Camden, the Lobster Festival, and a "gam"

We decided to take a day trip to Camden, as the fog and rain finally lifted! Camden is only 7 miles from Rockport, so that is only 1 hours worth of sailing. The entrance to Camden is yet another cute lighthouse

Here's the crowded harbor, seen from a slight uphill advantage. Camden actually has mountains! We are anchored out in the far left corner, not visible in this shot.

One of Camden's claims to fame is their schooners. There are several of them that work out of Camden, and it is not unusual to see them sailing gracefully down the Penobscot, full sails, full of paying customers for either hour or week sails.

We met folks we recognized from the Bahamas, Francie and Bob, and had a nice lunch with them. Books from the used book store, ice cream, and a little browsing, and we headed back to Rockland for the Maine Lobster Festival.

While we were anchoring in Camden, we met Cheryl and John, Canadians who will be headed out in a few weeks for a 2 year world tour. They joined us in Rockland for the Festival.

First, the Lobster eating tent! Rockland has a huge lobster cooking set up that cooks 1600 lobsters each 15 minutes!

Luke and John getting ready to chow down on their lobsters. That's mine, waiting ! Cheryl was off to get us a bloomin' onion to share. yum!

The festival was like any small town fair, full of tents of junk or beautiful artwork. We bought a couple of small matted photos, tee shirts, and of course, ice cream.

Leaving Rockland Harbor, the Rockland Breakwater Light HouseNext, to Gilkey Harbor, just northwest of Camden, for the Seven Seas Cruising Association (SSCA) "gam". A gam is just a social gathering. This association has several each year, the northern one being in the Penobscot. We anticipate about 65 boats to participate. There are around 30 here already. Anyway, Warren Island Park is in Gilkey Harbor. It's a cute, small island, with nice walking trails. Who could resist this in the heat of summer?

The trail ambles to the bay, with a nice view of the mountains of Camden.The rocks here are interesting -- they stand up, jagged, in the water's edge.On Friday evening a group of early arrival boaters had an informal dinghy raft-up. Basically, about 12 boaters tied their dinghies together, brought snacks and drinks, and socialized until a sudden, short thunderstorm hit. That send everyone scattering in all directions. It was a great way to get to know everyone.Tonight, July 31, is the opening dinghy raft up, with around 65 boats. Tomorrow is the formal meeting/party. We're looking forward to meeting everyone.

Rockland and rain

Our stay at Boothbay really wasn't... other than a nice evening on Thursday,

it rained like crazy the whole time. We didn't even go into the cockpit except to check our surroundings. The sky broke cloudy but not rainy on Saturday, so we left early to get to Rockland for the Maine Labster Festival. As we left Boothbay we passed the Port Clyde Lighthouse, the one used in the movie Forest Gump.

Puffins! http://www.projectpuffin.org/AboutPuffins.html Eastern Egg Island is the southern most of the Atlantic Puffin habitat. They were introduced to the island back in the 1970's. Most of the puffins leave for further north by now but some were there! We made a float-by and saw several of them. They are SO cute.

Maine...land of fog

and schooners. We like the schooners better than the fog.

Oh, and fishing vessels, as well as lobster boats. This beauty was taking her half of the very narrow, lobster float crowded inlet right in the middle. But we did fine and passed her ok.

Along our 35 mile trip to Rockland, we passed several other beautiful light houses. Whitehead Island Light

and Owl's Head Light

As we arrived in Rockland, we saw the full size of the Coast Guard Training Tall Ship, the Eagle http://usmilitary.about.com/od/coastguard/a/eagle.htm

She's in the Rockland harbor for a few days to allow tours. We did, of course! Much more complicated than sailing little Latitudes. We have 12 control lines to play with ---- she has 282 lines (for you non-sailors, that's "ropes")!

The Eagle is a wonderful ship, built in Germany before WW11, along with a sister ship, as sail training ships. The Russians took one and we took one as spoils of war after the end of the war. She's still in active duty, used as a training ship for the Coast Guard cadets. She has a permanent crew of 60 and takes 150 cadets at a time for 2 stints -- once for a week and then a second tour of 6 weeks training.

