Maine Musings

Click here to see our progress map.  Our current location is at the top of the list.  The pink stick pin indicates that we have turned around and are now heading south.

We left Maine this morning and made our way to Gloucester, MA.  We are going to move fairly fast to try to make up our 5 days lost in Port Clyde due to Hurricane Danielle and our 9 days in Portland because of Hurricane Earl.  While we enjoyed both places, we just didn’t plan to spend so much time there!

We had such a blast in Maine.  We both had lost some weight on the way up to Maine because the weather was just so darn hot neither of us was very interested in eating.  However, after reaching Maine, that changed.  We feel like we ate our way through Maine!!  Lobsters, lobster rolls, lobster mac and cheese, lobster ravioli, lobster chowda…you get the idea.  It was all great.

We forgot to blog about the time in Camden when we went to get the loaner car from the marina and it was already in use.  One of the dock staff, George, said we could just use his truck.  When we were all strapped in he said ‘Oh yeah, I’ve been having this problem where the car just shuts down…but don’t worry, just start it up again and it will be fine’!  OK.  Then Rick asked about the car keys because they were in the truck when we went to get it.  He said ‘This is Maine, dude.  No one is going to steal this car because up here we shoot ‘em’ !!  Gotta love it.

We saw lots of seals, well, mostly just their heads sticking out of the water.  We only saw one loon and no puffins.  Lynnie saw the back of a whale, the blow hole, but it was only for like 3 seconds.  We are hoping to see some along the Massachusetts coast line on the way home.  We didn’t see any moose either but I guess you wouldn’t expect them in the harbors.

Another interesting thing that we noticed in Maine has to do with our navigation software.  We plot a course every day from where we are currently to where we want to go.  Then we follow the course on the PC screen.  The software gives you the total length of your course.  In Maine, however, the ‘real’ length of the course always was longer then what the software told us it would be.  We finally figured out that this was due to the …LPF… or Lobster Pot Factor!!  Having to zig-zag through all those pots added time and distance to our trip!  They are everywhere !!

Another first was in the tiny harbor of Belfast on a mooring.  About 6:00PM Lynnie was taking a shower and Rick was enjoying a glass of wine on the back deck … quiet and lovely as the sun set.  All of a sudden he heard a nearby voice say “He’s drinking a glass of wine.”  Rick turned around and all he saw was a big steel wall, which turned out to be the starboard side of a 200’ cruise ship backing down into the harbor to tie up at the dock.  It was about 15’ from Rickshaw.  Rick looked up and there were several people on their “balconies” looking down at him.  So, he raised his glass in a toast and they all laughed as he asked them where in the heck had they come from.

We met several great new friends along the way and just had a ball.  We hope to see them all again on the cruise south.  As far as the weather, we were told many times that the weather this year is the best they have had in 10 years.  Lucky us.

Tomorrow it is on to Plymouth, MA then on to RI where we will see Aunt Betty and other relatives again as well as Lynnie’s older brother Tom and his wife Carolyn who are  up visiting for a few days from South Carolina. 

Hurricanes!!

Click here to see our progress map.  Our current location is at the top of the list.  The pink stick pin indicates that we have turned around and are now heading south.

Yes, we said plural hurricanes.  We left NC to get away from those darn things.  Anyway, we were in Port Clyde for 5 days waiting for the seas to settle after Danielle and now we are waiting to get Rickshaw hauled out because of Earl.  We were reluctant to go south of Portland as it was apparent that Earl was heading north and there aren’t as many places to get out of the way of those big winds and high seas as there are in Maine. 

Today is Sept 2 and we arrived in Portland on Aug 27.  We are having Rickshaw hauled out of the water today (the storm should be here tomorrow evening) but we won’t be able to get Rickshaw back into the water until Tuesday because Monday is Labor Day.  Depending on what the next tropical storms do, our hope is that we can start heading south again right away and get to RI by next weekend.

We have been watching the weather channel and the National Weather Service websites continuously and it looks like NC is going to get wacked by Earl.  We hope that our friends at the coast fare well.  We will keep all toes and fingers crossed.

We have had fun walking around Old Portland.  We even went to the movies two days in a row! 

