Little Cranberry (again) and Somes Sound

After the excitement of seeing Oma and Opa and the busy-ness of Bar Harbor, we decided to take a few days in a couple of quieter locations. We did a big grocery shop in Bar Harbor at the Hannaford (love that store!) on the morning of August 5th, schlepped our stuff back across town to the dinghy, loaded it on board Oestara, and headed out.

We decided to go from Bar Harbor back to Little Cranberry Island, leaving some grey clouds behind us.

Once we got to Little Cranberry, the skies cleared up (as they so often seem to do – the weather here is ever changing!) and we ventured onto shore to check out the Islesford Dock Restaurant, which had been closed on our last visit.

We had some local Cranberry oysters, farmed just a couple of miles from the restaurant, and a lobster poutine that had no business being so delicious.

Overstuffed, we headed back to the boat for sundown.

The next morning, we went to the community center to use their free internet and catch up on some things (downloading library books, working on blog posts, answering emails, paying bills…general life admin stuff). Later in the day we found ourselves back at the restaurant for drinks.

Back on board, we took in some more of the pretty views and then settled in for a little dose of YouTube woodworking videos, thanks to the excellent hotspot that we found covered the mooring field here.

The next morning, the 7th, we set off to sail up Somes Sound. Somes is a “fjard.” Wikipedia tells me that fjards are “submerged glaciated valleys with much shallower slopes than steep-sided fjords.” They still make for beautiful scenery, I’ll tell you that.

With a storm and high winds predicted for the next day, we grabbed a mooring at Abel’s Yacht Yard and planned to be there for that night and the following.

Sure enough, the next day was a stormy one and we stayed holed up on the boat for most of it.

We saw a high of 32 knots of wind on the instruments during the day. A little breezy, you might say.

There was a small break in the rain around 6 pm, and we were feeling the need to get off the boat, so we went up to Abel’s Lobster Pound for dinner. We sat at the bar, next to a lovely couple from the Outer Banks, Norm and Elyse (if you two are reading this, hello!). We enjoyed chatting with them while we all had some great seafood to eat–except Cecelia, who still eschews all seafood of any type. We got some blueberry pie to go and jumped back in the dinghy out to the boat, marveling that the weather had held out for us. About a minute after we got on board, the skies completely opened up and it was pouring again. We really did time our exit well!