Roque Island

We left Sorrento early to get underway and travel another 50 miles east. We'd go across Petit Manan and through Moosabec Reach. Moosebec Reach was filled with lobster pots. We weaved and dodged them all but managed to pick up one set on our rudder right before the Jonesport bridge. The lines weren't in our props and I really didn't feel like putting on the diving gear. We could feel the drag on the steering and the resulting slowdown of a knot. On approaching the bridge I pulled back on the throttles and immediately felt that the steering had fixed itself. We looked out the back and saw a lobster pot buoy pop up out from the bottom of our boat. I'll take even dumb luck sometimes.

Roque Island was our destination. We wanted to spend a night there and then travel further into Machias Bay and explore other anchorages tomorrow. At around noon we turned the corner into the set of islands making up this large archipelago and saw an amazing site. A white sand beach. Right here in Maine. Downeast Maine no less.

The harbor is large enough for 500 boats. Maybe 1,000. Maybe 2,000. We shared it with one other boat about a mile away.

We quickly anchored, launched the dinghy, threw the dogs onboard, and took off for the beach. And what a beach it is. It rivals any beach in the Bahamas. It's a good 300 feet deep and about a mile wide in a crescent shape. Most of the beach is all sand. Part of it has some small pebbles at the lowest part of the tide. It was simply amazing.