Day 7 July 26 Buckle Island to Northeast Harbor

Today started off with a bang!! Yes literally. It was about 6:30 and I heard a bang that sounded like it was coming from Swans Island that forms the east side of our anchorage at Buckle Harbor. "Interesting that they are blasting on the island." I will backtrack somewhat and say that last night's forecast was for a sunny and wonderful day - thus it can't be thunder. And then a second bang was heard. This time it seemed to be coming from the west of us. A check of the weather app revealed a strong storm cell to the north of us. Well that does seem consistent with the dark clouds to the north of us. But fortunately the cell passed to the north of us and the radar map showed clear going after it passed.

So we were able to get underway about 8:30 as planned. The full plan was to go to Northeast Harbor and arrive at 11:00 or so as that is time you need to be off a rental mooring without having to pay for another day. This gives us the best chance of getting a mooring as they are first come first served. This plan worked as hoped. The trip was about 11 miles and the conditions were very calm.

The seas were fine but we did have a pleasure powerboat give a substantive wake that rolled things far more than was appropriate. Those miserable stinkpotters!! That's what we called powerboaters back in the day when I had our sailboats. As we have not had a sailboat for over 23 years, I imagine the term may have evolved into something less family friendly.

Here is the picture of Buckle Harbor and you can see the storm cell to the north of us.

Looking south from Buckle Harbor the sky is clear - go figure.

But as you can see after a hour or so of travel the sky has changed to what I had expected and hoped to see. Here we are beginning the crossing of Bass Harbor Bar - and as you can likely guess - that is Bass Harbor Lighthouse in the background.

Here we have turned north and are headed for Northeast Harbor. This passage is called the Western Way. This view is one that comes to mind on many a winter's night. I never tire of seeing it.

Approaching Northeast Harbor.

And from this picture you can likely deduce that we were able to find a mooring.

We are hiking from Northeast to Jordan Pond. It is about 3 miles.

Our hike takes us through the Thuya Gardens that are simply beautiful.

After leaving Thuya Gardens we soon come to the Map House. As you can see this is the junction for a number of trails There is an actual map built into the table under the enclosure.