Maine : Belfast, Windjammers and Lobster pots.

30th August –10th September

After sitting out hurricane Irene it was great to be out and sailing again, albeit just a short sail over to the town of Belfast. We did have to keep a good lookout though, as there were still quite a few  large logs and the odd chest of drawers floating past. It’s just amazing what ends up in the water after a hurricane  or big storm has passed by. You  just can’t imagine what would you’d see after a tsunami.

       

Belfast was a nice change after having been in a succession  of quiet bays. The town had a lovely laid back feel, but then that’s kind of how  all  the towns in Maine are really.  The main street had quite a few nicky –nakky type shops and a couple of restaurants, in particular a very good Thai one that we visited twice. But the pistaresistance was their quaint movie theatre. It was a real old style one, not your big flashy Hoyts movie complex type that you find in the cities. The box office only opened an hour before the show started but even then there was no rush and no queues. Being able to go to the movies twice in the same week was a real treat for us. Liam isn’t much of a movie hound , but seeing as how the poster out front showed that “The Help” and “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” was on offering, he was in. And we  were sure glad that the weather wasn’t as cold as the car park sign indicated!

  

    

 

 

It was also good to be able to catch up with  Daryl and Annie from No Rehearsal while  they were still around and  making the most of their haul out, post Irene. That’s their cat with the yellow trim in the photo on the left. They would be taking off for the Uk and Malta in a couple of days time and we weren’t sure when or where we’d see them again. At the same time we also got to see friends from Daydreamer and Remi De.

We’d heard on the grapevine that there was to be a Windjammer Festival down in Camden over the Labor Day Weekend and that just happened to be the coming  weekend. Sounded like it would be fun so the trio of cats hot footed it down there. If there is one thing, apart from lobsters of course, that  the state of Maine is good at it’s festivals.

The two day event was great. Plenty of stuff to keep everyone busy. There were fireworks, face painting, pirate shows  and movies for the kids, bands in the park, lobster crate races.. a bit like an egg and spoon race but the degree of difficulty and the chance of getting wet were way higher, and the local library had a couple of excellent  presentations including one on the incredible  failed Antartic voyage of the explorer William Shackleton. It was a packed house and we were lucky to get a seat with people even sitting on the floor.

The Windjammers were all open for inspection in the afternoons and it was interesting to see the insides of these magnificent looking vessels and talk to the crews who worked on them. With the weather really starting to get nippy now, our thoughts had turned to thinking about leaving Maine to head back down the coast. Before we did we decided on one last stop in Penobscot Bay. We chose a small bay called Carvers where together with Remi De we had our last big bon-fire while in Maine. It was a cracker, literally, as the Remi De’s brought in a big box of fireworks to let off on the beach.

 

  

From here we headed down the bay making  a quick stop in Rockland were we filled up with fuel and bought sixteen more lobsters. Now sixteen lobby’s may sound a bit of overkill but we figured that having some tasty lobster meals on the way down the east coast and especially on Xmas day would be a real treat.

  

By the time we’d left Rockland it was getting late so we headed into Tennants Harbour for the night. The approach was due west and looking into the  low sun on the water as we entered the bay. As always we were being ever vigilant and just when we thought we were home and hosed, whamo, we snagged a lobster pot around out starboard propeller.  Quickly  both motors were put into neutral  while we assessed the situation. There was some moderate cussing from the skipper, not sure if it was against the offending pot or because he would have to get into the very cold water and try and cut it off. He donned his wet suit, and armed with a knife bravely jumped in. I mean, lets be honest here, there was no way this little duck was getting  into that water, after all someone had to stay on board and be ready to pass the skipper the hot shower hose and fluffy towel an his return, right?. Within a few  cold minutes he  had returned with his trophy. That was the first and only pot we snagged the whole time that we’d been in Maine. Not a bad score when you consider how many thousands of pots are lurking in these chilly waters. 

 

The  quaint fishing village of Boothbay Harbour  was next on our list of anchorages. Arriving into the harbour in the late afternoon we didn’t get a chance to explore the town, although the guide book said that it was quite lovely and worth stopping for a day or two. Maybe we will see it next time around. This was the last town that we would visit in Maine and it was also our last chance to have a hearty lobster meal ashore. The aptly named '”Lobster Dock” fitted the bill nicely and together with friends from Remi De we headed in just before sunset. The setting was fabulous with a big open deck area facing west to take full advantage of the beautiful sunset.The lobsters were cooked to perfection and the beers were icy cold. It was a great  way to say goodbye to Maine.

