Lights out.

We are under way eastbound across the mouth of Frenchman Bay. Somewhere well off to port is Bar Harbor, and ahead of us is the Schoodic Peninsula. We had a very pleasant two-night stop in Southwest Harbor on Mount Desert Island, waiting out weather.

Not long after I last posted here, Nora and Karl from Bravo came by in their tender to say hello. We had met them briefly at Big Majors Spot in the Bahamas, just as the world was shutting down. They moved on before the lockdown. One of these days we hope to make a real introduction over cocktails or a meal.

Vector anchored near the Mill Dam, Southwest Harbor, flanked by Bravo and Boreas.

We splashed our own tender not long afterward, and headed ashore in search of dinner. We landed at the "upper" town dock, a half mile walk from town (the "lower" town dock is even further). We were a bit surprised at how uncrowded the place was, and we easily scored one of the two outside tables at Sip's, which looked like a wine/coffee bar, but had a surprisingly complete menu. The food was excellent.

We departed the town dock after dark, which gave me a chance to test out my newly-made shroud/mount for the dinghy sidelights, which had been reflecting back into my eyes off the tubes. It's not perfect, but it's much better than it was. However, there is apparently a law of conservation of lighting failures ...

Looking out over the harbor past the Upper Town Landing.

Arriving back at the anchorage we had trouble picking Vector's anchor light out among all the very similar-looking Nordhavns. As we got close enough to make out her silhouette, though, the reason became clear: the anchor light was dark. For shame: an experienced cruiser does not forget to turn on the anchor light before heading ashore for the evening. I was pretty certain, though, that I had turned it on.

Sure enough, the switch was, in fact, "on" and the pilot lamp on the helm said the circuit had power. Cycling it a few times had no effect. We turned on our spreader lights, which are also high on the mast and illuminate the upper decks, while we sorted out what to do. After dark, and a couple of beers, in damp 60-degree weather is not the best time to be playing monkey at the top of the mast.

Redneck anchor light, v1.0

I strongly suspected that, even if I got the fixture off the mast, there would be nothing much I could do for it. Instead I ended up jury-rigging an anchor light by removing the shroud from my ancient plastic trouble light, putting an LED bulb in it claiming 60-watt equivalence (vs. the CFL normally in it), and taping it atop the mast with gaffer tape. I plugged it in to the 120-volt outlet on the flybridge with the help of an extension cord. We turned off the spreader lights and called it "good enough."

That meant, of course, that yesterday was consumed by the anchor light project. I pulled the light off the mast, cut the wires, and confirmed I had good voltage up there. There was nothing obviously wrong with the light, but it's completely sealed, so also nothing I can do about it. I did bench test it just to be certain it was not my crimp connections that had gone bad.

The culprit. Expensive, marine-grade LED.

I called the manufacturer, MarineBeam, who agreed that, while it was already out of warranty, it really should not have failed this early. Long-time readers may recall I installed this in Memphis four years ago. Even if we've averaged ten hours a night, that's just 15k hours, and LEDs should really go several times that long. They offered me half off on a replacement, which seemed reasonable.

The replacement is coming to General Delivery in Lubec, a few days from now. So I either needed to commit to the trouble light for a few days, which would mean covering it somehow when it rains, or else come up with something else. I headed off to town to visit the chandlery and the hardware store to see if they had something inexpensive to tide us over. I came home empty-handed.

Redneck anchor light, v2.0

What I ended up doing was cobbling something together from my parts bin, using a bi-pin socket, a 24-volt, 10-watt xenon bulb, a circle of HDPE plastic, and an empty 10-oz cranberry juice bottle. It's not pretty, but it works, it's weather-resistant, and I can turn it on and off with the regular switch at the helm. It only needs to hold us for a week, and it cost me nothing, other than an hour of time.

In the interest of saving our feet, we returned ashore in the evening to the local marina, to eat in the on-site restaurant The Upper Deck. We had a short wait, and it, too, was surprisingly good. The marina normally has a $5 dinghy charge, but they waived it when we said we came for the restaurant.

Schoodic Point Overlook in Acadia National Park. We're in the vacation pics of the few dozen vehicles here. They come here to see some of the most spectacular crashing waves on the Maine coast. Bands of darker rock are not wet; they are basaltic dikes between slabs of pink granite.

Yesterday I sold the old inverter remote on eBay, which garnered nothing over the minimum bid, so this morning I returned ashore to drop it off at the post office. I also picked up a couple of bagels for breakfast, after which we decked the tender to get under way. I had to spend a few minutes fiddling with the cantankerous anchor roller before we left the harbor.

Our next port of call will be Jonesport. Our Internet access, which has been getting increasingly intermittent here in the remote reaches of the coast, is likely to be hit or miss over the next several days. I will do my best to update the blog whenever I can, or Vector's Twitter feed if I can not.

Approaching Petit Manan Bar with two knots against us. We're in a great deal of chop, but if you look at the buoy and beyond it's quite flat. The buoy, and it's identical mate behind us, are called "safe water marks" and show the safe path over the bar.

Update: We are anchored in Eastern Harbor, on Moose Neck (map). This is a working lobster harbor; there is nothing else here. But we were ready to be done for the day, especially since Louise has been suffering a severe allergy attack all day, and it was another two hours to Jonesport against the tide. We'll continue east in the morning.