So, we’ve been in Maine a couple weeks now and are still amazed by the beauty all around us. Rocky islands, wooded hills and beautiful boats are too stunning to capture in words, so I’ll let Nancy show you a few of her photos.

We were in Camden for the annual Schooner Festival which attracts all of the charter schooners from the Midcoast for 2 days of boat tours, sails, songs and general salty goings-on. Nancy won a silent auction for dinner aboard the schooner LADONA. The food was fantastic, prepared by a trained chef who comes up from NYC to relax and prepare for the fall restaurant crush. Coincidentally, the first people we met aboard the boat were from Des Moines. One of them is Cheryl who Nancy worked with back in 1993 during the flood! Her friend Max is a regular at Zanzibars who knows my sister Julie. Good food, good wine and fun conversations were had by all the participants.

We spent a few easy days sailing with our old (and I mean old) friend Woody and his daughter Audrey. We enjoyed some good food in Camden and sailed to a couple of secluded anchorages and relaxed. Audrey and I had a pie eating contest, which she won (how does she stay so thin? Ah youth). After they left for Boston and Denver, Nancy and I headed out to recharge.

We had some sweet sailing over to Deer Isle and then down the famed Eggemoggin Reach to Brooklin, which is the home of Woodenboat magazine and its affiliated school. I hesitate to mention that we had to sail under the Deer Isle bridge. The chart says it is 85′ high at the middle. It is. We are 72′ tall. I know we’ll clear, but my heart truly stopped as we sailed under it at 7kts, passing a beautiful wooden cutter as we went.

We were making 9kts down the reach under main and jib flying past other boats. All the while dodging lobster pot buoys. Probably the most fun sailing we’ve had in a while. Today we are anchored off the shore from Woodenboat HQ and it is blowing a steady 25 with gusts above 30! We’re staying put on board as it is too rough to launch the dinghy. So it is project day. I rebuilt the T&P valve on the water heater so it won’t blow water when we run the heater. Oh yes, it is getting chilly in the mornings now, especially with this northwest wind howling. I installed a spiffy new control panel for the watermaker. It tidies things up in the “garage”. Nancy has been immersed in her painting for the last few days. It is a good sign that she is starting to relax again! Right now, though, she is going through our finances to find how we’ll pay for a new Code 0 sail, since we blew out the old rag. The new main, jib and staysail have been working perfectly, the boat trims easily and steers herself with the new shapes.

It looks as though we’ll be right here for another day or so, then over to Cranberry, and Mt. Desert Isles. We’ll probably head back south around the 24th or 25th (or something like that). Check out the Book Nook for the latest reviews. Don’t forget to subscribe at the bottom of the home page.