Tuesday morning we steamed out of Boothbay Harbor and headed for Casco Bay. We knew that Tom Gilmore had spent a couple of nights at Jewell Island, northwest of Portland a few miles, and we decided we'd go there, too.
This was our first return to Jewell Island since our very first cruise to Maine in 2006. Jewell was our first stop then in Maine, and we arrived in a thick fog with almost zero visibility.
At that time, I had second guessed my plotting and decided to redo a critical waypoint where we planned to round the western end of the island. I thought we would be passing between a red buoy on our starboard and a green one to port.
Then, in the fog, I saw the red to port. I steered sharply toward the buoy, which vanished in the fog before I reached it.
Next thing I knew, there were waves breaking over the top of rocks fifty feet ahead of our bow.
That was then. This time, we returned with a bit of trepidation, but also with a chart plotter.
A foggy day had turned clear before we crossed by the first islands of Casco Bay. But then, as the afternoon sun began slipping from its high perch, a wall of dark clouds appeared in the west. Lightning came a bit later, and soon, with the radar on and Jewell in sight, we stopped dead in the water. The radar screen was nearly filled with solid green splotches, indicating thunder storms.
We were about equidistant from Jewell and a rocky outrcopping offshore with a lighthouse. My concern was whether the storm brought winds that could blow us all the way to the rocks -- about two miles to the southeast.
Monica went below while I stood under the dodger with a foul weather jacket on and my eyes scanning through the heavy rain that arrived with the storm.
The wind never built, and in a half hour, the storm had passed by. We resumed motoring toward the east end of Jewell, now accompanied by a pod of mink whales off our starboard beam a couple of hundred yards.
(Mink whales look like dolphins in the way they swim, curving up to the surface in gangs. Their dorsal fins are sharper and relatively smaller than those of dolphins, but the animals themselves are larger than their mammal cousins.)
The sun was sparkling when, at about three o'clock, we rounded the end of Jewell to head into the narrow slit of an anchorage on its northeastern shore. We could see four or five boats already there. One looked familiar.

Cailte, Tom's Creekmore 46 which he built himself, was the first boat inside the anchorage. We circled and anchored off his transom. Soon, he had rowed over in his 10-foot Cape Dory dinghy, and Tom and I went ashore to hike on this historic island, where during World War II submarine chasers were stationed to hunt German U-boats.

First we crossed to the ocean side of the island to see the "Punch Bowl", a lagoon that fills with water at high tide and empties only partially when the tide ebbs. There was the caracass of a dead seal on the bank of the Punch Bowl.

We hiked to the western end of the island and climbed one of two concrete towers used by the submarine hunters to triangulate the position of subs offshore. (I believe Tom told me they never actually intercepted any subs.)
Then we dinghied back to Robin, where Monica prepared dinner.

Another storm cell threatened and Tom woofed down his meal before rowing back to Cailte. When the storm passed, the scenery in the setting sun was unbeatable.