Carver Cove on Vinalhaven Island

For those of you following the blog, I had mentioned that we anchored in Mackarel Cove based on the predicted winds from the SW and W. So, guess what, we had winds most of the night from the east, the least protected direction! At least the winds were less than 10 kts so they were not a problem. This goes in the same category as the wind always being from the direction you're headed in!
We had fog again for most of the day in Mackarel Cove but around 3:00 it cleared enough to see the lobster pots so we headed out for Carver Cove on Vinalhaven Island. I've been in Maine before and there have been lobster pots before but then main difference now is the quantity of pots and the total disregard for other vessels having to stay in a channel (e.g., Fox Island Thorofare, Deer Island Thorofare, etc.) for narrow passageways. In fact, if you didn't have charts, the best indicator of where the channel is located is the abundance of lobster pots. The more pots, the more certain you are in the main channel! There must be some logic here but it escapes me.
Since we had a late start and there wasn't much wind, we just motored. Upon arriving in Carver Cove we found the best part of the anchorage (closest to shore, the SW corner) had a fishing net stretched across the entrance! It was about a mile long. We headed to the northern part of the anchorage which still had good protection from the "predicted" NW winds. After doing our anchoring ritual, we saw two small, open boats coming with two square sails. We recognized them as from Outward Bound. We counted 10 people in each open boat! We were either mooned by the person on the forward deck or he was taking care of personal hygiene. After all, it was an open boat with 10 people, I don't imagine there's much privacy. We've heard that as part of Outward Bound, they typically stay out for a week. As night fell, they pulled a red cover over the top of the boat, talk about togetherness. By the way, the boat had a mixed crew too.



Meanwhile, there was a lot of activity around the net but it remained in place as we left the next morning. I don't know what they were trying to catch. I think the dog wanted to be in the main boat!

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