Position           44:18.55N 068:19.0W

Date                1810 – Saturday 2 July 2011 (UTC -4)

First, a follow up to the strap hanger line of last night; shades of “the Archers” from BBC Radio 4 here?  Beal’s Lobster Pier was great and did precisely what it said on the tin.

Pick your own lobster may not be for the squeamish

but the mate did not seem to mind and ordered a side of mussels to complete the meal.  I “chickened out”, well not exactly “chickened”, and had a sea food fry up.  Whilst to our American friends this may not seem out of the ordinary, to Brit’s on their first trip here the whole lobster experience is quite a novelty.

Mount Desert Island has an amazing system of free bus routes linking all of the centres and serving campsites, hiking trails and tourist spots.  We took the bus across the island to Bar Harbor partly to do a recce for somewhere suitable to be on 4 July and partially as a great way of seeing more of the island.  Bar Harbor looks ideal to spend 4 July and to enjoy the celebrations although arriving a day early will be necessary to get a good spot to anchor as the Harbour Master tells us that it gets very busy on the day.  The town and anchorage was looking good in bright sunshine and was packed with visitors.

We returned to Southwest Harbor where the bus dropped us off right at the dinghy dock.  Following our guide to Maine from Scott and Kitty Kuhner we then moved 3 miles up into Somes Sound and found a delightful and peaceful anchorage in Valley Cove.  The view up the Sound from our anchorage  says it all.

The view ashore was equally stunning.