Belfast, Maine. Who Knew?! 26-28 July 2015

What a nice town!

The new waterfront trail. "Walk through a working shipyard."

While in NE Harbor we met a family from Michigan that keeps their boat in Belfast and recommended we add it to our agenda. So glad we did.

Belfast is rebuilding itself as a boater's destination and it is working. The biggest operation on the water is the Front Street Shipyard with its new 4400 ton travel lift!!! They can pull anything out of the water. Great transient facility with Captains' Lounge, wifi, new clean showers, and laundry ($3.25/load). Woohoo. Everything we need and want. Plus tons of boat porn for Mark.

The new 4400 TON travel lift!

The old RR bridge is now a trail to the north side of the river.

Daruma at a float. Front Street Shipyard.

Loving this Conex house on the river.

Belfast has tons of restaurants, bars, shops, galleries, movie theater, grocery.
We especially liked Rollie's Pub. Original bar, cabinets, and ice box.

Rollie's ice box.

Three Tides Restaurant was closed for a private party (a tween outdoor movie sleepover) but we loved the red lantern decor. Reminded us of Blue Heaven in Key West with the outdoor area.

Three Tides dink dock.

We'll be back.

Castine - Under the Elms and By the Sea 23-26 July 2015

Castine - full of history and home to the Maine Maritime Academy and elm trees.

Eaton's Boatyard

One of the historic, and non-diseased, elm trees.

Castine Variety. Yummy food prepared by Snow Logan from Hawaii. 

While we were in town the Plein Air Festival painters were everywhere. It was interesting to chat with them and watch them interpret the sights. We stayed an extra day so we could attend the showing. One artist included our boat (!) but there was no space (nor money) for the painting.

More biking, hanging at the library and soaking up the wifi, touring the historic sites, picking blueberries, kayaking, eating, drinking, yada, yada, yada.

Small market with hydroponic garden.

Blueberries are in season!

Yum!

reversing falls

What a treat to see fellow HSA members Trish and Craig from s/v Tortola Sunset. What are you doing up here? We joined them and their friends Dave and Cindy for sundowners aboard s/v Tom Tom.

Maine! Finally! 15-22 July 2015

Hmmmm... it's been a month since we sailed overnight from Gloucester, MA to Mt. Desert Island, ME. We really need to be better bloggers.

Highlights:
It was a great sail downeast. (heading down wind in an easterly direction to Maine.) 12-17kts of wind with gusts to 22. Averaging 8kts sog. Beautiful day... until we hit the wall of FOG at 1830. Two reefs in. Nav lights and RADAR on. Motorsailing on port eng.

All was well until around midnight when our speed dropped to 2kts. Something caught the prop. No lobster pot hitting the hull put there was definitely something keeping the prop from spinnng. Continued motorsaing through the night on the stbd eng.

THICK FOG when we entered Northeast Harbor at 0900 and LOBSTER POTS EVERYWHERE.

Thank goodness for RADAR.

After a nap, Mark donned his 1979 wetsuit (that took 20 mins) and jumped in the 56* water to pull a piece of polypro line off the prop (that took about a minute.) So glad we didn't hire a diver and so glad it was such an easy fix. Yea Mark!

The evil line.

NE Harbor. Lovely setup for cruisers: wifi, laundry, showers, lounge, visitors' center.  All new and clean.

Mooring to a float is fun if you have a friend on the other side. You now have a deck to relax on.

Hiking up to the gardens. Boats are usually on mooring balls or floats. We did both.

Lunch and Popovers with a view at the Asticou.

Thuja Gardens

Free movies on Thursday nights. Soul Surfer.

We had a fantastic time in NE Harbor, Bar Harbor, SW Harbor, Acadia Natl Park. Biking, hiking, garden tour, eating, shopping, relaxing, watching free movies in the park and checking out the local brewery.

LLBean helps fund a free bus system that goes everywhere on the island and each bus has 6 bike racks. It was so easy to get around.

While doing laundry we met the Frikker family from Michigan. They suggested we add Belfast to our port list.

Best. BBQ. Ever. at the brewery. 

Biking the Carriage Trails on MDI.

Jordan Pond and the Bubbles. We were last here in the early 90s.

Friends from Maryland were also on MDI for a week. We joined the Breeses for boating, feasting, playing cards and playing Buoy Ball - until the ball landed on the roof - game over.

Many thanks for taking us boating. We don't usually go that fast!

Andrew and The Claw!

Lobstah lunch at Beals in SW Harbor.

When the fog lifted we moved on through the Casco Passage to Brooklin, the Eggemoggin Reach and Buck's Harbor.

Lobster pots EVERYWHERE! Some even have two floats chained together.

Eggemoggin Reach with the wind on our nose - of course.

Relaxing on the porch of the Buck's Harbor YC. Ahhhhh...

Buck's Harbor has one small store/restaurant. Quaint.
Now on to Castine.