44:12.3N 69:03.1W

Wed & Thurs - 24^th & 25^th July

Wednesday was fairly static and we all went ashore in Rockland for the morning, with Sarah heading off to the laundry to do the washing.

James and I tackled a few jobs back on board in the afternoon and then once Sarah had returned around tea time, we popped over to visit Dovka who had just anchored nearby.

The attempt to encourage the sink in the forward heads to drain faster proved to be the trickiest job. Using a plunger made no difference, so we disconnected the waste pipe and inserted a long tube connected to a manual vacuum pump. The plan was to shut off the sea cock, suck out the remaining waste water with the pump and then use baking soda and water to clean the pipe and hopefully dissolve any blockage. James worked hard with the manual vacuum pump and after we had emptied the main part of the pump three times (around 2 gallons of water) it occurred to us that perhaps the stop cock was not actually turned off properly. Sure enough the problem was tracked back to the faulty valve and we had spent a fair amount of time simply trying to empty Rockland harbour! So we are left for the time being with a sea cock that is stuck half shut.

Plans were made and revised repeatedly over too many drinks on board Dovka before we returned back to Serafina.

We had a distinctly unpleasant night as the wind swung round to the north and blew 20 knots producing a significant wave height across the large open bay. So by the morning we were rather less than completely rested.  With the wind still blasting across the bay, Dovka and ourselves opted to change our plans slightly and chose to wait until midday when the wind was due to drop away. We had planned to call in at Camden and take a taxi ride to the grocery store and then sail on and anchor at an island that belongs to one of the OCC members! But with the forecast of heavy rain and strong winds again, we opted to stay in Camden for two nights. This was made even better when we found that we could use a mooring buoy belonging to another member of the OCC.

So after a brief visit to the fuel dock in Rockland, we headed north and as predicted, the wind fell away to less than 2 knots, so we motored the 8 miles to Camden, picked up the mooring and then Sarah and James took a taxi with Rebecca from Dovka and re-provisioned for the next few days.

The plan which is very flexible due to various circumstances is for us to stay here for another day (there is an American yacht due in on Friday who have contacted us via the OCC and want to meet us) and then we are hightailing it down the Eggemoggin Reach on Saturday to Great Cranberry Island where a friend of James’ has a house (and a mooring buoy we can use) and we have been invited to stay over and join in some big event taking place there – we have no idea what it is, but the media are involved in some way!

The only potential fly in the ointment is the tropical weather disturbance (which may grow into a fully fledged hurricane) that is tracking north from the Caribbean right now.