EAST PENOBSCOT BAY — The guests, crew and captain aboard the schooner Mary Day Thursday morning awoke to downpours, but the fore and aft deck awnings allowed everyone to enjoy hot coffee in the fresh sea breeze. There were no complaints about the rain, as the first three days of the trip made everybody happy for a break from standing on deck in the sun.

Thursday would be a day of sailing in out of the raindrops, and the entire day the sailors were covered by clouds. The waning storm provided just enough color and light at sunset for the intrepid photographers to snap a few artfully framed shots for Friday's big slide show.

The Mary Day is on a six-day sail this week, June 23-June 28, carrying 27 passengers, six crewmembers and Capt. Barry King. Two featured guests aboard are Jim Dugan, a professional photographer, and Erika Carlson-Rhile, a Maine Master Naturalist.

This trip has been filled with lots of opportunities to learn and experiment with cameras and photography equipment. It was also an opportunity to learn about and see some of the curious creatures that inhabit Maine's beaches and oceans.

Thursday also took the schooner through Eggemoggin Reach under the Deer Isle Bridge.

Sailing under the bridge requires the schooner to lower the top masts, and even doing that gives the boat just 10-feet of clearance at the bridge's highest point in the center.

Safely making the maneuver and raising the top masts once again, the schooner continued sailing up and around Little Deer Isle and back toward Lobster Island, located in the vicinity of the very appropriately-named Butter Island in East Penobscot Bay.

Lobster Island was where everybody would disembark into the row boats and head to the beach for a lobster bake feast.

Most everybody took the opportunity for walks along the shoreline and through the woods, with a few making their way to a sandbar that was emerging with the outgoing tide.

The lobster pots were the first to be set up on the sandy beach, which meant culling some rockweed for the bottom of the cooking pots to add both steam and salty goodness. Potatoes, onions, corn on the cob and lobsters were then layered inside the pot, covered with piece of well-worn canvas and left to cook.

Pasta salad, crackers and cheese, crudité and fresh watermelon was set out on a blanket, and everybody was instructed to find a stout rock, but one that fit in their hand. Lobster rocks, they were, and the rocks would be used to crack open the hard shells of the fresh steamed lobsters.

Anyone that wanted seconds on lobster were welcome to take another off the pile, and then thirds were passed around for anyone still willing.

They didn't call this a lobster bake feast for nothing!

Once everybody was back on board, the ship's cook and mess mate had dessert ready – baked rhubarb and blueberry crisp.
It was yet another early night to bed for everybody on board the Mary Day, with another full day of sailing ahead Friday. There was also word that glorious weather was ahead, and that would surely be a great way to end this week of cruising Maine's Penobscot Bay and islands.

Related stories:

Day 1
• Sailing aboard schooner Mary Day: Puffins, baggywrinkle and Mary Barney's Parmesan haddock

Day 2
• Sailing aboard schooner Mary Day: Beachcombing Marshall Island

Day 3
• Sailing aboard schooner Mary Day: Rowing, lobsters and the circle of life

Editorial Director Holly S. Edwards can be reached at hollyedwards@penbaypilot.com or 706-6655.