Month: July 2017 (Page 1 of 2)

Schooner Appledore

I hearby declare Camden the prettiest sailing town I’ve ever had the pleasure to visit.  No surprise there, it’s most likely their town’s motto.  A compact harbor filled with everything from tiny daysailers, to expensive racing yachts, to schooners going out daily for day sail tours.

Camden Hill view from Sherman Cove

We had to motor over as there was absolutely no wind mid day, but quickly hooked onto a mooring in Sherman Cove (courtesy of Lyman Morse) just at the foot of Camden Hill.

We showered, started a couple of loads of laundry, and headed into town.  The boats are mind-boggling, both in cost and beauty.  We found a rooftop terrace lounge where we shared a table for cocktails with another couple and talked Maine.  They had moved up here five years ago and absolutely love it.  I’m still working on getting Trip to do the same, even if he insists the sailing season is too short.

We headed back to the marina to flip laundry and more importantly get some dinner.  The Rhumbline Bar & Restaurant is right at the edge of the docks overlooking the other side of the harbor.  We got in just in time for a waterside table – the place filled up quickly.  Dogs are welcome, so it was fun to watch the different breeds hanging out at the bar, and there was live music as well.

All in all a good way to finish things up as we hit pause for the first part of our trip.  We’re back to Rockland later today where we’re leaving the boat for a road trip to the Midwest.  We’re heading home for a day to say hi to the cat and deal with paperwork, then off to Wisconsin for a family wedding, then down to Missouri to visit more family.

Rhumbline Bar & Restaurant

Creative lobster tank

Too much excitement for this pup

I can safely say I’ve now been front row for one of the world’s most amazing sunsets.

It’s only a short sail (10 miles) from Rockland to Pulpit Harbor in North Haven.  We opted to anchor just outside the mooring field with the popular kids (that monster sailing yacht, First Light, was a neighbor at the docks while in Portland), while Lawrence and friend Jobert tucked into Minister’s Cove just around the bend.

After cocktails and cheese onboard Lawrence’s boat, we headed back to make dinner.  Who else can claim to making chicken barley soup from scratch and dancing in the cockpit as the sun goes down to views like this???  I’m keeping track of things I like making on board, and will be posting recipes at some point as well. 

Fabulous sail – one of the best of the entire cruise.   Dinner with Lawrence (awesome lobster BLT).  Woke up to this.  Aaaaaaaaaaaagh.

As we left we crossed through a Friendship Sloop Regatta.

When there’s no wind but clear skies sometimes you need to suck it up and motor.  If Trip had his way we probably wouldn’t even have a motor, but they do come in handy.  Fun fact – since we launched the boat in May, we’ve used a total of 24 gallons of fuel.  How many of you go through that on a daily basis?????

We headed to Christmas Cove, another gem that James had told us about.  There’s no room for anchoring, but moorings are only $30, the ‘marina’ (read bar & restaurant) has great food and a clean shower.  We said hello to the resident osprey family (that’s the new chick in the picture) and headed ashore.  We walked up to the local market to pick up a couple of things which gave us a great tour of that little part of the island.   We came back to the restaurant for dinner, then headed back out to the boat to enjoy the quiet evening (and no fog).

And did I mention the whale?  Ospreys are my new favorite, and we’re routinely seeing seals and dolphins, but the minke that surprised us today was rather fun.  Sorry the shot isn’t better.

Fooooooooooooooooooogggggggggged in.

We’ve had very little fog (almost none since a month ago in Onset, MA) so we knew we were due.  We left Littlejohn Island with clear skies, and within 2 miles a solid fog bank had settled in around us.  As close as we were to Jewell, having never visited and knowing that it had a narrow anchorage, we decided to limp along back to Cliff till the skies cleared.

Two days later we finally made it over to Jewell.  It’s one of the most exposed islands in Casco Bay, and was actively used in both World Wars I & II.  Hiking trails take you south to former lookout towers (we opted not to climb the second one after noticing the sign warning of nesting pigeons inside), and north to an area called the Punchbowl which at low tide forms a massive pool perfect for clamming.

For all our camping friends – take note!  There are multiple campsites on this island, each with firepits and spectacular views.  I don’t know the details, but judging by what we saw you can arrange arrival by water taxi or outfitters if you don’t want to haul your own gear. 

Friends from New Jersey have recently sold their house and moved back to Maine where they have a summer house on Littlejohn Island. Not only were we fortunate enough to be able to visit, their neighbor had a mooring strong enough to hold us in deep enough water plus a dock just next door!

