Saturday, August 11, 2007

Seal Bay on Vinalhaven - We See an Eagle!



It was a very quiet night in the well protected Opechee Harbor and there were no lobster boats waking us up! I looked out once that night and the sky was full of stars like I've never seen at home. The Milky Way was visible right down to the horizon! We saw two meteors. An amazing sight when you can see the stars from horizon to horizon.

We motored through Deer Island Thorofare but when we reached open water we sailed the rest of the way to Seal Bay. It was sunny so the day warmed up to the 70's and the winds were steady at 10 to 15 kts out of the southwest, great sailing (no fog!) We arrived in Seal Bay around 1:30 and surprised an eagle fishing for dinner. He was only about 15 feet away as he swooped up out of the water and was off in an instant. Unfortunately, he was gone before we could get either camera out and we never saw him again. We were the fourth boat in the anchorage and about eight more arrived later but there's plenty of room, more than what's apparent from the charts.
We take Lance ashore in the dinghy twice a day. Once around 8:00 am and once again around 7:30 pm or so. He will hop out of the dinghy on his own, do his business in the next 5 minutes or less and then come when called and hop back in the dinghy. He's really very little trouble. We've learned to avoid areas where there are mussels since that means mud and a messy clean up when Lance returns. Otherwise, he's no problem. We saw one woman with a different solution. She took her rather large dog to shore in a kayak! We watched the dog attempt to get in the kayak on the first try and he missed, got soaking wet and then went around to the front and finally made it in. Amazing how the dog ever learned to get in a kayak in the first place.

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