Muscle Ridge Channel

 Muscle Ridge Channel

Friday 14th Aug 2020

We have arrived in Rockland, Maine, where we will meet up with Gloria’s brother Rod and sister Liz for a few days of family cruising. Our journey today involved a short twelve-mile run up Muscle Ridge channel. There were many vessels making the transit of the beautiful section of the coast. The vast majority were sailing down wind with the help of the ebb tide and a small minority, us, were motoring directly into the wind against a fairly stiff current. Well we just need to be where we were going and anyway, we like to think of ourselves as trend-setters! It’s tough to see the lobster pots (floats) when it gets choppy so I was concentrating really hard when I experienced a first for our boating life on Cotinga … a wasp stung me on my big toe just as I was navigating a particularly tricky area! I was, of course, “cool” in the face of adversity (not true, I swore my head off and jumped around in the cockpit).  Gloria and I aren’t usually too competitive with each other, but I think that beats biting flies. (In the past I might have said “trumps” biting flies, but the very word now raises my blood pressure). Anyway we reached Rockland shortly after noon and are anchored a long way out from town behind the mile-long breakwater. We did a few boat jobs this afternoon and took a long dinghy ride to the public dock in town. We are both quite tired and looking forward to a quiet evening. Now the boat traffic has died down it's as flat as a pancake.

Before we sign off, I do want to mention that over the past couple of days we have been seeing lots of dolphins and one, possible two sunfish and one Minke whale, as well as lots of sea-birds.

Mike

p.s. are there any aspects of cruising life that you would like us to talk about?

 

44 06.724 N, 69 05.280 W

The  lighthouse on Wentworth Island at the south end of Muscle Ridge Channel

Owls Head light at the north end of Muscle Ridge Channel, just as you turn north then west into Rockland harbor

Owls Head light - photographed in February this year on a weekend trip up to Maine

The lighthouse at the end of Rockland Harbor Breakwater

Rockland Harbor breakwater - photographed in February this year on a weekend trip up to Maine