East Coast Trip Summer 2022

                                          8/28/22 -- Eastport back to Southwest Harbor               As described in yesterday's blog, we delayed our departure till almost noon so that we would have a favorable tide. That gave us time to go to the little Episcopal Church for morning prayer (they share a priest, and she was at the church in Machias, so a lay person led the service, and we didn't have communion). A couple dozen people attended -- with a few others besides us being "from away" -- and the service was nice. Afterwards we walked to the IGA to get some groceries and by the time we got back to the dock it was time to get going.                 We had a beautiful sunny day on the water with a light wind out of the SW. We had a 4-mph current pushing us under the Quoddy Narrows bridge, and 1-2 mph running our direction almost all the way back to Mount Desert Island. We pulled into the fuel dock at Dysart's Marina (our new favorite) just before five. As we ap

                          8/27/22 -- Southwest Harbor to Eastport, Maine (the end of the line!)             Today was a big day, as we reached our final destination, Eastport, Maine, the farthest you can go up the East Coast without entering Canada. We'll start with a couple pictures of the West Quoddy Head Light, which not only marks the entrance into Quoddy Narrows from the Bay of Fundy, but also is the easternmost point of land in the United States. The first photo shows West Quoddy Head in the left foreground, Campobello Island in the distance, separated by Quoddy Narrows. Campobello Island is in Canada (and  history buffs will recall that  Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt had a summer home here) and we actually circumnavigated Campobello Island to get to Eastport because I was concerned that the currents coming out of Quoddy Narrows would be too ferocious.               And that was one of the main themes today -- tidal currents. This last stretch of the Maine coast is at the m

                                                  8/26/22 -- Weather Day in Southwest Harbor               We woke up to heavy fog and it lasted all day, along with intermittent rain. But everyone here at the marina was cheerful. We heard something like "It's just another day in Maine" many times. We've passed the day catching up on chores -- including the blog!                 Here is a view of our marina from our lunch spot today. The point barely visible on the horizon that comes from the left is about half a mile from the restaurant. So, visibility is such that we could have boated today, but it is supposed to clear up tomorrow and we figure it would be better to wait.                 We made dinner reservations at the Little Fern restaurant again this evening, so our grey day to be capped with a lovely meal in a nice warm room. Here is the view from the back deck of the Claremont Hotel.               I told Janet multiple times today that I couldn't think of

                                                    8/25/22 -- Bar Harbor and Somes Sound                We had agreed with Ted and Julie the night before that we'd take the 9:10 bus into Bar Harbor in the morning and see the town, then come back to the boat for a little afternoon cruise up Somes Sound. We set the alarm so we wouldn't be late and ended up being half an hour early to the bus stop in the little crossroads village half a mile from the marina. The half-hour bus ride featured some interesting stops (campgrounds and the Mount Desert High School) and lovely scenery. We walked around town and checked out many of the numerous tourist shops but didn't buy much. Ted and I walked down to the town dock to talk with the harbor master to learn how we might manage our planned drop-off the next day (i.e., our dropping Ted and Julie in town in the late morning so they could get a cab ride to the Bangor airport). Bar Harbor has lovely views but very little public dockage, so

                                                                   8/23/22 -- Camden to Castine               We had some light fog when we woke up, so we figured we'd spend the morning exploring Camden and then head for Castine after lunch. After some morning chores, Janet and I took the Lyman-Morse launch into town to meet Ted and Julie. Ted and I walked up to the town library (a really nice facility) to read newspapers while the girls shopped. I was excited to find an old copy of the Weekend WSJ with uncompleted puzzles, so I worked on those while Ted did the actual reading. We met the girls for lunch at the Sea Dog Brewing Company.                 Here is a view of Camden Harbor from the town library. You can just make out Craunological II at her floating dock in the left center (between the lamppost and the bush).                After lunch we took the Lyman-Morse launch back to the boat along with Ted and Julie and their luggage and were underway for Castine just before two a

                                   8/24/22 -- Camden to Stonington to Southwest Harbor               We woke to fog yet again, but it wasn't very heavy, so we proceeded as planned to run to Stonington for lunch and then to Southwest Harbor for dinner and a marina for the night. But first we had a lovely breakfast at the Castine Inn, so we ended up with three lovely meals in three lovely -- but very different -- towns. And the cruising in between meals was glorious, so this was really a red-letter day (even though it was overcast all day). John forgot to mention that all this eating out has led to our pants being a bit tight...               We started our day with breakfast at the Castine Inn, which features a nice mural of the town in the dining room:                 After breakfast Ted and I went to the Wilson Museum, which is a quirky but fascinating sort of micro-museum founded by John Howard Wilson. Remarkably enough, there is no Wikipedia page on the guy (although there is on

                                                    8/22/22 -- Rockland to Camden             We woke to find Rockland's harbor heavily fogged in. I walked into town to a local pastry shop and a marine supply store. There was no fog ashore. We walked to Eclipse of the Pearl for an early lunch, and by the time we were done the fog had lifted. We got underway at 12:45 for the marina we had booked in Camden, where our friends Ted and Julie were to meet us. The original plan was that we would both be in Camden in time for lunch, but the airlines messed with their flights, and they were now due in around 7pm, so the fog didn't mess up our plans. It was only a ten-mile run to Camden and we took it slow to enjoy the views.                This photo was taken about 1.5 miles from Camden Harbor, with the Curtis  Island Lighthouse in the foreground, Camden Harbor in the background to the left, and Mounts Battie (900+') and Megunticook (1385') in the distance. Here is an example

                                                         8/21/22 -- MacMahan Island to Rockland             We spent the last week at our regular rental cottage on MacMahan with family and friends, which usually involved taking day trips on Craunological II. When we weren't using her, she hung on a mooring. Janet became quite adept at picking up the mooring line from the bow with a boat hook and in taking the dinghy back and forth to the island dock. Zach took this nice picture of Craunological II on her mooring near sunset.  And Ashley took this one of her moored in the harbor at Monhegan Island, which was one of our day trips. Moorings are very popular in Maine because they are inexpensive but effective in a land of ten-foot tides.                But back to our travels... On Sunday the 21st, after cleaning the cottage and worshipping at the little Episcopal chapel on the island, we dropped Damon and all his stuff off at the mainland dock at 11:25am (Ashley and the boys had left

                                                         8/14/22 -- Portland to MacMahan Island               Today was a big day. We've been renting the same cottage on MacMahan Island since 2010, and for the first three years we took dad's old boat up from Beverly, MA. After that we would rent a small center console run-about. (You really need to have a boat on MacMahan if you want to go anywhere, and there is lots of well-protected water to explore.) Now we got to bring Craunological II up to these glorious waters. We've been flying the MacMahan Yacht Club burgee on the bow ever since we left Naples and now -- 49 days and roughly 2,360 miles later (counting only boating time) -- we're here!                We pulled out of DiMillo's marina at nine for another gorgeous day on the water. Sunny, temp in the low 70s, light breeze out of the NE with a barely discernable chop on top of gentle swells. Here are pictures of the Portland waterfront as left. The first one sh