Bob and Caroline came out for a quick tour of the boat and cocktails, then we headed back ashore for dinner. We had another round of cocktails on the deck – this was the one place in Maine without mosquitos. And then the treat – I’ve been trying to pace myself for lobster this summer, and waiting for a proper lobster dinner was worth it! I had never had soft shell lobster before – they’re available when they’re molting and the new shells haven’t hardened yet – you don’t even need crackers to get at the meat.

With Bob & Caroline Knott

We only had 8 miles to travel the next day, so the Knotts graciously offered us a tour of the area.  Not only did we get to visit Littlejohn and Cousins Island, but neighboring South Freeport, Yarmouth, and Falmouth as well.  Caroline grew up in the area, so it was rather amazing to get a personalized visit to the area.

Since we were back in the Portland area, we decided on a weekend sail with James & Jenny followed by dinner on their boat at Cliff Island, one of the many anchorages just a few hours from downtown Portland. Despite the call for little to no wind, a breeze did pick up in the afternoon and we had a lovely day seeing Maine at its finest by water, sailing in tandem between Littlejohn and Chebeague, up around Little Whaleboat and Whaleboat. We finished with a series of tacks to take us down past Stave and into Cliff Island where we dropped anchor.

We put on our finest formal gear (ie. whatever was clean), grabbed a bottle of wine and some chocolate, and headed next door for cocktails and dinner. Jenny made a fabulous linguine with clams, with the addition of pesto which I would have never thought of but is now being added to my dinner staples. After several hours of good wine, good food and great catching up, we dinghied back under a typical star studded sky.

The next morning our favorite yacht pulled in to the entrance of the harbor and dropped anchor. Trip tells me I’m great at looking at any stranger or strange boat and coming up with a crackpot theory – so here it is: Nearby Hope Island is up for sale for a mere $7.9 million, complete with it’s own 10 horse stable (unknown if horses included) and a tavern, and a helipad. I think these folks dropped anchor around the corner so to speak so they could inspect a possible purchase incognito. Trip rolled his eyes but couldn’t come up with a better story.

As commoners who were only visiting and couldn’t afford the local real estate, we instead dinghied ashore for the only excitement that the island gets – the daily ferry visit. We walked down to the southern end of the island, watched the passengers getting off or on ferry, inspected the local general store (Jenny was right – you can’t get much more than a can of beans) and got ice cream. The day was complete.

We were motoring back to Portland (wind heading the wrong direction and Trip pouting) when we got a call that friends couldn’t meet us as planned. Though disappointed, the timing was good because it allowed us to a) change tack to set sail and b) head to one of our favorite spots called the Basin.

The Basin’s only entrance is a small channel that’s hard to find if you don’t know about it. Once you get through it, everything opens up into what appears to be a large lake in the middle of the woods. Another recommendation from James and Jenny – we had stopped here last year during our first Maine cruise and fell in love so we couldn’t resist coming back.

As huge as it is, there’s only 6 local boats on moorings and we found two others at anchor, so we had a nice quiet afternoon and evening. One bit of excitement did come from a neighboring boat. I freely admit that I consider it a spectator sport to watch other boaters’ anchoring techniques. Other boaters who claim they don’t are lying. I got hooked (no pun intended) years ago when I first started sailing with Trip and we watched someone on a small boat come into an anchorage, grab an anchor with a hornet’s nest of line and toss it overboard, hoping it would set. (I’d go into detail on correct anchoring technique but it would make most of your eyes glaze over, so I will spare you.) Well it was déjà vu all over again – little boat, mess of line in a five gallon bucket, anchor simply tossed over the side, and backing into reverse with not nearly enough line down for the anchor to set properly. They did this three times, the last getting much too close for comfort, so Trip went up to the bow to glare at them. They finally gave up and went over and took an empty private mooring, hoping it was late enough that no one was coming into claim it (a common practice up here).

Since we were finally somewhere less exposed to the Atlantic for a day or two, I decided it was time to set up my skin-on-frame kayak. It packs up into a duffle bag, and is really quite a fun thing to have along for some exercise and exploring. (I had asked Trip why we couldn’t bring my wooden kayak this year and he just rolled his eyes – an 18 footer does get in the way on board, I guess.) I’m a little rusty on setting it up and of course had to do it on the deck of the boat rather than on a boat ramp, but we had it all assembled in 20 minutes.