         

                        

And so there you have it. We had spent nearly six weeks cruising in this wonderful state and we had really only scratched the surface. It was sad to leave but time as always marches on and it was starting to get very, very cold. Our last night was spent anchored at  the Isle of Shoals on the Maine / Massachusetts border and as a fitting goodbye to Maine mother nature put on a beautiful sunset. We had a fantastic time up here and would recommend to all of our friends both cruising or land based to  put in the hard yards from where ever you may be, and make the trip up  here. You won’t regret it. We never did get to see a Moose so I guess we’ll just have to add that one to the list for the next time .

                      But for now, new adventures await us and Boston is beckoning.

                                                       ***************************

 

               CRUISING INFO                          Formalities,Call CBP on #  2075322131 ex 255 each time you change anchorages.                                                  Supermarkets: There are usually a couple in each town with the larger towns having Target/Walmarts as well.                                                                   Lobsters, always available fresh from any Lobster pound, or ask one of the Lobster boats and there are plenty of them around.Price varies according to type ie hard shell or shedders, which are soft shelled.Stonington lobster co-op had the best prices by far.                                                                                                                                                          Cruising season : It’s short, but the best time is late July to September,and remember to take your winter woolies even though it’s summer!                                                                                                      Guide books : Dozier’s Waterway Guide – Northern. There are also several other guides available  which pertain only to Maine.

Maine : Quiet bays and  Irene, a lady with attitude.

16th – 30th August

 

The day that we left Bar Harbour was  yet another foggy day that turned to light drizzle by the afternoon. We were planning  to stop at the Cranberry Islands for a day or so but when we got there the weather had turned to custard, so we continued on  to  the fiord-like area in the middle of Mt Desert Island  known as Somes Sound . The guide book had said that this was one of the most picturesque anchorages in this part of Maine and once the fog lifted it indeed fitted the description.

 

We were joined by Remi De and No Rehearsal, and briefly caught up with our American friends from Erin Brie who were also anchored in the bay. The shoreline was a thick forest of pine trees  with only a couple of houses scattered around. Everyday there were heaps of kayakers paddling past the boat only to  disappear further up the bay around a bend. Curious as to where they  were paddling, we dropped the dinghy in and went  to investigate. To our surprise we rounded the bend  to find a huge camping ground with hundreds of tents. It was extremely well set up, each site had a brick fireplace and the tents were  perched up on wooden platforms  to alleviate any dampness from the ground. There was a long dinghy/kayak dock and the kids from the campground were having a ball jumping off one of the rocks in the middle of the little bay. Kids just never seem to feel the cold no matter what the water temperature.  As we motored along the banks we saw lots of people  chilling out with a book or newspaper, and others just soaking up the warm sunshine and the ambiance of the place. It sure looked a great place to hang out for a week or so.

  

That evening, during sundowners aboard No Rehearsal, we met a nice couple who were  staying in the camp ground and they invited all of us to join  their family for a bon-fire at their campsite later that night. It certainly was the right sort of weather for it being on the chilly side and all. They were from Boston and came here every year for two weeks of R&R and had an ongoing reservation for the same site for the past five years. The bon-fire was great and it was nice to meet some new acquaintances and have a chat about something other than boats!

Itching to go for a walk through the  beautiful woods, the following day we took off in the dinghy to explore. We’d picked out a suitable landing site to beach the dinghy but as we approached our outboard gave a couple of coughs and then died. Inflatable dinghies are just about impossible to row any sort of distance so we were very lucky that we were only a few hundred yards off the beach. We wheeled her up the sand where Liam  then proceeded to pull the carbie down yet again. No matter what he did to it  the engine just refused to kick back into life. So much for  the walk in the woods! With no prospect of starting the engine it was time to figure out a way to get home and rowing was not an option. Our phone signal was pretty much non existent, but  even so  we tried to call  Remi De a few times hoping to get through. It was a good thing that our cruising buddies  were on the ball and when we hadn’t returned after an hour or so Toni sent Bruce out to find us. We were so relived when  we saw him  come scooting around the corner. Needless to say Liam spent the rest of the afternoon pulling down the carbie (again). The ethanol outboard fuel  sold in America is the culprit, and it was really starting to wear both of us down. It’s a never-ending battle to get the dinghy started and keep it going at low revs. So while Liam played mechanic Annie went for a walk ashore, not quite through the woods, but a walk nonetheless.

