Flying to Grand Manan

We made a 9 a.m. start from Rockcliffe and an hour and a half later we were over Sherbrooke airport coming in to land for brunch. All the way we'd flown through smooth air, passing Montreal and seeing the Adirondack, Green and White Mountains to the south, with small clouds forming from the early morning mist.

On the ground at Sherbrooke we had a two hour break for lunch in the fresh air before our second leg, on an IFR flight plan taking us through the U.S. airspace over Maine. Because we were spending a couple of hours at 9000 feet Chris tested us for hypoxia with his oximeter. My blood-oxygen variably read between 87% and 90% up there, which meant that I was slightly hypoxic with a tendency towards euphoria, which comes on in any case when I'm flying like a cloud over beautiful landscapes in smooth air. At the Millinocket VOR, Boston Centre ATC gave us permission to fly “direct 6-Echo”, i.e. straight to Grand Manan, so that there were only 40 minutes more en route. We were making good time anyhow, at 130 knots with that tailwind. Mount Katahdin and White Cap Mt now behind us we continued southeast over the Penobscot River, the other aircraft in our party already ahead and talking to Bangor ATC. The scattered cu beneath us dwindled to “few” at the coastline and the sea itself, beyond Big Lake and Pocomoonshine Lake, was free of cloud.

Landing on the island was enormous fun, with a crosswind and superb views of the bays and headlands near the airport. As we taxied in, half of our friends were climbing into the taxi that was to return to pick up the rest of us once we'd tied down. We drove to the motel past a deer farm, the taxi driver being a seaweed farmer as well, who told us that this area boasts three kinds of seaweed—rockweed (used as a substitute cattle feed during the mad cow disease scare) dulse and kelp (the latter two harvested further from shore). He also told us about the 20ft tides, particularly noticeable while there's a full moon, i.e. now.

When we arrived here, Holly, the very friendly proprietress, handed me the keys for our sea-view room which the advance party of our friends had had her set aside for us. The motel has a black Labrador retriever called Zoe who, when you take her down to the beach, goes fishing, head down and tail up, for rocks, fetching them back to shore in her mouth.

We had supper at the very comfortable restaurant at Sailors Landing to which Robert and Francine contributed four carafes of white wine, so, after the bottles of beer on the motel lawn, we were quite merry under the full moon and stars and me none too capable of composing my blog. We'd seen the floodlit fishing boats in the harbour afterwards, down in the seaweed at low tide, with names like a poem: Fundy Gem and Nantucket Lady, Silver King, My Dear Boy, Second Wind.