Heather came to visit Maine – and escape the late August
heat of NC – so we did sightseeing, of course!
It all started as we brought her up to Rockland from the Portland
airport. We HAD to show her the biggest
lobster in Maine!
A biggie on the Maine bucket list
was real lobster at a real lobster pound.
Here is where the lobsters come in, next to the McLoon lobster pound.
And HERE are two folks definitely
enjoying their lobster rolls. I’d say
Luke is a little more enthusiastic about his!
The Marshall Light is always on
the tourist list, located just outside of Port Clyde. This is where Forest Gump ended his 2 year
run in the movie.
A walk out on the break water to the
Rockland Harbor lighthouse is always good.
The Penobscot Narrows Observatory
was on Heather’s list, along with Ft. Knox.
Here is the observatory from the ground up…
And here is the view from the top
down! Yes, there is a very fast
elevator! (about 450 ft in a minute)
Ft. Knox was interesting. Built on the Penobscot in the 1850's across from
Bucksport, the fort was to protect the good folk from potential raiders, like
the Spanish.
It never saw any action, and in
fact, for a 48 year period had only 1 man stationed there. It is an impressively large and elaborate fort! It has been nicely restored and is wonderful
to explore.
Heather left, taking our car back
south for us. That was our same day to
“turn around” and begin our journey south also, taking Latitudes back to the
Chesapeake. This isn’t a forced march,
we have plans to enjoy the trip back as much as possible. First was a stop in Long Island, ME, to catch
up with Connie and Ged. She made a
wonderful dinner and the next day they took us exploring the Harpswell peninsula of Casco Bay. This old bridge is an example of “cribstone”
construction. The the granite blocks are placed to leave large openings where tide and wind can go through the bridge.
This is the Bailey Island Cribstone Bridge, on the national register of historic places..
The Lands End Point is literally
at the end of one of the peninsulas on the Casco. Very beautiful.
There is also a nice statue there,
a tribute to all of the fishermen and women in ME. The model for the sculpture was a young man
from the same small town as Connie and Geb.
Of course, the day couldn’t be
complete without one last Maine lobster roll.
Next, to Biddleford Pools, a
beautiful stop for the night. We went
ashore, walked to the beach from the pools, and relaxed. This “resident” loon was fishing when we
returned to the boat. She has caught a
fish that is almost too large to contend with and it is weighing her down into
the water. She is beautiful.
We left at almost daybreak and
were treated to the sun rising in the morning haze as we neared the lighthouse.
Unlike many of the Maine
lighthouses that have red or white lights, this one’s signal is green.
A stop at Portsmouth was next,
mostly to see our friends that we met during our first cruise in Maine. We did
fill up with water and diesel and had a diver check our propeller. Latitudes seemed a bit sluggish and we wanted
to see if there was rope or something caught in the prop. The diver assured us that all is well below
the surface, but there is in fact evidence that a rope was caught at some time
and probably released itself when Luke put the boat into reverse.
Gail took me grocery shopping
while Eric helped Luke “supervise” the dive operation. We made dinner for the 4 of us that night at
the yacht clubhouse kitchen. It was
great to see them again.
The channel into Portsmouth has two
lighthouses –
New day, new anchorage. The Isles of Shoals is a mere 7.7 miles out
to sea from Portsmough and we love it.
The Isles are actually 9 very small islands. At one time, this British colony was
considered their most import colony in the States, due to the enormous amount
of dried cod that they shipped back to England. They were huge schools
(“shoals”) of cod. Today the largest
island, Star Island, is home to a hotel/convention center owned by a
Universalist and Unitarian group. We picked up a mooring between Star Island
and Smuttynose Island
Some of the residents from the
1700’s are buried here. You can see a
bit of the hotel also.
Beautiful stone homes were built.
This tiny church served the
community.
It seems even more tiny from the
inside!
Here are some of the grounds of
the hotel, looking at the anchorage.
Trails are on the island. This one passes an old Spanish cemetary,
where sailors on a Spanish ship, the Conception, died in a shipwreck during a
winter storm in 1813.
There are plenty of Black Backed
seagulls here, too. The last time we
tried this trail it was too close to nesting time and the birds were quite
agitated at our presence. One of them
repeatedly dive bombed Luke’s head as he held a stick high above it and made a
hasty retreat. This time the chicks are
old enough to be on their own and the parents are elsewhere.
A new addition to the island is
modern solar panels. This 150 KW array
supplies 60% of the islands needs in the summer, 100% in the winter.
We took the dinghy to Smuttynose,
where a couple of the old homes still stand.