  

  

We had a nice time in Somes Sound it was such a tranquil and pretty place. We enjoyed a lovely lunch in the woodland setting of Abels lobster pound, where Liam found out the hard way that you should heed warning signs that say “Lobsters bite!”.Yes he stuck his hand in a tank full of the little critters and got the fright of his life when one of them clamped onto his finger and didn’t want to let go. Pretty sure he won’t be doing that again in a hurry.

  

After a few days at Somes we toddled off back towards Stonington, where we had a quick stop to buy a few more lobsters and to our surprise  also got a call on the radio from an old aussie friend, Scot Wheelhouse, who had charted a boat for a couple of weeks.

We joined Scot and his wife Rose and their guests ashore for coffee and then moved on to a small bay called Hell’s Half Acre.

 

We had planned to have a quiet evening on board  as it was our wedding anniversary but when our friends on Remi De arrived and said they were going ashore to light a fire (it was pretty cold) and asked us to come along, well we couldn’t resist joining them. When we got there they had written “Happy Anniversary” in shells on the rocks. It was a lovely touch and so we all celebrated with a glass of bubbly by the warmth of the fire.

  

                         

With the likelihood of hurricane Irene heading up towards Maine it was time to move on and sus out a better protected anchorage in which to ride out the storm, should it eventuate. The media reports were saying that Irene , a category 3 hurricane, was packing 80 knot winds and was due to hit our area in about a week, so we had plenty of time to find a snug spot. Below is the image of  Irene as she marched up the coast towards Maine. We kept a pretty close eye on our favorite internet  weather site, Passage  Weather, which gave excellent predictions for up to seven days in advance.

            

Over the next few days we popped our heads into many bays with the pick of the bunch being either Blue Hill Bay, which was a delightful spot, or Smith’s cove near the town of Castine right up towards the top of Penobscot Bay. We chose the later and it was a very good choice. The bay was large enough to accommodate a goodly number of boats and had excellent protection on all sides . With depths of only 24 ft were were able to let out about 250 ft of anchor chain and the thick mud on the bottom guaranteed, well that’s what we hoped, that  we would not budge an inch.

  

  

Having not had anything to do with hurricanes before we were pretty focused  and nervous over the next few days. We took both our forward sails down and packed them away so as to cause minimal windage and any loose items on deck were  securely stowed away. Then it was time to play the waiting game. We still had a spare two days after we’d packed up everything so along with friends from Daydreamer and Remi De we donned our walking shoes and hit some of the walking trails around the bay. On the way back to the boat we stopped along one of the many ledges and collected a couple of buckets of fresh mussels … boy were they yummy when we cooked them up in a  big pot  later.

When we  arrived in the bay on Thursday, four days ahead of Irene's debut  there were only five other boats on anchor. Irene was due to arrive in the wee small hours of Sunday morning and since our arrival there had been a steady stream of boats coming in, including about a dozen  super yachts, some of whom  had motored for two days or more from the Newport Rhode Island area. By the  time Saturday afternoon rolled around Annie counted  over seventy boats anchored in the bay. And  it wasn't just our bay that was busy, the local boat yards were doing a roaring trade hauling boats out of the water and parking them where ever they could fit. In the town of Belfast, not far from us, that included parking them out on  the street and over in the town of Castine even the floating docks were packed up and towed to safety.

  

