Sea Eagle on the float at Reid Harbor.
With strong winds in the forecast, we decided to tuck into Reid Harbor on Stuart Island for a few days. Timing our arrival near noon, we found space on the two floats for all three boats (Sea Eagle, Searinity and Sea Ya). It’s always a lot of fun to tie up on the floating docks. You meet lots of interesting boaters that are also tied to the dock, but there is no access from shore, so it becomes a small floating community.
Sea Eagle is Raided by Lauren Ernsberger and Chloe, AKA Pirates of the San Jaun’s, in search of chocolate covered almonds!
There were several Tollycrafts and Ranger Tugs also on the floats. We see a lot of Ranger Tugs out and about now. I’m thinking they are selling like hot cakes to new boaters.
I don’t think I even had the engine turned off before I heard the request to launch the kayaks. The girls were really enjoying them and returned later as “pirates” to raid Sea Eagle. Oh My! 😉
The calm before the storm.
We also launched the dingy and hiked up the long hill to the old one-room school and museum. The history of the island and the school house is really fascinating. Lots of characters and hardy souls in the past that settled Stuart Island. I was a little surprised that there was no mention of the Reverend Ted Leche’s Chapel, the once fast and famous Speeder, that sank in Reid Harbor. Ted was definitely one of island’s infamous “characters”! I had located the wreck of the Speeder in 2008, but wasn’t able to positively identify it until 2012.
As forecast, the winds whipped up strongly the following day, but Reid Harbor is very protected and we enjoyed our beautiful surroundings immensely.
The girls check out the local wildlife.