Wednesday July 27th.

We had a nice breeze when we left the mooring at 10:30 for Burnt Coat Island, 44 08.46N 068 26.85W, however it didn’t last and we ended up motoring for 1½ hours, sailing for 1½ and then motoring for 2 hours L. 

We tried dropping the hook in the harbour, but it fouled on weed and since the guide book suggested that weed was a problem, we decided to pick up a visitor mooring instead.  The line on the mooring was about 1½” in diameter, so we felt pretty secure!  We went ashore to pay for the mooring, but couldn’t find anyone.  So we had a nice walk to the lighthouse on Hockamock Head, 44 08.00N 068 26.75W.  There are lovely hiking trails through the woods around the lighthouse.

There’s a green navigation buoy just off the head and about 6 young guys were having a great time playing on it.  These buoys are huge, although sometimes when looking for them at sea, you wouldn’t think so.  The boys on the buoy were probably 16 or 17 years old, but when standing on the base of the buoy, only came half way to the top of it.  Their favorite game seemed to be to leave one guy on the top, while the other 5 rocked the buoy back and forth, eventually weighing it down to almost horizontal.  Then the 5 ‘ballast’ guys would let go and catapult the guy on the top off.  I wish that game had been invented when I was 16!

Ron went fishing with his new mackerel lure and caught a huge mackerel.  If he catches another tomorrow, there’ll be enough for an appetizer!

In the evening, we were treated to another sight of the 120’ (or so) schooner “Heritage”.  This was the same ship we described dropping anchor under sail in Boothbay harbor on their windjammer days.  

When we entered the harbor, we took the tickle channel, which our book described as tricky.  We entered very cautiously, using  engines, and with Ron on the bow looking for rocks and lobster pots and eresa at the helm.  “Heritage”, on the other hand, came in very sedately, with all sails set and calmly gave us another demonstration of anchoring under sail.  Nice!

Ships Log: 5923.6, Todays Log: 17.5, Seasons Total: 228.4