We revisited the Farnsworth Art Museum on Saturday and viewed Jamie Wythe's "7 deadly sins". I have to say that I'm not really a fan of his work, much prefer NC and Andrew's, but I loved this. He has illustrated the 7 deadly sins with seagulls. The composition is amazing but his seagulls are incredible, especially their eyes and expressions. Here's a bit about it http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=254258&ac=PHnws

Unfortunately ....maybe...we were mis-informed and the Maine Lobster Festival is actually next week, starting on Wednesday. Our plan had been to leave today (Sunday), cruise around the Penobscot for a couple of days, then return on Tuesday night so we can be at the festival on Wednesday (that's the free admission day). But, the fog has us socked in and rain is forecast for Monday, so we may just be staying here in our little floating condo for the next few days. Wickie likes it that way -- calm and drowsy, feeling better, all curled up on his red blankie.

The Wickie scare and he's still here!

We had terrible scare with little Wickie--- we spent all of Wednesday with our friends Gloria and Mike. We met them in West End, Bahamas, this past February. We had gone sight-seeing in Maine, shopped the LL Bean outlet (yes!), went lobstering with them (Mike maintains 5 lobster traps)

and had a most wonderful fresh lobster dinner with them, shared with the 2 sweet dogs and 1 lobster-mad beautiful cat.

When we returned to the boat, it was obvious that Wickie had been sick several times. Then he was sick a couple of times after we returned. Hadn't eaten all day. later in the wee morning hours, he became sick again, this time even worse.

So, our wonderful friends Gloria and Mike gave us their vet's name, took us for the appointment, didn't mind the cat fur in the car, stayed with us, and brought us home again. Luke and I were both afraid this might be the "slippery slope" to the end, but fortunately, Little Wickie has only a bad urinary track infection. A shot of penicillin, a shot for the nausea, an antibiotic, an Rx for more antibiotics, a couple of blood and urine workups, $$$, and our baby is back home again. He ate and then slept blissfully for the rest of the day.

If it had been a downward spiral of the kidney failure, the decision/outcome might have been different. This was fortunately taken care of with a few antibiotics. So, we're all relieved....

Lobster at $3.50 each --- cheaper than Mrs. Paul's fishsticks!

ahhh... the joys of Maine! Lobster! Good thing my vegetarian ways don't include fish of all sorts. We spent one night in Potts Harbor in Casco Bay.

Bright and early, we took a dinghy ride into "Basin Cove" - a cove with a very narrow entrance and maybe a half mile long. With a 10 foot tidal range, the entrance gets wild with the ebb and flood of the tide. We found the flat water part of the rapids for the ride in. The dinghy depth finder told us we had at least 8 feet of water under us -- very reassuring. Note the current past the lobster float.

Once inside, all was peaceful and serene.

On our way out of the cove, we literally climbed the rapids, with the dinghy at nearly full throttle.

We took the dinghy to shore to go for a little walk in the morning before we left and found that the lobster co-op shack was open (the middleman for the lobstermen and the retail buyers). Cute little picturesque place..

Fresh lobster, $3.50 per pound! Now, a one-pounder is called a "chic" and one each is plenty for a meal, plus we have leftover tail to make lobster rolls. Our first home-cooked lobsters this trip!

We spend one afternoon in The Basin, a lake-like cove in Casco Bay. Calm and flat, like a high altitude lake. I took the opportunity to go fishing, hopefully for something eatable. no way.. I caught only a little skate.
Poor little guy--- his face is too much like one of ours and I felt bad. Luke managed to get the hook out without damage and we let him go. He would have made only a two fake scallops anyway~

Next on the schedule, Seguin Island. The website is http://www.seguinisland.org/

We took a guest mooring in a small, somewhat protected cove, at the base of an incline that was built in 1895 for delivery of supplies to the top of the 120 foot high island.

The lighthouse at Sequin is the oldest and one of the most important ones in Maine. George Washington commissioned the building of the first wooden light house in 1795. The present lighthouse tower and lens was build in 1857.


Our visit was on an overcast day, a little drizzle, but that was ok. The 360 degree view from the top of the lighthouse was magnificent. You can see 20 miles on a clear day.

The fresnel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_lens) lens at the lighthouse is the only functioning first order (largest) Fresnel lens north of Virginia.

