Thank you Rockport Marine!

After three weeks' worth of refits and repairs, we're finally ready to actually go sailing. The boat looks and feels fantastic, thanks mostly to the amazing crew at Rockport Marine. Their carpenters, fabricators, electricians, riggers, painters and others have been remarkable.  Creative, professional, enthusiastic, friendly, affordable and committed to excellence. We've had front row seats to the best show in town as classic wooden boat after wooden boat has been launched at the travel lift just a few yards behind us, and commissioned in short order.  The majority have been Concordias. Someone here told me that Rockport Marine stores and cares for more Concordias than any other boatyard anywhere. It's been a rare treat to watch.

Matt, Nate and Mike of Rockport Marine, being bribed by us with cookies

Neverland with the new mainsail, which arrived today, and the new bimini and dodger. Our neighbor "Rebecca," (not a Concordia) from Martha's Vineyard, is on the outside dock

Parker, Matt and Shelley rigging "Rebecca"

The connector between Neverland's new bimini and dodger is a large panel of Strataglass (shown here reflecting light on the upper left side) with a shade cover we can snap on to get out of the sun. The Strataglass gives us a lot of visibility under the dodger, too.

Side view of bimini with 2 flexible solar panels, and dodger.

We both hated having to squeeze by the pedestal table every time we walked through the main salon.  So we asked Jeff at Rockport Marine to fabricate a new bulkhead table for us using the teak from the pedestal table. Thirty-four foot Neverland has only a 10' beam, so we really appreciate the room that this fold-up, drop-leaf table gives us to move around down below (plus the built-in wine/liquor storage he made as shelves behind the table).  

Here's the table stowed against the bulkhead. What a huge difference it makes to the way the boat feels down below!

While waiting for the canvas, table, mainsail, etc to get done, we recently went out sailing for a few days with just the jib. Had lots of wind and the boat did 6+ knots with jib alone. Sweet!  We sailed up to Warren Island State Park in Islesboro for a night, then over to Smith Cove just south of Castine on the NE side of Penobscot Bay for the second night. It was blowing 25 knots all the way to the southern end of the cove where we found a little flat water for the night.

Sailing by Castine

A grand old home near the Dice Head Lighthouse near Castine

The next day we had a gorgeous broad reach back across Penobscot Bay to Belfast, one of our favorite towns in Maine.  Now that the sun is out more, the temperatures have risen into the 60s and 70s, and it's almost the end of June, there are a few more summer folks about and more shops and restaurants open.

Near the top of main street in Belfast. It's such a walkable little town with a great food coop, lots of galleries, shops, a killer consignment store, a good public library, pubs and restaurants, even a small cinema right in town.   

Shops with lots of sailing-related stuff and  cheerful window flower boxes 

My favorite. Belfast hardware store located right in town on main street. They have everything. Love the wood floors. 

View from our mooring ball in Belfast harbor. 

So tomorrow we're off! Be forewarned: once we travel east past Penobscot Bay (to places like Blue Hill and Mount Desert Island, for example) Verizon towers are replaced with AT&T and we fall off the edge of the world. So we may struggle a bit for a while to stay in touch until we get back this way.

I saw a license plate the other day that was very timely for us:

We'll let you know.