Saturday dawned overcast and cold and there was a real eerie feel to the air. It was a horrible feeling not knowing what was going to happen. We even started to wonder if we’d made the right decision staying in the water. Other friends on No Rehearsal and Escapade had decided to haul their boats out over at a yard in Belfast, maybe we should have too. We new that we couldn’t afford do that every time a hurricane came our way, sooner or later you just have to face the music. It was our decision not to haul out and  there was no going back. So come on Irene! Saturday evening the wind started to howl and the rain turned from steady drizzle to torrential. Just on dark the wind began to swirl around  the bay and change direction a few of the boats who had put out multiple anchors began to get themselves into a tangle and there was a fair bit of activity as they desperately reset their anchors in what little light there still was. We felt that we had done all we could to ensure our  own safety and now our fate was in the lap of the god’s. As we sat hunkered down in our cosy saloon  we listened to the clanging of halyards, the wind in the rigging and watched as the bay turned into a city of floating lights. We tried to watch a movie but gave up when the outside noise was louder than the volume on the TV would go ,so  around midnight we said “goodnight Irene” and headed off to bed. It was a fitful sleep with one of us getting up every hour or so to have a look outside, not that we could see much past the boat next. By morning  we felt  very sorry for  the two fellows aboard our neighbouring boat as they had had a sleepless and wet night as they stood anchor watch in their cockpit which had no covering and no where to escape the wind and rain. They looked like drowned rats by the morning.

  

  

Well  this time we got to count our lucky stars.  Irene spared us and  Maine from much of  her fury as she changed her path before she got to us and  headed further inland to Vermont, where she caused alot of  mayhem and destruction. Having left our wind instruments on all night the highest wind readout we saw that night was in the range of forty to fifty knots, and that was plenty enough wind for these brown ducks.  We stayed put in Smith’s Cove for couple more days wanting to let some of the debris of logs and other flotsam  come down the rivers and clear out of the the large body of water that makes up Penobscot. All that sort of stuff  usually lurks just under the water surface and can be a major hazard to the hull of a boat so it’s prudent to just sit and wait a while. When we felt the  time was right we pulled up the anchor which was so covered in mud it took us 45 minutes to get it and the chain up (we had to wash all the thick gooey mud off as the chain came up). Pretty soon it would be time to head south but before then we wanted to make just a few more stops one of which was the town of Belfast. We’d heard  some good reports about the place so we nosed out of the bay and headed over.

                                       %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Maine : Penobscot Bay to Mt Desert Island

2nd August - 10th September

We spent just over five weeks in Maine and visited many delightful towns and bays, far too many to go into great detail about so, to keep it simple, I’ll just be writing about some of our highlights.

Leaving Rockland and the lobster festival behind it was time to go out and explore the many islands and sheltered coves of Penobscot Bay and those further to the north. It was a foggy morning, a real pea souper, as  we sailed across the main channel towards the Fox Island thoroughfare.The silence of our gloomy surrounds was only being  broken by the rhythmical sounds of a fog horn, warning of a close-by navigation buoy, ledge or headland. Our AIS, automatic identification system, and radar were invaluable as it tracked both fast and slow moving vessels nearby, sometimes as little as  a few hundred feet away. The thump of their engines the only give-away of their existence as they passed close by us. It was quite unnerving for we novices of fog, but fog or no fog, life on the water in Maine just seems to go on as normal. 

 

As we made our way up the winding channel , the fog started to lift and the some of the rustic  homes and small villages which lined the shore came into view.

After spending one night in Carver Cove we moved on to Seal Bay, which is described in the guide book as having “unspoiled scenic beauty and secluded charm”. The book was right and Seal Bay turned out to be one of our favorite anchorages.The entrance was a bit of a dogleg around a few big boulders and ledges,  but once inside the surrounds were extremely pretty with pine trees all around and the odd seal basking on the rocks. A few other boats had obviously read the blurb in the book as well and we shared the bay with about ten like minded yachts. Being the only boat in the anchorage not sporting the star spangled banner from the stern is a dead giveaway that you’re not a local. The other giveaway is that we are a catamaran, a bit of a rarity in these waters.

  

Not long after anchoring a friendly chap rowed across to say hello and gave us a few tips on how to harvest some of the  succulent wild mussels that grew just below the low tide mark on the ledges behind us. He assured us that once we’d tasted them we’d be hooked and he invited us to join he and his friends at their next anchorage if we were heading that way. We spent a couple of nights in Seal Bay and then moved on travelling north towards Mt Desert Island.

Maine is the home of Hinckley Yachts and they are definitely the flavor of the month up here. Without fail just about every dark blue hulled yacht that you see comes from the Hinckley Stable and there sure are a lot of them.The elegant lines of these traditional sloops and ketches are very pleasing to the eye. Even the grunty tug-type powerboats  have a certain type of charm. And there is certainly no such thing as the tupperware sports fishing boats up here. In fact, there must be a magical line somewhere just south of the state border that prohibits them from coming to this part of the world, and it sure is  nice not to have  them  go roaring past you without any regard for their wake, as is the norm  down in the southern states.