It has 280 glass prisms, is 9 1/2 feet tall and 6 feet inside diameter. A few prisms have broken and have been replaced with plastic, as the Nazis destroyed the formula for the lens glass during WW11. The light source used to be an oil lamp, now, it's a "theatre bulb", about 8" long. The lens itself is insured for $8MIL... we didn't touch it!

After our tour of the island, we scooted the short 7 miles to one of our favorite places from last year, 5 Islands. Tomorrow we plan to meet friends who live here.

Portsmouth, NH

We crossed the 8 miles from Isles of Shoals to Portsmouth, NH on Thursday, timing our arrival to coincide with the slack tide. Tidal current here can be up to 3 knots-- that's pretty darn fast when you consider that our boat usually does 6-7 knots. We sit still on our mooring and the knot meter reads 2 knots, as if we are actively cruising through the water.

Portsmouth is a wonderful little town. We love the downtown area, shops, etc. Plus, we have so many friends here that it is like coming home. Amazing what staying 6 weeks did for us last year!We took a mooring at the Portsmouth Yacht Club (PYC). It's convenient, but subject to the wakes created by everything from small run-abouts to the large ferries to the big tankers. It can rock your brains out, except for Wickie, who doesn't seem to be fazed by much of anything these days.

The club is actually in the even smaller town of New Castle. Quaint, quaint, quaint!

On Thursday night we met friends Gail and Eric and Marina and Dave for dinner at the clubhouse. They prepared a great meal for us and brought it to the clubhouse to eat in as we watched the sunset.

Portsmouth is on the Piscataqua River, a long river whose banks include a naval submarine yard, a commercial port that caters to the huge salt carriers, and further up river, oil storage systems. Maybe refineries, but we're not sure. As we were having dinner, one of the big oil tankers lumbered up the river. Keep in mind...Latitudes is 42 ft long, the mast is 65 feet high. Look at the comparison! This tanker was at least 400 ft long, probably more.

Friday we borrowed Gail's car and did errands, grocery shopping, picked up mail, etc while she DID MY LAUNDRY! Later that evening Marina and Dave picked us up for dinner out with friends of theirs, Janet and Mark. Today we did chores on the boat (rainy mooring, sunny afternoon). Tonight we had dinner at the clubhouse again, this time including friends Kim and Dick, who we met at the Badger Island Marina where we stayed last fall. They have moved their boat to PYC this year.

So, a great visit in Portsmouth, this time mostly about the friends here.

Whales!

We left Provincetown determined to see whales again. We did! One big humpback fed around our boat for almost an hour. He would cruise the surface with his mouth open, seining for krill. This could last for several minutes. Humpbacks are baleen whales -- note the baleen between his upper and lower jaws.

Then he'd toss that big tail and dive deep back into the massive school of small fishes we could see in the water. Next, he'd pop up, mouth wide open, gulping huge quantities of fish as he surfaced. That is the roof of his mouth that you are seeing.

There were a lot of whales out there; you could see several spouts at the same time. It was amazing!

After drifting over the Stellwagen Bank, we went to Rockport, MA for the night. Rockport is a small town with great harbor shopping - per Luke - artsy and quaint galore.and per the literature, it has "the most painted fishing shack in the world", called "Motif 1". Well!!! We got SO lucky --- the only place they could accommodate us was at the dock beside Motif 1! It was beautiful. Here are a couple of pictures of Latitudes docked at Motif 1. As Luke says - we are now part of the art scene, and as the harbor master says, people will complain about having a "plastic boat" spoiling their pictures!

The dockage had it's advantages, but the 10 ft tidal range wasn't one of them...

Apparently they rent a LOT of kayaks, too...

For more info on Rockport and Motif 1, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockport,_Massachusetts

We had great clam chowder for dinner, a nice evening, and then on to Isles of Shoals, MAINE!!! for the night. This is the collection of 5 islands that create "Isles of Shoals". The main island, Star Island, has a big old hotel, owned by the Unitarian Church, and used for retreats. Very nice. There is a great lighthouse greeting you as you pass the first island, White Island.

and gulls with babies...lots of them..

It may be hard to see, but this gull is giving us the ultimate insult --- approaching us with a stick in her mouth. Not sure what it means, but it definitely means that we are lower than dirt!

As you walk the island trails, you have to carry a stick to in case of gull aerial attach. honest. They strike at the highest object.

It's beautiful here, very Maine-ish. We love it.