I spent the time updating the blog on our three day visit to Harrington. We left our beautiful anchorage on Roque by 11 for the approximately four hour run to Lubec.
It was another sunny day with temperatures in the low seventies. We passed a number of lighthouses along the way. They included the Little River Light in Cutler Harbor, the West Quoddy Head Light with red and white stripes (hard to make out in the photo) and the Lubec Channel Light, a spark plug style that sits in the middle of the channel.
Cruising the islands around Machias Bay, we made our way to the Bold Coast (not at all like the Gold Coast we have in Florida)! This Down East part of Maine has almost no ports of refuge (i.e. places to safely tuck into overnight in case of a storm) past the little town of Cutler.
We rounded Quoddy Point, the easternmost tip of the U.S. and also the closest point to Africa. Believe it or not, it’s closer to Africa than Key West!
From there we cruised through the Lubec Narrows, the very narrow and rough water passage that separates the U.S. from Campobello Island in Canada. This required careful planning to avoid the raging currents that flow through there. All our guidebooks advised against taking this most direct route but Jonny consulted several people with local knowledge and he studied the tide charts ad nauseum and learned that we would be safe if we took it at slack tide. And guess what? We were perfectly fine! It wasn’t even as rough as going through Hell Gate in NYC!
Once we were in Lubec we were in the land of 20 foot tides. This bridge connected Lubec, Maine to Campobello Island in Canada. We were amazed by how few cars we saw on it, maybe one every 15 minutes.
This charming lighthouse welcomed us to the harbor in Lubec.
We called the harbormaster who directed us to a massive mooring ball with no lead lines on it which meant that Jonny had to rig our lines and hang over the bow of Zendo to thread them onto the mooring. It was quite a challenge but of course he did it!
From there we walked into this very small town in search of the local pub (which was closed) so we settled for ice cream. Lubec has a unique ambiance, giving off the vibe of being one of those towns at the end of the earth.
We walked through some rather modest areas with homes in various stages of repair and then saw this interesting sign on one of the local churches.
That evening Jonny made a nice dinner of salmon, green beans and the homemade tabbouli that Rob had given us. Afterwards we spent the evening planning our entry to Canada and our visit to Campobello the next day.
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