   

                 

             Some shots of Old Portland, many of these buildings were built in the 1800’s

                   We got a good laugh seeing these puffer fish in the storefront of an optician

As we were walking around looking for a place to have dinner we came upon a street demonstration in a small park.  We have learned that Mainers are very individualistic and this rally again proved the point.  If the young lady pictured looks like she may be topless, that’s because she was.  She was a counter-demonstrator holding a sign that read “These guys are a..holes.”  We decided against posting some of her frontal poses for fear of offending someone.  As we watched the goings on, a police car cruised by, paid only mild attention, then continued on.  The state motto: “Life as it should be” seems to apply here.

                                                  

                                                 Demonstrators and counter-demonstrators 

              

               We had a great Indian dinner at this restaurant which was well decorated

Since we knew we would be here for a while, we rented a car for the week and took a trip down to Newburyport, MA, an old seaport and ship building town that we heard was a ‘must see’.  On the way back we stopped by Ogunquit and Kennebunkport, beautiful small towns along the Maine coast.

              

The towns may all be starting to look the same but they are cool none-the-less!

Rick particularly liked this 200+ year old warehouse store because of the floorboards … 18” to 20” wide, with original cut head nails which one won’t find anymore

Ogunquit was a very small artist colony when Lynnie went there as a teenager.  It sure has grown into a  popular vacation spot

President Bush, Senior’s compound and President Bush, Junior’s runabout in Kennebunkport

Just some pics of the goings on at the marina.  This is an amphibious craft called the Downeast Duck which carries tourists around the Portland harbor.  One of these things got run  over by a large tanker in Philadelphia

        

   This seaplane took off from our docks                 The start of the boat haul outs                          

It is now 3:00 on Thursday, Sept 2, and we are awaiting a call from the ship yard to tell us when they will haul out Rickshaw.  They told us it could be as late as 7:00 tonight!  Storm should hit tomorrow late and the whole thing will be over by Saturday.  We’ll update the blog when we can.

Port Clyde, ME

Click here to see our progress map.  Our current location is at the top of the list.

We have been in Port Clyde Harbor on a mooring ball since Sunday, 8/22, (today is Wednesday).  We will be here until at least Friday when we hope this storm will pass.  We had hoped to leave yesterday but the storm has brought lots of rain, high winds and high seas.  We can’t complain because we have had such great weather so far.  So, we are both catching up on miscellaneous ‘stuff’.

Port Clyde’s claim to fame (I think) is that it’s where one gets the ferry boat over to Monhegan Island, Maine’s artist’s island, also called Maine’s Brigadoon.  Rick and I spent a couple of nights on Monhegan 13 years ago.  There is no electricity on the island so each room had a kerosene lamp!!  But it is the home to lots of artists and it has some very cool hikes and fairy houses.

 

                  On the way to Port Clyde                                 Best shot we’ve gotten of a seal                  

Aside from the Port Clyde General Store and Restaurant, which is owned by one of LL Bean’s granddaughters, Linda Bean, there are just 2 or 3 other gift shops.  Mostly, it is home to many lobstermen and women.  But it is picturesque, just the same.

 

                       View of the town and the General Store and Restaurant

       The restaurant is very good!             The small Monhegan Ferry

                           

                                 The ice cream float menu                  Love the restaurant entry

       Cool lobster holding tank!

 

  This is a privately owned Vietnam era ‘Sea Truk’.  It is an amphibious vehicle which is used to take heavy equipment or materials to the islands.  We heard that the guy charges $1,000 a trip!  Wonder where he gets replacement parts.

 

                          Dingy Dock                                                          LT enjoying the sunshine

            

                Inside Port Clyde General Store              Waiting for the launch driver, Ted

We walked around as much as we could and saw that there is a cove that goes behind the little town.  This is, apparently, where many of the lobstermen live and keep their equipment and boats.

While Rick was taking the pictures below he had an opportunity to talk to one of the lobstermen who was also waiting out the weather.  He’s the one who owns the plain yellow floats, and was about to open a can of yellow paint to paint them all.  He was a rather senior fellow, which is reflected in the simplicity of the color on his lobster floats … almost all others have multiple colors.  Anyway Rick had heard recently that the government has mandated ALL lobster traps change their rope (lines) to be of a certain kind, so he asked this lobsterman.  The gentleman said ‘yes’ that was true, but it was all ‘BS’ mandated by the federal government to have all their trap warps (lines) made of material that sinks rather than floats.  The reason was that floating lines present a danger to whales … which of course the lobsterman disputed.  Anyway, he was in the process of doing this, and could sell his old line back to the government for $1.40/pound, and purchase new sinking line for $1.80.  Not sure if anyone cares about such trivia, but Rick finds it interesting.