These homes are now used to house “stewards” of the island on a 1 week
each basis. The two teenage girls who
were there now with their families helped us off off the dinghy and then to tie
it up to a clothesline style rope pully to take it back out into the
water. The water here was almost 70 – we
did NOT join the swimmers!
After Smuttynose, we took the dinghy further out to
Appledore island to see the gardens of Celia Thaxton. She lived on the island from childhood until
death. She loved her garden and in 1894
wrote An Island Garden, outlining her garden structure and life on the
island.
Back to Star for ice cream and
another walk for Luke. He found the art
shed reflected in the pool of water.
Rockport MA was next. It turned hot. Really hot. Suddenly instead of the 70's in Maine, we had a heat index of 106! This is the actual first page I got on my weather app....
It did give me an accurate one afterwards!
We DO have sightseeing pictures that I will put in later, but they are on Luke’s phone and I haven’t downloaded them. We did get these nice pictures of the two lighthouses, The first, along with the moon, is the Straightsmouth Island Light. Yes, we left early….
We DO have sightseeing pictures that I will put in later, but they are on Luke’s phone and I haven’t downloaded them. We did get these nice pictures of the two lighthouses, The first, along with the moon, is the Straightsmouth Island Light. Yes, we left early….
Rockport also has the distinction
of having the Twin Lighthouses.
Provincetown on Cape Cod is
always on our list. It’s been 3 years
since we were here, but we didn’t expect the growth! We were surprised to see cars on the beach in
front of the first lighthouse.
We were stunned to see the cars
and people on the beach in front of the second lighthouse!
The fishing boat dock, where we
land our dinghy, was dense with fishing boats.
Even the addition of extra dinghy docks didn’t help us – it was
difficult to find a place to put it.
Town itself was busy, but then,
it is almost Labor Day. It was nice to
see it again. We left early enough the next day to catch the lighthouse with only birds.
We had to time our departure from
Provincetown to go through the Cape Cod canal at the right tide. The current here peaks at almost 3 ½ knots and that
is a lot of try to sail against. But the
big barges can do it! We met this
absolutely huge barge coming towards us.
Yes, the picture is not good, and that’s because it’s taken through our
enclosure screening. Flies were
horrible. They came in droves and were
interested in our ankles and most other exposed body parts. We learned the hard way in the Chesapeake
about the importance of having screens and were ready to put them up.
Today we are in Onset, just at
the western end of the Cape Cod Canal.
Pizza, laundry, and internet filled today. Smokey always helps with laundry...
Tomorrow we plan to leave for Block Harbor,
weather permitting.
AND - 4 MONTHS LATER ----
It was crazy and we had little internet. When we got home, it was even crazier with a trip to CO to see the grandkids, guests, the trip to China, and then there was Christmas with all of the guests, parties, and fun. And then New Years... BUT to finish the story without pictures ----
We left Onset for a bumpy ride to Block Island. It was fun to be there again. From there, we headed down the coast to Atlantic City. Our initial goal was Cape May, but a long day and impending storms stopped us in Atlantic City. After a few stormy days there, we were faced with the decision of where to ride out Hurricane Florence. Atlantic City wasn't an option, as the anchorage is too open to the ocean. So, at the gracious invitation of two wonderful boating friends, we turned back north and spend one entire dense fog-ridden day going to Barnagat Bay NJ. We made it soooo far but by the time we were safely in the waters behind the barrier islands, the fog closed so tightly that we could not see our way, even with the help of our GPS and chart plotter. With info from our friends, we called the Coast Guard Auxiliary. They found us and guided us all the way to our destination (the guardsman is a good friend/neighbor our our buddies). Safe at last for almost a week!
Back into the Atlantic, we sailed uneventfully back down the coast with stops in Cape May, a scoot up the Delaware Bay, a couple of stops for bad weather in the Chesapeake, and finally after a long stormy day ended up in Reidsville, VA for the night. Boating friends Wendy and Warwick keep their boat there and had recommended a marina. Just the idea of another long day on the Chesapeake was enough to convince us to check into the option. It was a good option, less expensive than Deltaville, convenient to the Bay, and WE WERE ALREADY THERE! Out of the water we went, prepared the boat for the winter, had Heather pick us up with our car, and ended up back home by the end of September. ahhhhh..... so much for boating until next spring, when we'll put Latitudes back in the water and re-explore the Chesapeake Bay. Our boat excursions will be days or weeks, not months. It will be a nice change to have more time at home but with Latitudes available whenever we want to use her.