           

The further north we sailed the more evident the huge tidal range became. Maine has huge tides of around 12ft plus, something that you really have to bear in mind when anchoring or going ashore. Luckily we have wheels on our dinghy so if the tide goes out while we’re off on a hike, then we just wheel it back down to the water and that sure beats trying to carry/drag it over rocks and through mud.

   

The town of Stonington on the eastern shore of Penobscot Bay is your classic lobster village. No  pleasure craft call this place home. Seeing  the multitudes of working lobster boats and quite a few lobster pounds (the local name for the co-ops), we decided that this would be a good place  to stop a while, have a spot of lunch and buy a few lobby’s. Little did we know that this was actually the best place in the whole area to buy them.

 

After getting directions from some thick accented Lobstermen as to which pound sold to the public,  we trotted off ready to part with a few more dollars. The lobsters were coming  straight off the boats and they were huge. Paying between $4-$7 per pound Liam picked out a couple of beauties. It’s amazing when you see just how many lobsters are in each crate and how many crates there are at the pound, you’d think that there can’t be any more lobsters left out there, but there are. The sea floor must literally be crawling with them. Apparently each lobsterman is allowed to have 800 lobster cages each. That’s a lot of lobsters! We left town with six lobsters, two of which were destined for our tummies that evening.

     

      

       

                                                                                                                                                                                                              The next few days were pretty overcast and cool, so we stayed put in a cozy anchorage that we found on Swan Island. Reading, doing chores, watching dvd’s and of course eating lobsters  filled in the time rather nicely. When the weather improved we moved over to Southwest Harbour at the bottom of  Mt Desert Island .The place read rather good and we needed a few supplies as well as a couple of things from the West Marine chandlery, so a night stop was in order. The town itself was pretty small but it had all the necessary stuff including a nice homely Inn where we enjoyed a light lunch on their terrace.The lobster theme had found its way into the most unlikely places here including an ice cream shop and the Chinese restaurant. I guess it’s tough luck if you don’t like lobster, but then who doesn’t.

 

Our next stop was Bar Harbor, and this would be the furthest easterly port that we would visit in Maine.The eight mile run up to Bar Harbour under screecher and sunny skies was just what we needed after a couple of overcast days.There’s nothing like sunshine and a good breeze to lift your spirits, mind you we had to be on our toes with all the lobster pots that were about. Most yachts in Maine have wire cages fitted around their propellers so as not to entangle themselves in the maze of pots. For us, sailing or even motoring in these waters was quite challenging at times and the shortcut that we took through Eastern Way was one of those times.

 

Just after anchoring in the harbor, we heard a  voice over the VHF radio, one that we’d not heard  since back in Thailand in 2008. It was the dulcet tones of Greg from the yacht Erin Brie. Now what are the odds of both boats being in this part of Maine at the same time?

Despite reading negative reports in a magazine article saying that Bar Harbour was a bit of a zoo, we found it just the opposite. It is a lovely town and a popular tourist stop being the base town for the Acadia National Park which is pretty much the reason most  people come to the island. Dominating the skyline are Mounts Cadillac, Dory and Champlain and with hundreds of paths, trails and inland lakes it’s no wonder that hiking, cycling, climbing and kayaking are the favored pastimes here. We spent four days here exploring the town and what was on offer.Taking one of  the several free bus routes around the island and the park saw us head up to Jordon Pond for lunch. The cafe here, actually it’s the only one in the park, had both indoor and outdoor seating, but for us it just had to be a table in the great outdoors on the grass by the lake. With such a stunning setting it seemed crazy that anyone would want to sit inside.

  

Town itself was charming with lots of interesting shops, plenty of homewares and  Christmas ones, some good restaurants and bars and lovely parks. The Hannaford’s supermarket was an easy stroll from the anchorage and we even lashed out and bought a digital TV box so at last we could watch American TV in the comfort of our own boat. That was just pure bliss! 

                                                                                    

           

                               

                                                                                                                                                                                   

Once again it was time to move on. There was a whole lot more to see on Mt Desert Island as well as the northern parts of Penobscot Bay…so many bays, so little time.

                                                       **************************