Pulpit Harbor

Another email from Gesa that I have adapted for our latest blog entry - this is the lazy way of blogging!

We have moved on after two fun days in Rockland. After our busy day on the train trip, we had a leisurely breakfast and another
quick run into town to another great bookstore and coffee shop to try and make some Skype calls, before putting up sail and having a wonderful reach to Pulpit Harbour (as the rock as you come into harbour looks like a church pulpit). This very rock has had for about 170 years a massive osprey's nest. Sure enough as we came in, there it was, with Mama bird inside.
It is a lovely harbour and a popular overnight stop for sailors. Not much here except a few cottages on the island (North Haven), and lots of peace and quiet! Plenty of anchoring room too, which is a nice change from many of the buoy filled harbours we have been to.

We took a pootle up one of the side rivers and spotted a house and property that truly inspired us for what we would like in Canada. On return I took a photo of Ty Dewi which simple does not capture the beauty of her surroundings. However, a few hours later I captured this sun set, same scene, and you begin to understand why we love it here so much. Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a splendid blanket of stars. Something I have not experienced so wonderfully since my summer camp days as a child. Maybe there is something about northern skies? We had plenty of stars in the Caribbean, but it wasn't the same.

Next day, after a bit of school and much needed varnishing of the boat, Nick took the kids ashore at low tide to collect mussels. They were delicious for dinner. We then had an enjoyable walk ashore. The kids found a lobster buoy and had great fun playing with it. The wild flowers are just gorgeous. I could not resist just snapping away. Even just smelling the pine forest evoked many happy memories of the summers spent at camp and the cottage. I have not lived in North America for more than 15
years, but somehow it all comes back so naturally and comfortably to me. I still miss Cambridge and the people we left behind tremendously, but I know this is the life meant for us now.

We are just a few days away from Mount Desert and Acadia National Park (the second smallest and second most popular national park in the USA). We are very much looking forward to it and will spend about 4 days exploring the island's trails, beaches etc. We are then going to make a fairly swift trek back south to Portland. This is anyway part of our plan as we would like to meet up with friends in Boston before continuing on to Cape Cod, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and New York. However, a close family friend has taken ill, and being relatively close (to Canada), we have decided to put Ty Dewi on a mooring and make the trek north by rental car to make a brief visit. It will also allow us to have a couple of days with my parents in Laval
(Montreal).