Standing at the eastern entrance of Penobscot Bay, Isle au Haut is pretty remote, an 8,000-acre chunk of land, half of which belongs to Acadia National Park. Home to fewer than 80 year-round residents. Isle au Haut has a lone harbor village, with a church, a school, a general store, and a town hall. Its waters are busy with fishing and cruising boats; its landscape is threaded with walking paths and biking roads.

We had planned to spend one night here on our way to Mount Desert Island, however our stop in Stonington to have the engine serviced took a little longer than expected and by the time we headed out on Wednesday afternoon, we decided that Isle au Haut would be where we would hunker down during the passage of the sub tropical storm Debbie. (Forecasted to hit the Maine coast late Friday night into Saturday).

We anchored in Laundry Cove late afternoon on Wednesday and enjoyed a quiet dinner onboard with another magnificent sunset.

View from our anchorage

The next day after spending some time on boat project and homeschooling we dinghied to town to check out the town.  Very lovely place with the smallest post office, a very awesome food truck with delicious paninis and blueberry lemonade and a well stocked general store. 

"The Island Store" - a food cooperative, owned and operated by both the year-round and seasonal people of Isle au Haut.

We had planned to walk to the ranger station to start our hike but after striking a conversation with a local, we ended up with a great local recomendation. We visited the old Union Congretional church before going on the Mount Champlain Trail where huckleberries, blueberries and blackberries were ripe! We slowly climbed and picked until we reached the ridge and had enough berries for dessert that night.

The Union Congregational Church founded in 1857.

Look at that steeple and wind wane! 

Inside the small chucrch

Start of the Mt Champlain trail (not part of the Acadia National Park)

Cute trail markers

Our harvest at the top of the trail.

Top of Mount Champlain - elevation 540ft (160m)

From the top we loosely followed the ridge trail (marked by cairns), having to find detours around fallen trees, before taking the Sawyer Notch Trail back to town. The trail was beautiful with lots of moss and fallen trees with interesting shapes. Seth and I spotted a small brown squirrel that was extremely curious about us. 

Mushroom amongst the moss 

What do you see? Alligator?

A cute little squirrel

Seth thought this looked like a caterpillar locomotive.  (Thomas the Train like)

Moss was so squishy

This one is my favorite "art"

One of the trail marker on the ridge trail

Red Moss

Green Moss

More moss

Saltair at anchor in Laundry Cove

That night, our friends Ashley & Merf pulled in the anchorage and joined us for dinner! So great to run into friends! We unfortunately had to eat inside despite the amazing sunset as the wind had died and the mosquitoes were firce! I made a clafoutis with our berries that was really delicious but I forgot to take a picture!