Finding Magic

After doing a couple of loads of laundry and filling our water tanks, we motored to Long Island, just a couple hours south of Northeast harbor in Mount Desert island.

We wanted to get away from the crowds a bit and also NOT have to pay overnight docking fees.

We were awarded with a gorgeous anchorage, a beautiful sunset and dolphins playing around our boat as we ate dinner in the cockpit.

Sometimes you just gotta leave the crowds to find the magic.

Taking the launch service for the last time, clean laundry all done! 

ANJULIA SUE at Northeast Harbor.

Hello Long Island Anchorage!

Planning our route to Long Island. Study wind, weather, 
current and tidal charts, plot course and GO!

Dolphins! Not a very good photo because we were all so excited and jumping around.

Thanks Garfield Tam for this awesome game we learned tonight, How To Rob A Bank.
It was a phenomenal hit and now a new family favourite.

Dana Comes to Visit!

Thank you Dana Chammaa for coming to visit from Ottawa with your lovely family, bringing delicious treats and snacks for us, sharing a beautiful day at Sand Beach and Thunder Hole, and just being the awesome kind-hearted friend you are. 

I miss you and your hugs already!!

Starting the morning right.

Aila and I with Dana and her gorgeous girls.

Rowing back to our dinghy.

Lunch around the table!

Thunder hole. At high tide water rips into this small 
hole and makes a thundering noise!

 

Obligatory ice cream stop.

It's the Splash Daddy Game!

Overlooking glorious Sand beach.

Bye bye and shokran!

Mount Desert Island beauty

Aug 2nd and 3rd 

Guest post by: Matt

We've really settled into life at this idyllic sheltered harbor and every day we drop into the harbormaster's office and pay for one more day. 

It's $40 USD a night to be on the floating dock so not breaking the bank but our budget doesn't really allow too many dock fees so we need to shape up and ship out at some point. 

After threading our way through the intricate maze of lobster pots to get here we are a bit apprehensive about heading back out again but we are well rested, we have friends visiting from Ottawa tomorrow and we will prep for our passage Monday so Tuesday will be departure day for our 7 hour sail to Rockland.

It has also been great fun to have so many kid boats in one place so the kids have been chasing round exploring while we chat with such an easy familiarity to our new friends it's hard to believe we have only met a day ago. 

I've heard it before on the blogs of many other cruisers but it really is incredible to feel in person the comfortable warmth of this family that we've joined by becoming part of the cruising community. 

Our nomadic life choices have seen us living in many different cities and continents and one of the hardest things is that it takes so long to make friends in new environments but somehow cruisers radiate a camaraderie borne out of shared experiences, joys and hardship that brings both adults and kids together with a speed and depth that it would be amazing to see transplanted into our communities in land.

There was a slackline to try!

Reading books. On the Mount Desert Island bus.

Our boat is down there in Northeast Harbor.

Random Shakespeare performed most excellently by the Acadia Community Theatre. 
A Midsummer night's dream on the lawn near the marina. Kids were enthralled!

Happy Matt gets a new toy which allows me to check lots of geeky battery 
data via Bluetooth on my phone. So cool.

Great walk up to Bubble Rock today. Such a short hike but it's amazing
how we noticed our lack of hiking fitness. In this lifestyle we're a lot more active
than in our old office jobs but we don't make a lot of time for real exercise.
And I miss playing soccer!

Great views of the ocean on either side of the island.

Big success yesterday. Cleaned a lot of gunky funky sludge out of our fresh water
filter and we now have running water again. Makes life nicer.

I think all manuals for boat equipment should start with this important point!
So many times I get pulled into multiple boat jobs simultaneously
and make silly mistakes because of it.

Best sleep ever

We had a pretty chill day of schoolwork, farmer's market, watching the next episode of Amazing Race Canada over lunch and just hanging out with new Kid Boat (KB) friends. 

These people are unbelievably inspirational and so awesome!

Their kids are grounded, kind and inclusive. 

The night got better as we all went out for fried chicken and waffles.

If making friends was always this easy for everyone, the world would be a much kinder place.

Morning schoolwork in the cockpit with her 'thinking cap' on.

Tai's science work today was about simple machines. He was groaning about 
doing the work so we scrapped the questions in the book and had him list all 
the simple machines on our boat and explain why. Guess what? It worked.

Vietnamese food at the farmer's market! Not sure how authentic 
"chicken lollipop" is but the kids enjoyed it!

Writing emails to family . Wifi is just nearby at the marina.

We are moored opposite a 118ft boat with 4,000 HP engines. Matt and Tai 
calculated that the cost to fill it up with diesel is approximately what we 
paid for our boat. And it's capacity. Just 8 guests (and two of them have to 
sleep on a convertible sofa bed according to the super yacht directory.) Tai 
was super impressed because they have a huge flat screen TV facing us that 
folds up as it slides back into the wall.