Location: New Castle,
New Hampshire (Wentworth by the Sea)
We are docked where we started this summer, at Wentworth by
the Sea in New Hampshire. Dave has been
in Aberdeen, Scotland for the last few days, so the cats and I have been living
it up. Of course, we have been doing our
daily training and safety drills as you can see in these pictures. Everybody gets to take a turn at being
captain for the day, and safety officer is a key position.
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| Captain Puddy at the helm |
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| Safety Officer Doofus |
The move down from Maine went well. We left Maple Juice Cove just as a world
cruiser was pulling in to anchor. The
crew and their boat, Belvedere, have traveled through the Northwest Passage and
have published several books about their journeys. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to talk
to them as they were anchoring up while we were cruising out of the cove,
headed for Portland. So you’re wondering…
if we didn’t actually talk to them, how do we know who they were?… for any boat
registered with the United States Coast
Guard (USCG), you can search by boat name and learn all kinds of things such as
the year the boat was built, who built it, the length, the owner, etc. Because it is so easy, when we see an
interesting boat, we get on the website and see what we can learn.
We traveled west along the coast, south of Boothbay Harbor
and then north up the Sheepscot River to Robin Hood Cove. This is one of the places we went to with
Brian and Kathy in their boat when we were in Boothbay mid-August. The cove is quiet and very picturesque. The restaurant was closed so we made
jambalaya and had supper on the boat.
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| Lighthouse, Maine Coast |
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| Passage to Robin Hood Cove |
Wednesday, we cruised to Portland. The seas were so calm after all of the wind. We landed in Portland about lunch time and
picked up a mooring at Portland Yacht Services, on the eastern edge of the
harbor. It is within walking distance of
Old Portland, so we walked into town for a bowl of chowder and a beer, wandered
around the waterfront in the rain and then headed back to the boat. Late Wednesday afternoon, the school kids
came out to the marina and launched their sail boats for their sailing
lesson. It was cold and wet, but it was
great to see them out there and they seemed to be having a good time. On Thursday, it was raining again so we
walked up to Hamilton Marine and spent some time getting necessary boat stuff
and then went to a local coffee shop for lunch and some quality internet
time. Thursday night we had dinner with
friends Jim and Ilse at their home in South Portland. Jim and I worked together in Angola about 12
years ago and spent time together in Setubal Portugal in a Portuguese immersion
course. They had just returned from a
hiking trek in Slovenia with a few days at the end in Venice. They met on a sailing vacation in the
Caribbean and are both very active with their local Rotary Club. Both have a great sense of adventure and some
wonderful tales to tell. If you are
wondering what hiking in Slovenia is like, here is a link to Jim and Ilse’s
pictures from their trip.
We left Portland early Friday morning with plans to make it
to Wentworth at slack tide so that it would be easier to come into the
dock. We made good time and ended up
slowing down to about 4 knots for the last two hours so that we didn’t get here
too early. It was another very calm day
at sea but with some fog and plenty of tuna fishermen out waiting to catch a
big fish. Some small birds were offshore
flying near the boat and more than one took the opportunity to stop and rest. Here is a picture of one on the rail near the
pilothouse.
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| Bird resting on the boat rail near the pilothouse |
That’s it for the night.
Dave called from Boston and is on the bus headed this way, so Girls Gone
Wild is over until next time.
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