Penobscot Bay and the Fox Islands

Leaving Rockland Harbor, we passed one of Maine's many, many historic light houses. This one is built at the end of a mile long jetty that protects Rockland Harbor from northeast winds. The Jetty was begun in 1881 and took 18 years to complete, with 700,000 tons of granite, "most of which was brought from Vinalhaven by stone sloop".



Penobscot Bay has been our goal for Maine. This bay has been billed as the most picturesque and best sailing of all of Maine. We are beginning to believe it. The bay itself is only about 30 miles wide, with an island cluster in the middle. The islands are the Fox Islands, North Haven and Vinahaven. We are anchored in a beautiful little cove, Pulpit Harbor, in North Haven. The shore is lined by the fishermen's homes, families whose descendants have been here for hundreds of years.

At the far end of the harbor, a low bridge takes you to the end of the water in the little harbor. The bridge and following water is accessible only in high tide. The tides here have a 10 ft range, so 10 ft of water at high tide means mud flats or rocks at low tide. We have to be very careful where we anchor.

After exploring the cove, we left the dinghy at the public dinghy dock and went for a little walk. We kept walking. Inland by just a hundred yards showed us another view of Maine, the fields. There are no roadsides here, only road and field.

We stumbled onto a rural airstrip. How'd you like to take off from (or worse yet, land on) this one? The pilot scooted up to the roadside, made a sharp 180, rev'ed that baby up, and she was off the ground in nothing flat.

Anyway, we walked way too far, about 3+ miles, in one direction. We ended up in the town of North Haven. Had a well deserved ice cream :-) and called the grocery store about 2/3 of the way back to the boat for a lift. The owner zipped over, picked us up, let us shop, and then delivered us and our groceries to our dinghy. He actually offered to just take us back to the dinghy if we didn't need to shop - he was just being accommodating. They had the most beautiful flowers for sale, wish we could have bought some for the boat.

It's beautiful today - 75, sunny, and windy. Too windy. The gusts are up to 30 knots, too high for us to sail. So, we're sitting "on the hook" for the day, enjoying the weather, catching up on a few chores. Met some nice folks last night and will be inviting them over for snacks later.

Tomorrow we end up at Bucks Harbor, our moorage during our trip to Denver to see the new grandbabies :-)

We leave on Monday the 28th, back on Monday the 4th. Don't know that I'll get much done on the blog during that time.