A Month in Maine

On the Sheepscot River, just below Wiscasset
Ken fishing from the cockpit in Seal Cove
High on the St. Saveur trail at Acadia National Park
Ken & Tammy on the marina launch in Camden Harbor. Perfect day!

We were fortunate to have a good long time to spend in Maine this summer -- the summer of ALL GOOD WEATHER DAYS !!! We left Cohasset on August 14 and returned on September 8. Our boat ran well and didn't consume too much fuel (phew!). The experiment with powerboating is going well so far.

We removed one couch (we had two) from Rising Tide just the day before we left. And we brought on a table and one temporary bench for the table. These did not get installed until a few days later but then got a lot of use. We had been using a fold-up table in the cockpit prior to August but with shorter days and buggy conditions at our preferred dinner time (around 7:30 pm) we needed an inside place to eat. We did eat well, with lobsters supplied by brother-in-law Matt in Marblehead for the first few days, freshly gathered mussels several times in Maine, plus fresh produce at farmer's markets and grocery stores along the way.

We met up with daughter Tammy in Camden and she stayed with us for a few days while she attended a bridal shower and wedding in that area. Tammy lives in New Mexico so we especially enjoyed a chance to combine her visit and our summer boating. She joined us one night at a Lincolnville, Maine restaurant with our friends Andy, Judie and Emily Hazen (from Lincolnville).

There were 5 nights anchored or moored in Acadia National Park. This is a wonderful place to visit by boat, with two boating-oriented towns -- Southwest and Northeast -- and a long fiord, Somes Sound. You can access several excellent hiking trails from a cove in Somes Sound, and stops for a free shuttle bus to the rest of Mt. Desert Island and the Park from Southwest, Northeast, and the village at the head of Somes Sound. We also connected up with two families from Duxbury while here; they were camping and took us to see their RVs and camp sites (plus provided dinner) after we took them all out for an afternoon cruise.

The second half of our trip was spent at several other Maine coastal locations. We visited Castine and were able to stay on the town dock for most of a morning while we explored the town and had lunch. We got a mooring from Warren Island State Park, which is part of the Islesboro Island group. On a walk around the perimeter of the island we discovered a campfire from the previous evening that had been built in an illegal area and had not been fully put out. Since there are only a half-dozen campsites in this park it is questionable whether anyone else would have noticed this smoldering fire before it ignited the nearby bushes. Ken ran to get a bucket from the nearest campsite and I used my hat to bring a few pints of seawater to put on the fire until Ken got back.

Following that adventure we spent some time in Rockland, a great place to eat out, provision, get boat parts, and access the internet at the public library. I also found a high school friend who is an artist and psychic in Rockland. Kitty Smith has a gallery near the library and we enjoyed catching up on all those years after I poked my head in when I saw her sign.

Hurricane Earl was threatening as we headed back through Muscongus Bay so we tucked into Seal Cove in the Damariscotta River. This is a great hurricane hole, protected on all sides, and we spent a few days on anchor. We swam in the water here, as well as in several other locations on our trip, quite unusual for Maine where the water is mostly too cold. We had a kayak with us on this trip, a new eight-footer, and the small coves we ducked into were perfect for kayaking. A surprise discovery in Seal Cove was a stream and waterfall pouring into the southwest corner, loud enough to hear while paddling around. By the way, the hurricane mostly bypassed Maine, but you never can be too careful.

A planned rendezvous with our friends Linda and Frank Cassidy was fun; we met them in Penobscot Bay, at White Islands, near Vinalhaven Island. Another chance for sundowners and dinner came when we scheduled a stop in Casco Bay at Cliff Island and rafted with Barb and Dick MacLeod. It was great to see our Maine friends!

We saw a lot of wildlife in Maine, including tuna off of Cape Elizabeth, seals everywhere, lots of porpoises, osprey adults and young in many locations, all types of ducks; Ken fished a lot and caught some mackerel in Acadia National Park. We spotted whales swimming along in our direction as we left Maine and entered New Hampshire waters at the Isles of Shoals.

All-in-all it is not too much different to have a trawler, going 8-9 knots (still pretty slow), anchoring in areas we would have gone to in a sailboat, and being out in the sun a lot as we were in our Tayana. Some of the small differences are that we got to carry a kayak on the forward cabin top, out of the way, and we got to pick the best anchoring spot in prime small coves maybe a bit sooner each day than we would have previously. We're still not brave enough to take advantage of our 34" draft but eventually we should be finding anchoring spots in by the beach. We'll save that for Cape Cod and Islands cruising!