Sailing to Seal Bay

We dropped off the mooring at Castine after a fun time at the farmers market. D couldn't get a tour of the Maine Maritime Academy ship "State of Maine" because the students were back in session.The lobster pots in the mooring field at Castine were nearly submerged or totally submerged as the tide was running and it was high. We luckily did not snag one as we left the field. We will pay closer attention when leaving at high tide running into or from the
Mouth of the Bagaduce River. We passed an adult seal between S.Wind and the shore as we left Castine.

Seal Bay is adjacent to Penobscot Island and entered from the southeast side of Calderwood neck on the large island called Vinalhaven. The Bennett's tell us this is their favorite so we vow not to miss it and include it in this our last week cruising. We leave under sunny skies with wind at 5 kn from the west- southwest tho wind predicted 5-10 from the east.we started with full sail then reduced to main and engine as the wind shifted. For some silly reason D wanted to tow the dinghy with engine cocked up and still on the dink. This usually slows the boat under sail by a knot.By the time we rounded melodic bell at Green Ledge 2, the wind picked up and we were under full sail with 12 to 14.8 kn of favorable wind from the S-SW and we reached the speed of 6.8 knots SOG while dragging a dink with a motor! Miraculous! This made for one of our best days of sailing tho we eventually encountered lobster pots aplenty northwest of Stonington on Deer Isle. By 4:30 we reached our mark of R 2BC so we dropped the sails and prepared ourselves to enter the tricky passage in and thru Seal Bay. We reread our cruising guide, referred to our chart and reviewed the visual harbor guide we also had purchased. We motored in slowly favoring hen and little hen islands and soon found we were being swept close to the rocks, we apied more throttle and got more centered in the channel. We made it past the unmarked and submerged hazards and anchored in the farthest navigable spot off Burnt Island as 5 other boats had arrived earlier and taken up the other parts of the anchorage. A calm and beautiful night with us safely anchored and surrounded by boulder granite ledges that drop straight to the water and lift up and support tallevergreen pines on
all sides. Time for Sirius jazz and red beans and rice with andouille!