Port(smouth) to Port(land)

Jul 22nd, 2022 James Destinations, Sailing

After a few days in lovely New Castle and Portsmouth, it was time to head north into Maine. We were doing this route the slow way, looking for fun little places along the way - and hoping for fun day-sail blasts down the coast.

The first day out of Portsmouth though? Not so much of a blast! Just as we were considering raising our sails, the wind died completely.

This surreal moment was accompanied by the faint smell of burning rubber. Not us! We suspected this was from a boat that burned and sank in the area the day before.

After an hour or so, the wind picked up again, and we were on our way. We settled into York Beach, behind Cape Neddick, and put down the anchor, with the sound of the gentle waves on the nearby rocks.

The following day - midsummer! - we made an early start to head up towards Kennebunkport. We’d heard that the town itself was a little busy, so we opted to go a little further to the east, and an inlet called Cape Porpoise. It was a beautiful sail on a broad reach.

But it wasn’t to be the perfect day! The first of two problems hit us that morning as our anemometer failed. It had been reporting slightly erratic wind speeds for a few days, but it finally died, showing zero knots (and no apparent wind angle) when we were clearly in 10-15. Fortunately, the skies were clear, and we just had to look up a lot instead.

The second problem was a little more dramatic, as we caught a lobster pot in our propellor on our final approach into Cape Porpoise - a very narrow channel with a high density of them. Fortunately, our rope cutter was able to free us from the main line, but we were trailing the remnants as we pulled into anchor.

Once settled, in - and slightly earlier into our trip than hoped - there was nothing for it but to don the diving gear and go under the boat to clear things up. Even in sunny June, the water was chilly - but the adventure was successful…

…enough to dinghy to shore and celebrate at the fun little Pier 77 restaurant!

Cape Porpoise is a working lobster harbor, full of boats going in and out at all times of the day. Jayne, of course, wanted to take a picture of this one.

The wind settled down, and the evening was quiet. We finished off an eventful day with an amazing sunset.

We really loved the Cape Porpoise area, and spent a few days there, doing various jobs on the boat, stretching our legs on land, and even managing to squeeze in our wedding anniversary dinner at the impressive Musette, a short walk from the dock.

But eventually it was time to move on, and we set our sights on Richmond Island, just short of Portland. We were treated to a dead-downwind sail, which gave us a chance to set up our new gybe-preventer lines, and the pole for the genoa.

Richmond Island itself is more or less deserted (save a caretaker) and, despite being just around the corner from Portland, was the first glimpse of the more remote landscapes we would encounter further into Maine.

There are two anchorages to the north of the island, with a causeway and beach between them. With some help from PredictWind, we chose the west bay, and were rewarded with a very calm spot. We took the dinghy to the beach to look around:

After traipsing through woods and meadows…

…and signing in at the cute rusty post box…

…we finished off the day with fish and roast vegetables, and another killer sunset:

Scout's induction oven is earning its keep.

The following day we motored around to the city of Portsmouth to fix a few things, climb the mast, and prepare for the swing eastwards towards Penobscot. Stay tuned for more on the next stage in the next blog post!

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