November 1 - Portland, Maine

We've been making miles since our last update. Left Bar Harbor on Sunday morning, motorsailed to Rockland (59 miles), and tied up at Knight's Marine. Had a very American-style Mexican meal (seriously bland, but tasty enough), and didn't find anyone to fix our furnace. Not much going on in Rockland -- like Bar Harbor, lots of things are closed for the season. We did manage to spend a hundred bucks at Hamilton Marine. I found the fabulous little fittings that will replace the crap fittings that make the water hoses go "phfffft --shhhoooosh" and spray water all over the bilge or the head. Things is lookin up.

Rockland to Boothbay Harbor was another full day of motor sailing (gotta love them SW winds - bang on the nose) in calm weather. Travelling this way is very pretty when the water is calm and you only see the nice bits of Maine: the expensive houses on the waterfront, the wild and unsullied shores, the picturesque towns with the winding streets and footbridges and quaint little stores. The waterfront cottages, all 27 bedrooms and 10 baths by the look of some of them, are a nearly uniform white, or else they have silvered shingles. Occasionally, the neighbours branch out into beige, taupe, grey, or gasp, light brown, but generally, there's none of that flamboyance that you see on the French shore of Nova Scotia. And the trailers with the busted trucks, rusting cars and barking dogs are set back a ways from the water, as are the highways, the Walmarts and the factory outlets (too bad about that one).

We hit downtown Boothbay Harbor at dusk on Hallowe'en, and tied up at a dock in front of a decidedly closed-for-the-season hotel. Walked across the footbridge to get supplies and found that we'd hit town just as the local teenaged population came out in force, and in costume, but mostly with lots of shaving cream all over them and everything around them. Three young fellas were dowsing each other with the stuff, and styling
their hair into mohawks. (One guy sprays a gob of shaving cream on the other guy's head, other guy says, "oh yeah, that's good" as he molds his "do" and the whole quaint little town reeks of barbershop and bathroom). On the way back to the boat, we had to sidestep globs of the stuff.

Left before seven am (and we're struggling with two time changes in the last few days), wondering how many kids were in trouble this morning, and what shaving cream looks like when it dries, and does it foam up again when you put your clothes in the washer? Ate fresh-baked cornbread with bacon as we left the harbour (yes girls, you heard right, now bow before this domestic goddess. I'm the bleary looking one in the photo with the winter coat with the red nose and no makeup looking like the wrath of gawd). Motorsailed through the rolly bits, and then glory of glories, had a great sail under main and genoa, fast and quiet and heeled over enough to make Alice scream, were she here to enjoy this, and made it to Portland around 12:30. Big town. Showers, hot water, laundry, and tomorrow, while Randy hangs out with Bud, the furnace fixer from Portland Yacht Services (we're counting on you, Bud), Tom and I are going shopping at the biggest grocery store in Maine. Stand back. Two loads of laundry done, another in the dryer.

Here are some pictures that didn't make it in the last update: the ladder we climbed to get on and off the boat at the Yarmouth wharf, after climbing over the "Trent and Troy" - a giant lobster boat. Dad, at 79, rode around from Rudders wharf with us, and gamely scampered up this ladder. We did it a bunch of times, and most times we also had to pull both boats back to the wharf, and once, when Randy was aboard and I was on the
wharf, I had to ask some fishermen for help cause the wind was blowing the boats off the dock and I couldn't yank them in. Following the Yarmouth wharf pics are some of Tom's finds in Bar Harbor. A good eye for local colour, I'd say.