casco bay

Autumn colors

/ one2travelfar / 2 Comments
All in all we are having a wonderful time cruising, with the cats, but last week I had a run in with a boat hook and fractured my cheek bone.  I was basically OK until I blew my nose and my cheek puffed out.  That was it for Tim, I was off to the Mid Coast Hospital ER, where I had my very first CT – I have the CD here for those quiet nights when we run out of NetFlix.   Friends and staff couldn’t have been nicer.  Cyndy picked me up from the ER and Ethan replaced the broken boat hook with one made of Ash, just like the Lousiville sluggers.
Tim was feeling a little sheepish because he thought people may have thought he was responsible for my disfigurment but when we stopped at a Marina in Maine, the first thing they suspected was that we had run aground and that I had been tossed around.  Mainers!
I want to live everywhere we have been.  We have been to offshore islands and beautiful coves.   We’ve seen beautiful sunrises and sunsets.  A few nights ago, Tim could hear seals breathing and diving next to the boat.  Last night was a bit of a disaster because for various reasons cat litter went flying.  Now the cockpit has never been so clean.

Where’ve ya been?

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I’ve been under the radar or at least without internet for the past week. We left Salem, MA 9/3 and sailed out through the Annisquam Canal to Massachusetts Bay.  We had a couple of short sailing days, to Plum Island and Harmon Harbor, NH, the home of the Seabrook nuclear plant, the narrowest bascule bridge with rip currents and power boats only.

 

From there we’ve enjoyed reunions with old friends.  We sailed to Isles of Shoals, which is in both NH and Maine and picked up a mooring for a night.  We met up with Malcolm and Carl, who were heading south after their sail in Maine.  We walked around Appledore and enjoyed the garden of Celia Thaxter, which has been recreated.  Star Island has a large facility for religous retreats and we had dinner there.  Isles of Shoals is about 9 miles out of Portsmouth, NH and there have been some grizzly events there over the years.  One is retold in Weight of Water.

 

Weather was forecasted to get rough so we only stayed one night and then headed back to last year’s lighthouse, Seguin Island, ME, 57 miles away.  It was wonderful to head to the lighthouse from the water with that marking our destination.  We saw whales and dolphins along the way.  We could see the island from about 16 miles out.  We spent a rocky night in the cove and walked the island.  Tim thought it looked smaller than last year, kind of like seeing the bathrooms in your old elementary school.  But it was great to be back there.  We needed to provision and headed into Casco Bay to Sebasco Harbor.  We picked up a mooring and took advantage of all the shore amenities, laundry, shower, internet, restaurants.  Shirley tried to jump ship when we were at the dock,  She jumped onto the dock but quickly returned to the boat.  We even went for a bicycle ride and were greeted by an old friend, Ethan, who knew it could only be us on our goofy fold up bikes.  We returned to Seguin and met the Friends of Seguin there because it was lighthouse day in Maine and then they were closing up the island.  We reconnected with Cyndy, Connie, Dave and Linda and Jim. 

 

We toured the lighthouse and marvelled at the wonder of the fresnel lens.  We had a delicious lobster dinner and each ate 2 lobsters!   It was foggy so we got to hear the foghorn and see the umbrella effect of the light.  We hiked the trails and picked up the trail markers.  There was even a bald eagle on the rocks.  Our experience was complete.  The next day we put away furniture and boarded up the house.

 

Yesterday we had a great sail to Squirrel Island.  We went ashore and ran and hiked around the island.  We are taking advantage of good internet connection this am while we charge our batteries with the generator and then we are sailing off to Damariscove Island.  

 

Photos to follow