From Wooden Boat, to Tenant's Harbor

After Buck's Harbor we sailed down Eggemoggin Reach to Wooden Boat, the headquarters of the magazine of the same name.

The landing dock and waterfront at Wooden Boat

This is the building where week-long classes are taught in boat-building. You can build your own skiff, kayak, sailing dinghy, etc. Pretty cool.

If you make this photo larger, you can see the profusion of lobster pots that Maine cruisers contend with every minute on the water. If you catch one in your prop it's more than a nuisance. You or someone else has to cut it free. It can be a real threat to safety, since you have lost your ability to manoeuver. We haven't caught one yet but have had close calls!

A little boat at Wooden Boat in the harbor - fog rolling in as the afternoon light fades

I did a watercolor of this one - beautiful light in late afternoon...

Then a few days of easterly winds and rain blew in. Yeah, some days I wish we'd brought winter hats and mittens. The water temperature is in the 50's, so with a little wind and rain, being out on the water gets pretty chilly!

We sailed to Rockland in pouring rain and arrived ready to throw our wet clothes in a dryer and throw us in a nice hot shower at the marina. For several days we had chilly wet weather, so the local library was a good refuge. Rockland library had a whole room full of second hand books and we bought about a dozen. We read a lot on the boat and trade in books every time we come into a new place big enough to have a library.

Sun finally came out. Here are a few of Rockland's classic brick facades on the right side of main street, and well-kept flowerbeds

Lots of flowers, art galleries, shops and cafes in Rockland.  In the photo below Neverland is back in Winter Harbor, Vinalhaven, a stop we made on our way east again to Acadia National Park. In most places we've been, other cruising boats have been sparse. We often have anchorages pretty much to ourselves. 

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This is Somes Harbor on the right. One day we took the bus to Bar Harbor and met up with our friends, Thom and Pamela, for dinner. We'd spent a night at their place in South Gouldsboro several weeks ago and got to help them bottle-feed their 10 new poodle puppies - little guys with barely opened eyes, wobbling around trying to take their first steps. Sooooooo cute.  Pamela sent me a really funny video of the puppies but I can't seem to get Blogspot to load a video for me. Dang. Anyway it was great to see them again and find out that all the puppies have homes.

This is Frenchboro on Long Island, where we stayed a night and did a hike around the island. 

Can you read the sign on the right corner of this shack?

Long Island has gorgeous rocky beaches and piney woods. The deep carpets of springy, dry needles underfoot smell  wonderful as you walk along on a hot summer day. Reminds me of my Canadian childhood summers at the cottage.

We woke up in the morning in Frenchboro to find this schooner anchored right nearby. This is the "Mary Day", one of the smaller vessels that take paying guests for cruises along parts of the Maine coast. 

From Frenchboro we sailed to Mount Desert Island. This was a race just near Southwest Harbor. I tried to sail (in about 17 knots of wind with lobster pots everywhere...) close enough for Jim to take a few photos, while staying out of the way of the racers, committee boat and onlookers.

As in the past, we sailed right up Somes Sound, the fiord that bisects Mount Desert,  to the head of the harbor and found a great place to anchor for a few days while we explored Acadia National Park on land via the free Island Explorer bus. This little sailboat was moored in front of us in a very sheltered part of the harbor.

Now we are totally fogged in in Tenants Harbor, where we will get fuel and water and then wait for a weather window to do a long run southwest across the Gulf of Maine to either Provincetown at the upper end of Cape Cod, or a harbor on the western side of Cape Cod Bay if it looks like building SW winds will be making Provincetown too rolly.

Back attcha shortly.