Drive to Camden Rockport and Rockland

 

We arrived back to the boat on Thursday. Friday offered another unsettled weather day. The summer weather pattern has just not made itself know just yet - a little frustrating but we are on the boat so all is perfect. So "Let's drive to Camden!" and so we did.

The way to Camden first leads to the beautiful town of Rockport. From here you can take the back roads into Camden. Rockport itself is a wonderful harbor. We have never stayed here as it tends to have the typical summer southerly swells enter the harbor. Not enough to make it bad to moor a boat, but not inviting enough to want to spend a night here. But as you can see it is a scenic spot.

And it is a place for love birds

And seals that were well loved - such as Andre the Seal. It is interesting to think that most people today do not recall the name that Andre made for himself.

And Rockport is the location of former lime kilns. It is interesting to see and it is wonderful that they have been preserved as history, but I imagine that the smoke and fumes from the kilns made living in town less than the perfect small town it seems today.

The back road to Camden is really out around the seaside land between Rockport and Camden. But with the seaside covered with mansions and fronted with visual barriers of sufficient size and type to block the view, the water is not visible until reaching the Camden City Park which affords beautiful views of the outer harbor and Mount Battie in the background.

We walked around town which is beginning to awaken for the summer onslaught. 

Sailboats apparently made for a school project. I am wondering if they will be launched?

We drove south to Rockland. It was time to eat according to our growing sense of need to feed.

Faye spotted Wasses Hot Dog stand - Yes Perfect. I know it is not seafood but I haven't had a Wasses dog in many a year.

While Rockland is a wonderful town, our objective was to drive to Owls Head Lighthouse. I have posted many photos - like the one below - from the sea side ............

........ here are ones from the land perspective - complete with a little fog.

The reason we are smiling is we are amused about how much trouble I had taking the selfie.

Lupine

And here is Owls Head Harbor. A real working harbor - complete with fog.

We drove back along Route 1 - passing Moody's Diner. The Wasses hot dogs were still resting nicely so while we thought of stopping for at least some pie and coffee, we agreed to save the stop for another day.

So as another nice day on the Maine Coast - even if by car - has come to an end, it is time to say 

Good Night and May God Bless

End of May

I am a little sheepish about this post as I have to admit the boat has not left the dock since we have arrived in early May. But let me explain. Faye came down with something flu like with a fever so we stayed home for a good while to let her recover close to home. She has still a small cough but is nearly fully recovered.

So last week we returned to the boat with a plan to just relax and enjoy the scenery. We did consider going to Boothbay over Memorial Day weekend. However, our slip mate, Glen, arrived and asked if I wanted to go for a sail. It was a perfect sailing day and Faye was content having the boat to herself to listen to her music and do her Expert (and I mean expert) Sudoku puzzles.

Glen's boat is rather impressive as you can see.

And it sails as nicely as it looks. It turned out to be one of the five perfect sailing days a year in Maine. I am being somewhat facetious, but from my nearly thirty years of sailing that statement is not far off. A perfect sailing day is defined as warm/mild breeze, steady fresh wind about 10 to 15 knots, and minimum waves.  We beat upwind at nearly 7 knots and that is very nice for a sailboat. Glen even remarked about how perfect the conditions turned out to be. When those conditions occur you can set the sails up and lock the rudder and the boat will sail itself like on autopilot - and we did just that.

We played pickleball several times and enjoyed just being on the boat. I did some more projects including cleaning the dinghy and applying UV protection. I also cleaned the fly-bridge including polishing the plastic windows and applying waterproofing to the canvas top.

A small sailboat came by several afternoons with a most attentive deck hand.

We did have a nice stretch of weather with many beautiful mornings like this.

And I did manage to fly the drone for some shots of the marina area.

The fresh water pond we have hiked around a few times.

Looking down Robinhood Cove.

And looking back toward the marina.

And scanning through photos, this older (I refuse to say old) photo of my railroad days caught my attention. Hope it makes you smile.

So with that I will say, bring on June, and .....

Good Night and May God Bless