               

We learned that the lobster boats all have cages around their props so that they don’t get the lobster lines tangled in them.  Good idea!

So, we’ll hang here until the weather breaks then make our way to Portland which will probably be our last stop in Maine.  Then on to New Hampshire.  We are also keeping an eye on the Hurricanes.  Even if they don’t come this way they will most likely have an impact on the seas  and since we will be in the Atlantic until we cross the Cape Cod Canal, they could impact when we can get underway. 

Carver Cove, Vinalhaven Island, and Camden, ME

Click here to see our progress map.  Our current location is at the top of the list.

We had such fun in Mt. Desert Island, NE Harbor, Somes Sound and SW Harbor.   These were our ultimate Maine destinations but it is time to turn west and start our trek back home.  We are ready (we think!)  but, gheeze, we are going to be so sad to leave this beautiful state.

We wanted to stop in a cove which we visited with our buddy boat friends, Vicki and Norm, two years ago, Carver Cove on the north shore of Vinalhaven Island.  It was as we remembered it, a large beautiful anchorage. 

On the way we passed by the town of Stonington.  Stonington was a town that we thought we might anchor in but after reading the info on it we decided to pass.  The lobstermen have a tough time in Maine these days because the town docks are decreasing the dock space for them in order to provide room for the more lucrative pleasure boats.  I guess I don’t blame the lobstermen being angry about this but Stonington is a working harbor and wants to stay that way.  So, according to the books ‘Stonington’s lobsterboats are the loudest on the coast and the men at their helms seem to take perverse pleasure in buzzing nearby yachts at predawn hours or cutting across their bows’.  No thank you, been there done that, not going to do it again!!  It was, however, very picturesque.  The reason it’s called Stonington is that there was/is a very large granite quarry nearby which somehow turns out huge blocks of granite for various purposes, including dock pilings.  We continued west through the Fox Islands Thoroughfare to Vinalhaven Island where Carver Cove is located.

A beautiful Windjammer

 

 Stonington

The last time we were here these rocks scared me (LT) but our navigation software is very good about pointing them out.  Phew 

Sometimes it looks like the rock was ‘poured’.  Just amazing how mother nature works

Carver Cove is a big, wide harbor with a muddy bottom so it was easy to anchor.  We were sitting on the back deck when a guy in a small sailboat came by towing a small boy on a surf board.  He asked if we had a spare $20 and if we would like to buy his boy who was a pain.  We all laughed and it was obvious he and his son were just having fun.  By the end of the evening there were about 9 other boats in the harbor and it probably could have held 5 times that.

There were a handful of homes surrounding the cove, small and large

           Just another beautiful sunset!                                       A dory storing fishnets   

We stayed there for 2 nights and then left for the town of Camden.  Again, along the way we passed by the small town of North Haven on the island of North Haven, where we stopped for dinner two years ago.  It was another beautiful little Maine village.

          

 

                                                                Scenes of North Haven

But, our most favorite town so far is Camden.  Maine has so many wonderful towns but for us, this is the best.  It is full of flowers, lots of small shops and restaurants, rolling hills, mountain backdrops and friendly people.  The town park was amazing with tailored greens and stone art works.   We had such fun wandering around the town and visiting the shops.  Our last stop was at the bakery for a couple of fat pills before getting the launch back to Rickshaw.

              

 Camden has some amazing homes.  This last one has a brass lobster door knocker.

Views of Camden Harbor and the park

                   

                                                                    Downtown Camden

                 

                        Pedestrian friendly town!                                    Harbor Dogs

You might be surprised to learn that we have had enough lobster (for now that is).  We ate at a small Thai restaurant and it was fabulous.  The owner/cook, named “Sue” was from Bangkok, and goes home every winter.  She cooks to order for her half-dozen tables and was a delight to visit with. 

The harbor was open and a bit rolly (you can see this is a theme in the Maine harbors) and so we were ready to hit the road on Sunday morning, 8/22, headed for the Port Clyde Harbor.