End of Summer

Well its officially the end of summer in Maine.  Traditionally we are told that the season runs from

Memorial Day in June to Labour Day in September which is today.  Typically now is the time that the summer holidays are at an end and the kids are going back to school.  What does that mean for us - not a  whole lot.  The anchorages and towns should start quieting down and the weather will start to get a bit colder but thats about it.  Means we have to start thinking about heading south.

Rockland Harbour on Nic's Birthday

We had Nic's birthday on Saturday which started with an inevitable round of schooling - after the presents of course - and then finished with dinner in a local restaurant.  Thats the first birthday on board and it will be closely followed by Calleys.  Had our first school related dummy spit on the same day.  Scott fell out with Sam over the school work and Sam tried to work by himself for the day with dubious results.  Luckily there is no escape and we are back on track.

Pete and Claire arrived yesterday around midday.  We slipped the mooring in Rockland harbour and came in alongside a municipal jetty for a couple of hours.  This was for a number of reasons - firstly it makes the whole moving aboard process a lot easier for our guests - the suitcase/dinghy combination is awkward at the best of times and secondly it meant that we could knock off a few jobs like stocking up with supplies for the next weeks cruising and washing down the boat with fresh water.

We slowly motored up to the dock and made ourselves fast.  Nic and Sam are doing a fantastic job on deck handling the lines and fenders and we can now dock the boat without needing anyone on the jetty to take lines for us.  This may not sound like a big deal but it was one of my big concerns to start with given the size and weight of the boat. The system is that Sam jumps onto the quayside to secure the lines while Nic secures the other end on deck.  So far it has been working well although most of the jetties we have come into have been relatively open and easy to access.  May be a bit different when we come to a tight Marina situation.

Nic then took off to the supermarket in a taxi with Sam while Scott and Calley filled the fresh water tanks and cleaned the boat using the fresh water hose on the dockside. While we are cruising, fresh water is a scarce commodity and so having water to wash the boat is a real luxury.  We carry approx 1000 litres and use about 100 litres a day.  We do have a watermaker which can make about 125 litres and hour but its not good practice to run this in harbour and its nice to get the tanks completely full once in a while.  As it turned out it was raining heavily the whole morning so we could have had a fresh water wash even at the mooring!

At around early afternoon we had our visitors and safely onboard, crew returned and and all supplied securely stowed.  We cast off from the jetty and headed about 9 miles North to a small town called Camden.  This is reputed to be one of the nicest towns in Maine.  A little harbour set amongst wooded hills.  We have been looking forward to visiting for a while now.  There is a “windjammer festival ‘ going on this weekend as well so it will be busy.

We motored up to Camden and picked up a mooring at the outer harbour.  There is a US Navy Guided Missile Destroyer parked further out as part of the festival.  Everywhere there are schooners of different sizes sailing around and lots of yachts moored around us.  We decided to stay onboard for the night and are looking forward to a visit ashore tomorrow.  

Camden Harbour

Must mention that the finale of the festival involved a fireworks show which was set off from a barge moored not 200m from where we were.  It was a great show and the noise of the explosions echoing off the hills was terrific.  Great night.

Fireworks Show in Camden

So for the next two weeks we plan to cruise to a place called Mt Desert Island which is further east and north. It will be a great opportunity to spend time with Pete and Claire and explore Maine some more with them.