Maine Destination - Roque Island and Cross Island National Wildlife Refuge
We are finally off for a week or more to explore Downeast, on the hook and off the grid.
The coast east (feels like north) of Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park gets a bit more rugged and isolated the further you head up (or as Mainers say, “down”) toward Eastport and Canada. We enjoy cruising this wild section of the coast. There are few places with marinas or services in this area and they are fairly far apart. This is a working coastline with draggers and lobster fishers working hard to harvest lobsters, crab, and scallops. And, Downeast is where the aquaculture farms for Atlantic salmon are located. The services that are available are geared to them. They are no-nonsense wharfs and moorings for commercial boats.
It’s 85 miles from our dock in Rockland up (or over – this east aligned coast thing is hard to grasp. Let’s just say northeast!) to the islands we’ve never tired of visiting. We split our trip up to stop at Dysarts Great Harbor Marina in Southwest Harbor on Mount Desert Island. Last year we had a seasonal slip at this popular facility. It was good to reunite with the dock crew that was so helpful during our stay last year.
From Dysarts it’s a 45-nautical mile, mostly offshore, run to Roque. Seas were calm enough with large swells spaced far enough apart to be manageable and a negligible cross chop of surface waves. It is an obstacle course of lobster floats, requiring constant attention to them. At 20 knots, with occasional patchy fog, it is tiring and just a little stressful. This year there were dozens of large logs too. We were extra vigilant because our past encounter with a partially submerged post was expensive.
Roque Island has a large crescent shaped white sand beach and waters the colors of the Bahamas. Maine’s oldest saltwater island farm, in continuous operation since 1940, is located on the island. While privately owned, the shore and beach is public. Posted signs at the forest edge say the island is an ecologically sensitive area and going inland is prohibited. Scientific research does occur on the island.
When we arrived at Roque we selected a secluded cove, called Lakeman Harbor, away from the more popular sandy beach. Finding a spot with 10 feet we set the hook easily. After an hour or two, we noticed the tide going out to expose seaweed covered shoreline. Upon checking the navigation plotter for tides, we discovered the tidal range is 14 ft! We were a little nervous when we did the math. With 8 ft under the keel, we knew we would be aground if we stayed. We decided not to chance bottoming out at low tide and moved to a little deeper water. It took three more tries to securely anchor; turns out the cove has plenty of kelp to foul the anchor.
We finally got it set. At low tide we could see rocks approximately where our first anchorage was. We likely would have been OK to stay in the location of the second spot, but we moved again, a third time, to safely deep water.
There’s something liberating about being at anchor, in such a quiet and secluded place. Surrounded by a conifer-covered rocky shoreline, it’s so peaceful and relaxing. Except, that is, for worry about the anchor holding through tidal shifts and the changing weather. Small risks, to remind us of our humility in cruising on AQUAVIT.
Three loons had been the only company we had until then. Lee was enjoying watching them dive about 20 feet from the boat.
Our electric Torqeedo outboard took us out of the cove and around the corner to the beach for a bit of beachcombing. We collected a sack full of plastic bottles and flotsam along with a few rocks and sand samples.
Only one other person was on the mile-long sandy beach, a biologist on a busman’s holiday sailing a Drascombe Longboat, a 22’ yawl. It’s an open boat, with no cabin. He must sleep under the stars.
We pointed him to a shell midden that we would bet was a site of an aboriginal settlement. Mussel shells and fragments were layered in dark sand. The eroding shoreline was exposing the shells. It made us curious about the native people who inhabited Roque long before the colonial history.
On our way back to our boat, we saw a sistership to our Shoalsailer 32 come into the protected Roque Island Harbor. She became the 8th boat to anchor in the harbor for the night. And, then when we returned by dinghy to our anchorage in Lakeman Harbor, we could see that we had been joined by 2 sailboats.
It’s always a ball to spend time with Pat and Judy. We picked them up at Jonesport at the public wharf for a day trip to Roque. It was a short trip of 6 to 7 miles from our anchorage to Jonesport, then another 7 miles back to Roque Island. We circumnavigated the island to find another beach on the opposite, west side, of the island. From where we anchored in Shorey Cove, we could see the central compound of the Roque Island farm. There are several red barns and yellow houses in an open meadow setting. Picture perfect and idyllic view!
We took the dinghy ashore and pulled it up a little way on the beach, setting an anchor higher up on the beach.
This beach is similar to the east side, but not nearly as wide or long. It was a pleasant walk along the sandy beach to a sheer cliff topped by conifers. The shoreline is eroding and some areas of underlying rock rubble are being uncovered.
As we were loading into the dinghy, Marvin relayed that when he returned to the dinghy, it was floating and the anchor was covered in about 6” of water, after a 2.5 ft tidal increase in the two hours we were exploring. Wading out to retrieve the anchor, he was happy we did not dally, as it would have required a swim out in the cove to retrieve the dinghy.
From Shorey Cove we went around the island and came into the more well-known Roque Island Habor with the long white sandy beach. The Shoalsailer we spotted coming into the harbor yesterday was still there.
We stopped to connect with Chai and Rob on Bay Breeze’s sistership, Lady Chai. It was delightful to raft up with them for a little while. We learned that Lady Chai is hull number 1 of the 32' Shoalsailers; the first boat built. We compared notes on the Shoalsailer. Now a missing boat can be added to our roster of the 16 (8 of the 32' and 8 of the 35') of these uniquely-designed boats made by Shannon Boats.
Chai is a professional musician and singer. Rob is a retired big jet pilot. They hail from Baltimore MD and Hollywood FL. We are impressed that they sailed up from Newport RI to cruise Downeast. They plan to make their way to Boca Chica in the Keys this winter, so we may rendezvous with them again this winter or early spring in The Florida Keys..
We returned Pat and Judy to Jonesport and took a Jonesport Shipyard mooring in the harbor. We had a nice dinner at Helen’s Restaurant in Machais with Pat and Judy before they dropped us back where we could take showers and dinghy back to the boat.
The next stop on our itinerary was Cross Island National Wildlife Refuge. We really like this island, having visited it many times, alone and with friends. It is the picture perfect Maine coastal island. In fact, the photo on the home page of the two of us was taken at Cross Island. There are hiking trails; one leads to an abandoned US Coast Guard life saving station.
Cross Island National Wildlife Refuge is across from the Navy’s large very low frequency transmition array at Cutler used to communicate with submarines in the Atlantic. I speculate that it makes this place the number one target in the event of a nuclear conflagration! The dozens of high towers are quite a sight to see, especially a night when the red lights chase up and down the metal skeletons, providing a great light show. But, it’s definitely second place to nature’s heavenly display of the Milky Way. Unfortunately, on this night, we were fogged in and couldn't see either.
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spectacular photos!