Wednesday started with a bit of a breeze that had blown the fog away to leave crystal clear view of the coast and surrounding pine woods – time to get moving again.  It would have been a great day’s sailing, if not for the lobster pot floats.  We’d watched a local boat sail through them in the harbour without chicaning about, so with the engine not running I decided to follow the same tactics.  Within 10 minutes of sailing we had our first brush past – or not.  It turned out to be a double float where the sinking line is connected via a floating line to a second pot.  We sailed right between them and despite tacking back, we were firmly trapped and brought to a halt.  I donned Stuart’s old sailing wetsuit (a very tight fit!) and quickly managed to cut the line wrapped around the prop, keeping the offending float as a souvenir.  However we were still in the middle of a field of them and within seconds of getting free of the first had picked up a second.  The wetsuit was still on, so it was over the side again to gain another memento:-

However our trials were not over for the day:  we then lost the 400 plus litres of fresh water from one of our tanks!  I had slid the wetsuit into the shower via a cockpit window to be rinsed later and it had caught the shower tap on its way down.  We didn’t notice anything until much later when the pump started making funny noises – Lindsay went below to investigate and found the entire aft of the boat under 5 inches of water; shower, heads and aft cabin, water lapping up the side of our bed.  It’s astonishing how much space 400 odd litres fills!  Whilst Lindsay continued to dodge floats I spent much of the rest of the day pumping out.  The irony is that we had spend ages the previous day ferrying most of the water we lost onto the boat in jerry cans.  What a day!  This run of “bad luck” is beginning to feel threatening – am I losing my marbles?

Without the unbelievable numbers of pot markers and associated traumas, the sailing would have been very enjoyable, especially our final fast close haul towards Rockland.  Pine clad coastline with views of hills beyond would be attractive if only we had had the leisure to admire it rather than simply keep our eyes glued to the water just ahead.  Seven hours of that is exhausting!

However Rockland seems a good spot to stop and recover our energies for a couple of nights.  There is even good wi-fi here, the first time I’ve been able to ay that for a while!

The harbour is protected by a mile long breakwater with a lighthouse at the end:

Evening light over the moorings:

Two more boat names to consider:- bad pun “Pier Pressure” and “Fat Bottom Girls”!