sometime before 2 a.m. Monday. We're a little nervous, but there's lots of time for things to improve. We're tied to a mooring of expected ocean quality inside a harbour that even has some barrier islands between it and the open ocean. Tomorrow, we'll check for weather updates, and contemplate further action on our part. We can test our mooring by backing up on it - and possibly find a better one; we can remove our windshield, bimini, and possibly even our sails, and we can get our anchors on
deck ready to drop if the mooring fails. We can also start our engines and run them towards the mooring at the peak of the storm, thus decreasing the forces on the mooring and/or anchors.
We'd rather have sailed yesterday to Northeast Harbour, near Bar Harbour. We'd be 30+ miles further along on our journey and have even better weather protection. The weather certainly held off for the proposed trip. However, the lobster traps on the route from here to there, are so plentiful and difficult to navigate that we became quite disillusioned. All we could envision is having one or more of those buggers wrapped around a propeller or stuck in the little gap between our hull and rudders;
and we having to struggle to the point that yesterday's storm might have found us before we reached safe harbour. Cat Tales, with narrow hulls, two props and two rudders, is exceptionally susceptible to these buggers. I remember helping Doug and Jeanne Chown get their Catalina 30, a robust and fat monohull, through these waters. The rudder caught a rope and buoy, and it was all we could do to get untangled. The rudder stuffing box leaked all the way home, and the rudder had to be removed and
the shaft straightened (or was it all replaced - Jeanne will let us know) once the boat was hauled in Canada. Damage to our equipment, like a broken seal on a saildrive, could easily mean the complete cancellation of our voyage south.
Eastern Harbour is 15 miles by road to Jonesport, and might have 10 houses around it. Not much going on around here. Everything is wet, and we don't seem interested in getting into a wet dinghy and going ashore for a walk through the wet fog with rain pending.
Yesterday, thinking we'd want something to do, we made up a list of chores we could tackle. I took on a small one, and lost interest in chores. Dawn has tackled a book and lunch, and a nap, non on the list. I guess we have tomorrow for chores.
Well, it's time for the NB Nut Net on the Ham Radio. Dawn has promised hot chocolate while I go there and chat up John, VE1SY. Sorry there is nothing exciting here. Check back tomorrow, or Monday after the storm.
Laurie (and Dawn)
