JERICHO BAY — Wednesday's ocean sail ultimately took the schooner Mary Day to the head of Jericho Bay, where the boat dropped anchor off Brooklin and the Wooden Boat School. It was a day to row a little, play with some lobsters and spy an eagle feeding.

The schooner departed the head of Camden Harbor June 23 on a six-day sailing cruise, with featured guests Jim Dugan of Rockland, a professional photographer, and Erika Carlson-Rhile of Cape Elizabeth, a Maine Master Naturalist.

Dugan is on board assisting and teaching camera settings and photography techniques, and Carlson-Rhile is helping find and identify the wide variety of birds, marine animals, island flora and ocean seaweeds encountered.

Monday's 51-mile sail took the group to Seal Island to see nesting puffins and terns, and day two was a trip ashore at Marshall Island and Maine Coast Heritage Trust's Ed Woodsum Preserve.

Following breakfast of oatmeal and lemon poppy seed muffins June 25, the sails went up and the anchor eased off the floor of Sawyer Cove in Mount Desert Island's Pretty Marsh.

Departing MDI into Blue Hill Bay, Capt. Barry King set a course that took the schooner toward Jericho Bay.

Along the way, Carlson-Rhile alerted the group that there was an eagle on an outcropping frequented by seals and their pups. This time though, it was an eagle feeding on a dead seal pup. Scavengers, it is unlikely the eagle killed the pup, though that could not confirmed. On Tuesday, a commotion of tern calls turned all eyes toward a different outcropping. This time, an eagle was circling overhead, while terns harassed it to keep it from its mission of snagging a meal. Undaunted, the eagle finally saw its moment, swooped down and snatched a chick. The eagle flew off with the chick, and its mother in tow, trying in vain to distract the eagle and make it drop the helpless baby.

Again undaunted, the eagle continued its flight, the mother eventually turned back toward its nest and the remaining terns and other birds quieted down yet again.

A half-dozen tacks out of Blue Hill Bay into Jericho Bay, the schooner turned northwest into Eggemogin Reach and continued sailing to an anchorage in Brooklin.

Another Camden-based schooner, the Lewis R. French, had arrived earlier and the Mary Day settled in beside it.

Guests aboard the Mary Day donned windbreakers, their cameras and a little spending money, and climbed down into the yawl boat for the quick trip to shore. The Wooden Boat School is a popular stopoff for visiting windjammers, and private boats, and there are always a few branded souvenirs that come back to the schooner with visitors.

Meanwhile, Wooden Boat School instructors Jane Ahfeld and Annie Nixon loaded more than a dozen students into three yawl boats on shore and headed to the Mary Day for an up close and personal look at a schooner and a lesson in its workings.

Hitching a ride to shore, the captain was on a mission to find lobsters for Thursday evening's meal. Making a beeline for the Lobster Crate, owned by John and Annette Candage, King filled a metal tub with dozens of live, reddish brown "bugs," as they are referred to by the locals. The tub holding Thursday night’s main coruse was nestled into one of the rowboats and a stream of seawater was set up to continuously wash over the crustaceans and keep them alive.

And then it was time for Wednesday night’s dinner, featuring Mexican lasagna, fresh salad and ginger cookies for dessert.

As forecasted, Wednesday night brought consistent and heavy rains, which only caused sleepy sailors to snuggle down deeper in their bunks. Thursday's plan is to sail to a protected cove for a beach lobster feast, but a lobster feast on deck, if warranted, will be a good thing too.

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

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

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