Dinghy Follies II

Written lying Pulpit Harbor, North Haven Is.

It's raining today for the first time in over two weeks, but this harbor is definitely the place to be for sitting it out.  The harbor is virtually landlocked and among the must-see places in Maine.  We are surrounded by Friendship Sloops and other very kewl yachts.

Exemplary Friendship Sloop "BAY LADY" 

Anyway...Regular readers here will recall our being busted for dinghy infractions in Glosta.  We have done it again.  There we were in Boothbay Harbor.  Gorgeous day, and we had been in town doing errands.  We returned and were settling into the wine hour with Hob Nob and Clois duBois.  A dinghy with a salty looking guy pulls up and asks where our dinghy is.  This is my first alert that it might not be tied to CODA.  Sure enough it has floated away and this guy knows where it is.  He offers to take me to it which I humbly accept.  It is now tied to the public pier and being guarded by two Coasties.  He drops me off and high-tails it before this gets more dicey.  The coasties want to know if anyone was in it.  I said yes there had been two infants and their mother....NOT.  But after I assured them it is a willful boat that is prone to attracting the fuzz they rolled their eyes and left me to my dubious devices.  By now there is a small audience for this entertainment.  People in a restaurant, people in boats, and tourists who all obviously thought this was just great fun.  See the silly old man and his wayward dinghy!!!!!  I expressed to all that I was happy to have made their day and left as fast as I could; to applause actually from one boat.  My children are now rolling THEIR eyes.

Our dinghy trials were competing with these entertainers for gawking.

We went on to Long Cove, and then Rockland for a music festival before mooring here yesterday.  Thought we would leave today, but it just feels ok to stay another day.  Met a couple, Jim and Cynthia, from Annapolis on board NEVERLAND (Crealock 34 cutter) who are doing about the same thing we are and had a great evening with them last night.   Might this be our buddy boat?  Stay tuned.

The Cabot family boatshop and railway.  Yes those Cabots.

Islands are a big deal up here.  One of the more popular names for islands is TWO BUSH.  Now none of them have any bushes so I guess this is a very old name and that the bushes were extant at some point back in the 1800s and likely died off for lack of proper pruning.  Island names (nobody knows how many islands there are in Maine) are either utterly unoriginal (LONG, LOVE, LITTLE, AND LOBSTER being rampant) or totally inscrutable as in NIGH DUCK, PATTISHALL, and KNUGGLE.  It affords imaginations great opportunity to define them.  I particularly liked working with pattishall.

Verizon is becoming more scarce, but we will ultimately lose it after Bar Harbor so this and one more post are likely to be it for a awhile.  Uploading photos is now a very tricky and long deal.  But your earnest reporter perseveres. 

Well that's enough of my ramblings for this post.  On to Winter Cove in VINALHAVEN IS.