory then comes crashing down. Now repeat this ride for the next hour or so. Now picture yourself in a 32 foot long pencil of a sailboat propelled by a tiny two blade propeller, located at the back of the pencil about the width of a ruler. Amazingly It’s able to keep us moving forward and away from the surf crashing on the ledges right next to us. that was our adventure getting out of Burnt Coat Harbor.

Once we got in the lee of Long Island things settled down a bit. The sun burned off some of the fog. We had about a quarter mile of visibility which seamed luxurious. We saw a few of the smaller islands we were trying to avoid, and were grateful to be heading towards Northeast Harbor. About halfway there the wind picked up and we had a wonderful sail through “Western way” into the harbor. We hailed the harbormaster on the radio and secured ourselves to a floating dock for the night.