Trip decided to set up the sailing rig on the dinghy to sail while I paddled. I noticed a few more boats coming in while setting up. And then a few more. And then more. Concordia yawls, wooden schooners, old fashioned trawlers – nearly two dozen came in over the next two hours. Turns out it was the Eastern Yacht Club from Marblehead on a Maine cruise. This stop was particularly special – the basin is so big they were able to raft up all the boats in a star pattern with the bows facing out. It took nearly four hours to get all the boats in place, but it was rather fun to be paddling around observing all the festivities. And my, what beautiful boats! Amazingly, it took less than 30 minutes the next day to dissemble and move on to their next destination.

When we were in the Basin last year, I had read that it was one of the few places in Maine with water warm enough to swim. However, I watched two guys jump off a neighboring boat and heard their voices go up multiple octives, so decided it wasn’t for me. This year there were multiple people swimming again, but no piercing screams, so we decided to give it a shot. Not quite as bad as three-strokes-and-you’re-out but it was a bit more bracing than refreshing so I didn’t last that long.

Cozy Harbor in Southport is only a mile across the Sheepscot River. We decided to leave the big boat, and instead set up the sailing rig and sail the dinghy over to explore. Good thing as the harbor is indeed cozy, much smaller boats that we are used to normally.

We walked up to the main village, which consisted of a fire department, post office, gift store and general store. Not that we really needed anything, but the general store was pretty well provisioned so we grabbed a few things to take back with us. One thing I have to point out: you can be in the middle of nowhere Maine (and we’ve been to a few of these places now), come across a small general store, and find an amazing selection of wine. It keeps surprising me everywhere we go but I obviously have no complaints!

We hiked out to the beach, and would have loved to spend more time as we discovered trails that led over to Ebencock Harbor on the north side, but realized we were running out of time and the winds were starting to pipe up. We debated having a drink and appetizer at the main restaurant on the docks, but when Trip pointed out that it would be an exhilarating sail back (white caps starting to form), I realized alcohol and greasy food might not be a good way to start a sail.

It took us quite a long time to tack our way out of the harbor but once we hit the river I think we were across in 20 minutes – a cold and wet ride, but a lot of fun.

We got back to the boat to discover that the blessing of the fleet was going on in Five Islands that day and caught the tail end of the live band that they had performing on the docks. The boats that had been rafted to the docks began heading back out to their moorings. Except one, which crept up the docks. Next thing we knew a truck was being backed down to the dock, and tuna lifted by crane off the boat onto the truck, oohed and aahed by the crowds (and us from the boat), and whisked away. Judging by my professional opinion (multiple hours watching Wicked Tuna) it had to have been a $10,000 catch – so cool to see it brought in like that!

I nicknamed the beginning of our journey ‘chasing Lawrence’ as our friend always was a day or two ahead of us as we moved up the New England coast to Maine. Now it’s morphed into ‘chasing James & Jenny’ as we hunt down locations recommended by our Portland friends who we saw in Harpswell not long ago. We headed to Seguin Island based on their recommendation and also Five Islands.

Five Islands is not much more than exactly that – five clusters of granite and trees that loosely form a small harbor. Like everywhere else in Maine, it’s got a lobster shack on the dock and nearly all the boats in the harbor are working boats. Malden Island has several summer houses and those families share a private dock on the island and mainland for ferrying themselves back and forth.

The Five Islands Yacht Club maintains a few moorings free of charge, first come first serve. The dinghy dock is so close you can row. We immediately went ashore to explore.

Just up the road is the Five Islands Farm Market. Once upon a time it was a local farm, but is no longer in operation. The store, however, is now dedicated to fresh local seasonal produce, a limited number of high end provisions, local beers and cheese, and a remarkable wine selection. I know Maine has a reputation for blueberries, but the local strawberries burst in your mouth – I’ve never had better (made a great sauce over pancakes the next morning).

Coming back to the dock, there’s a hiking trail on Ledgemere courtesy of the Nature Conservancy running down the south side of the island with periodic side trails heading out to a beach and other rocky outcrops facing the ocean. The mosquitos were surprisingly sparse so we had a really nice walk in the woods.

And then there’s the lobster. The Sheepscot River has the deepest and coldest water in Maine, supposedly delivering the tastiest lobsters. I concur. The shack where you order is right over the water – they continuously pump water into holding tanks directly from the harbor and it pours right back out through an opening over the docks. When you place your order the clerk turns around and fishes one out of these huge tanks based on size.

We sat on picnic tables out back savoring our dinner, only to find out that this place was also the local weekend hangout. Groups of families and friends from the mainland and the islands began showing up with tablecloths, appetizers, wine, beer, and a festive time was had by all.