We left Maine on Wednesday after eight wonderful weeks. Arriving in Casco Bay in early July, we sailed as far west as Portland and as far east as Mount Desert Island, the home of Acadia National Park.  The other evening over dinner we each shared our highlights from the summer and wound up identifying  a long list of super fun spots.  Here are a few of our favorites:

Great Chebeague Island — we were able to spend some quality time with our friends Sally and Adam (and Bay and Tom), enrolling Seth in a week of sailing and soccer camp and giving him  some much needed off-boat kiddo time.  Thank you for welcoming us to your summer of fun!

Portland is a wonderful small city to visit.  Seth and I spent a week on our own there as Guillemette had family commitments in Europe. After exploring the city for a few days by foot  Seth got in a few days of Opti racing with the Sail Maine summer program.  We also had fun biking the lighthouse trails and puzzle solving in an Escape Room!

In exploring Casco Bay, we revisited our favorite anchorages from our 2021 trip to Maine including The Basin and Snow Island.  With the warmest water in Maine, Snow Island became our foil-board practice area, no wet suit required!  We also enjoyed exploring the islands around West Harpswell. 

We visited many interesting small towns.  Castine, the home of the Maine Maritime academy and the very cool Wilson Museum, was a highlight. We also enjoyed our time in Stonington, where we had our Volvo Penta serviced by the kind team at Billings Marine.  Stonington is the home to one of the largest lobster fleets in Maine and has a welcoming small-town vibe. 

Isle au Haut gave us miles of deserted hiking trails with fresh blueberries and huckleberries as well as the good fortune to be able to host our friends Ashley and Merf for dinner as they were passing through the area on Santana, their Cabo 30. I first met Ashley 18 years ago when she helped me to deliver our J/105 Jam Session up the California coast to her new home in San Francisco.  She taught me so much about boat ownership over the years and later became our family’s Safety at Sea course instructor. 

Deserted islands, many with conservation easements, are a hallmark of coastal Maine.  We had plenty of opportunities to pull our kayaks or dinghy up on the beach in order to explore tide pools and inland forests. We really enjoyed our explorations of Eagle Island and Buckle Island (with its famous Green Door). 

Mount Desert Island gave us a few days in Acadia National Park biking the famous carriage roads and hiking the trails. The carriage roads were built in the early 20th century by John D Rockefeller who foresaw the expansion of automobile access in the area. He wanted to provide protected spaces for carriages and he later donated the roads to the park.  They are now enjoyed by horseback riders, biker and hikers.  We set off on our rented bikes on the 12.5 mile “Around the Mountain” carriage road only to learn that it climbs 1100 feet over one of the park’s many mountains!  In hindsight, we thought it should have been called the “Over the Mountain” road!

While on MDI we caught up with our friend Steve, another former San Francisco sailor who is now a full time Northeast Harbor resident. Steve was kind enough to find us a ride in the IOD fleet and we joined Courtenay and Charlotta for two fun days of racing on Eagle.  Sailing a bit shorthanded, Court both drove upwind and worked the spinnaker pole on the bow so he designated Seth as our downwind driver.  We hope to host some IOD sailors on Saltair for a leg or two or our Pacific crossing next year! 

MDI turned out to be one of the more social spots of our summer.  In addition to our new friends in the IOD fleet, we also we able to spend some time with other friends as well.  Bob, a friend from business school, arrived on his own (land-based) cross country adventure and we enjoyed a meal together catching up on 25 years of life.  And just when we thought we were done with MDI, our cruising friends from the Caribbean Jay and Dale from SV Incognito arrived!  And then the delay that Incognito introduced led to a few more days of kiddo hiking and socializing with the family crews of SVs Kepler and Tumbleweed!   Lots of fun memories with people that we hope to cross paths with again soon!

We arrived back in Massachusetts last Thursday after a 155nm overnight sail from Swan’s Island, Maine to Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod.  This was our first family-only overnight passage and it worked out well, other than some seasickness in the early part of the trip. We took advantage of a frontal passage that shifted the predominant southerly wind to a northerly but given the forecasted short duration of the northerly we left just as the front was passing. As a result we found ourselves sailing south against 1-2m waves kicked up from the old southerly breeze, making for uncomfortable sailing conditions. The sea settled down after a few hours and the rest of the trip was uneventful. We were able to sail wing-on-wing with our poled out genoa most of the way and only resorted to motoring for a few hours during an extended lull.  

We have so many fun memories of the summer.  I'll be sharing our favorite photos over a few separate blog posts.

Holbrook Island exploration.

What exactly is a Beaver Flowage Trail?

We enjoyed watching the Olympics.  Here's a shot of the sailing in our TV lounge...

A small fraction of Stonington's lobster fleet.

The smallest post office in America?

Berries galore!

Lobster traps are everywhere!  Both in the water and on land!

The solitude and scenery of Isle au Haut was remarkable.  In hiking to and around the Long Pond Trail we walked over 9 miles and encountered only two other hikers.  

After a short break in June and July, school resumed in early August, though punctuated by many "in service days" for family exploring.

Can there be too many beautiful sunset pictures?

Saltair's inflatable kayaks made for easy exploration of areas with 10 foot tidal ranges!

Beautiful colors in a tide pool!

The famous (among cruisers) Green Door of Buckle Island.