A Great Day for Truancy but Not For Truant

The phone rings in The Finch's kitchen. Plotnik continues with his sauce for last night's chicken tikka masala while he hears Finchie say: "What? Truant? Are you sure? Oh my God! OK, we're on the way!"

What has happened is their sailboat, Truant, has broken away from its mooring and has been spotted by a neighbor being blown across Southeast Harbor and heading for Deep Hole. But when Plotnik runs down to the dock, and ascertains that, indeed, Truant is not there where she should be, the fog has come in and he can't tell which mast off in the distance is Truant's, or if any of them are.

A neighbor shows up in his power boat, and Finch runs down from the house and they spot Truant seemingly tied up down by Deep Hole. She and the neighbor and Plotnik put on foul weather gear, hop in her motor dingy and head out to where Truant can be seen in the middle of the water.



A mooring is the combination of a huge rock under the water, into which a huge chain is drilled and attached, and a round white mooring ball, which floats on the surface of the water. The mooring ball's smaller chain is attached to the mooring's heavy chain.

That connection is the danger spot, and sure enough the connector has rusted through and broken off. Truant has floated across the water still attached to the mooring ball and it's chain, but not to the mooring itself.

That mooring has gotten snared on a couple of lobster pots. Together, the lobster pots and the mooring ball have held Truant in one spot until we can get out there. Finchie climbs aboard. Plot and the neighbor head back to shore with the dinghy.



Commander Crow is summoned from a meeting in the local town, he hurries home and when he gets there takes the dingy back to the boat. He and Navigator Finch unsnag their boat, fortunately find no damage aboard, then motor back towards shore where they tie up on a different mooring.

End of story: No damage but the whole morning taken up with what is a fairly normal occurrence when you own a boat: boat problems. And in Maine you add in cold, wind and fog. And this is June, not February.

All in a day's work. Another neighbor, Hillary, showed up in her boat to help. Then last night she was one of the guests at the Great Indian Feed.









Great fun, interesting people, Pisco Sours and the Lakers/Celtics afterwards. Couldn't be better.

Earlier in the day a side trip was taken to Deer Isle Village and the little Periwinkle shop, where they sell all of Robert McCloskey's wonderful kid's books. Plot and Duck always buy a few more of these fabulous picture books whenever they are in Deer Isle, especially since they heard back in Providence that JJ-aka-PP had never heard of "One Morning in Maine" or "Blueberries for Sal."





These little Maine villages really do still look like they are supposed to, like McCloskey's drawings. Time appears to have slowed down here and no one is anxious to hurry it along.