The message is in the bottle.....

I was pretty excited to be sailing out to Matinicus Island – it is one of those locations that is pretty isolated, doesn’t really have room for anchoring, and is dependent on weather for an easy approach. As it turned out, the sail was great fun, with plenty of wind most of the way, and an approaching thunderstorm to make the final approach exciting! On the way, I passed Brimstone Island, which is a neat little uninhabited outpost.

There were no other boats heading offshore from Jericho Bay, but I did pass three boats that were sailing along the coast and heading down east, including this neat looking yawl.

There was a little cut in the clouds just as I saw Matinicus Island for the first time. Yeah, I know it is another picture of sea and sky!

Since I had no idea if I would be able to get a mooring for the night, I called on VHF channel 19 as recommended in the cruising guide, and inquired about a mooring. After two attempts, someone answered that “Josh” was not around – he was on Vinalhaven – but that I would see his moorings in the harbor. It was easy to enter the harbor and very easy to find the moorings.

The mooring buoy had a plastic Pepsi bottle taped to it with a map/info sheet inserted in the bottle. The map was of the island and the info sheet asked me to leave $25 in the bottle to pay for the mooring. A “message in a bottle”! There was one other cruiser in the harbor, on a small sailboat from Canada. I spent a nice, secure night here.