Socked In

‘Mud hole’ is much, much nicer than it sounds. 

It is the perfect anchorage if you want to hike in the Great Wass Island Nature Preserve and it’s only a short seven-mile walk to the nearest lobster roll stand in the town of Beals.  No matter that they ran out of lobster when we arrived because; A. they are the only eatery in town, B. we settled for “The crack’n,”  a fried medley of all the other sea creatures and C. we think there might be way too many lobster traps in Maine anyway.

To those following in our path, be warned that the area east of Great Wass Island is full of hazards and getting into Mud Hole is even more treacherous.

What happened next was new to us.  It’s called “fawg.”  (Not to be confused with its distant cousin, fog).  It was rolling in on our short stop to Mistake Island where Michael did some treasure hunting.

Navigating in light fawg from Mistake Island to Trafton Island was tricky, but doable by keeping one of us on the bow as a lookout. 

From Trafton Island the next morning we made it to clear skies and the town of Milbridge in Buggy (nickname for our dinghy) where some locals kindly educated us.  Lobster trapping is a way of life here.  Apparently, each boat identifies itself by displaying it’s buoy colors, so there is no confusion as to which traps belong to whom. 

The industry is as steeped in tradition as it gets.  When we asked questions such as, “How do you decide where to put a lobster trap?” We get quizzical looks and answers like this, “I put my traps where my father put his,” and “We have ways of letting you know if you’re put’n traps where they don’t belong.”  

In Southwest Harbor we learned the true nature of fawg because we got ‘socked in.’  Everything and I do mean everything (sheets, dishes, shoes, bilge) got wet, but it wasn’t raining and the boat wasn’t sinking.  If you can see anything at all besides your own hands when socked in, that thing looks like it is actually in Narnia or some other magical world.  However, porpoises can see well in the dense stuff, because several were happily swimming by my window while I was baking bread in the fawg.  Mind you, I have never baked bread in my life, but it just seemed like the right thing to do when one is socked in.

When the fawg clears, sailors can see everything very easily, including thousands of lobster traps riddled throughout Maine’s coastal waters.  One may ask, “Are there too many traps?”  If your a lobster or a sailor the answer is a resounding, “yes!” If you like it dipped in butter, probably not. 

Here’s a role-play of us enjoying a relaxing sail from Southwest Harbor to Frenchboro, Long Island on a beautiful Maine day:

Jill: “Lobstah pot to port, turn to starboard!”

Michael: “I can’t turn to starboard, there’s three lobstah pots to starboard!”

Jill: “Okay so turn hard to port, but make sure you squeeze in between the green one, the red one and the pink one”

Michael: “Looks like fawg dead ahead!  Put the fog horn back on!”

Jill: “You just sailed over a lobstah pot!”

Thankfully, the reward of hiking on Long Island was well worth the trip!  I think “majestic’ is an appropriate word to describe the scenes at every bend in the trail.  Picture a bald eagle coasting over our heads against a background of evergreen pines, pink granite cliffs, powder blue sky, and sapphire blue water.  How delicious earth can be!

Last remarks:

• Michael has explained to me that the reason that he has not caught a fish yet is that there are no fish in the ocean here. 
• A shout out to Janet, George, and Stephen on Santosha in McGatherty Island Harbor.  It was such fun to meet you and hear your salty sailor stories.
• Finally, a warm thank you to Tim’s Island Market on Swan Island for letting us enjoy our Chipwhiches after closing time, on the honor system.  It was well worth the 2 mile walk back the next day to pay up!