44:12.37N 69:03.18W

Sunday 1^st September

We awoke to thick fog and could not see across the bay at first, but by 0830 hours it has lifted quite substantially and so we decided to head off ahead of the forecast thunderstorms. But almost as soon as we left the confines of the bay, the visibility dropped to 30 yards and we were reduced to using the radar and having to concentrate fully to weave our way firstly through the usual fields of  lobster pot buoys and in addition today we were navigating our way up some narrow channels between islands as we headed north towards Rockland. The extra catch now is that as we are heading north and east again, the vast majority of boats are now heading south in a sort of annual migration. So not only were these channels narrow and treacherous, but there were also a good number of yachts and motor yachts likely to be heading the opposite way in the thick fog. The lobster boats are a hazard we have grown used to and they largely manage to avoid us in these situations, but their engines are pretty much un-silenced so they are fairly easy to identify and locate in the swirling white fog, despite the fact that we rarely actually see them.

We came across our first yacht when it materialised barely one boat length in front of us at right angles to us which even with the radar running was a complete surprise to us! They had been blanketed by a large rock and they seemed as bemused as we were. The next one we knew was coming, but as he suddenly took shape coming directly towards us and very close, it was obvious that he had not been expecting us! We then approached the narrowest of the pinch points up this long passage between the islands, but to our relief the fog started to lift and we could make out the forms of two more yachts running side by side towards us some 100 metres ahead which was fine.

The fog lifted still further as we came out into Penobscot Bay and so we opted to sail on past Rockland and continue all the way to Camden as the forecast for the next day was not promising at all. We did manage to sail for a while, but once the wind speed dropped to 2 knots we had to abandon this and the mackerel fishing and motor on the final few miles to where we picked up a Camden Yacht Club buoy. (These are charged at half price to foreign flagged OCC yachts.)

Since it was only early afternoon we chose to explore Curtis island (formerly known as Negro Island but no one knows why) which guards the entrance to Camden Harbor. The island is owned by the state and houses a lighthouse as well as a family that notionally looked after the light, but since it was automated, the present residents are more like volunteers than keepers. We found that there is no landing stage and so as we pottered round in the dinghy, Sarah spotted an inflatable that was connected to an ‘outhaul system using a continuous rope and pulley system to get in and out of the rock lined cove. We simply tied ourselves to this and with some difficulty Sarah managed to get ashore and untangle the lines so we could make this work properly. We then walked across the tiny island, through the woods and towards the lighthouse and cottage. We spotted what we initially thought were pheasants before realising that they were wild turkeys.

We then met Deedee Conover who is the lovely lady who lives here and she gave us a tour of the lighthouse and her cottage before walking back with us across the island to the rocky cove where our dinghy was. We headed off into town and took advantage of the showers at Wayfarer Marine. Then as we were returning to the dinghy dock we spotted a Najad yacht on the Wayfarer main frontage and as we approached we recognised it as Wassail which is an American flagged yacht belonging to Nick and Phyllis Oren who we met in 2006 in the Najad marina in Henan, Sweden. So we had a chat with them before returning to Serafina for the evening.