We headed Down East as far as Mount Desert Island. We tried to get a mooring in Northeast Harbor but as usual found they were full and headed instead for Little Cranberry Island, also known as Islesford. We anchored at the outside of the harbor and headed in to Islesford Dock Restaurant for an excellent dinner! The views of the mountains on MDI as the sun went down were spectacular.

In need of a few provisions, we took the ferry over to Northeast Harbor and loaded up on lobster meat, fresh Maine blueberries and tonic water – all the essentials! We called into the Harbormaster’s office to ask for tips on getting a mooring. What he told us is: Mooring rentals end at 11 am, so that’s a good time to check with him. All the moorings are privately owned, and then rented out through the harbormaster when the owners don’t need them: there are only a handful in our size range and they don’t turn over often as most people want to spend several nights in NEH. We also concluded that we’ve done all the hikes around the harbor, there isn’t much of a town, and the views are better from Islesford. So there!

Next day we moved over to Southwest Harbor. They are now on Dockwa so getting a mooring is easier. We went ashore with a plan to catch the free Island Explorer bus, and hike one of the hills on the west side of Somes Sound. Annoyingly, “someone” mixed up the location of the bus stop, and the bus went on without us. A bus on a different route came by 10 minutes later, so we did a hasty change of plan and hiked instead around Ship Harbor and down to Bass Harbor Head Light. Having seen the lighthouse in particular so many times from the water, it was fun to see it up close!