We are in Maine

We’ve arrived in Cape Porpoise harbor after a nice slow sail north from Cape Cod. We left our mooring at Padanaram, MA on Saturday afternoon and following the advice of a local sailor (s/v Wanda from Marion, MA) picked up a free (!!) mooring on Saturday evening north of Bassett’s Island on the west side of the Cape Cod Canal (N41 40.992 W70 38.253). Local yacht clubs have mooring field’s set up at nice protected anchorages and we were told we should feel free to just pick up one of those. We spent a lovely evening watching fireworks while at our anchorage; we aren’t sure what the occasion was, but the fireworks were festive. We plan on getting local information like this as much as possible; these could not have been the only free moorings available in the northeast.

The Canal has very strong currents and one must pass with the correct current. We set our time for passage on Sunday morning at 9 am. We kept Maia’s boat speed at ~5 knots and we roared through the canal at about 9-10 knots… we would have just been pushed back out had we been going against the current. We entered into the huge Cape Cod Bay and made our way under light westerly winds to the open ocean.

And then came the real treat! Just outside of Cape Cod we sailed though an area with dozens of whales (and whale-watchers). We stayed with the whales for about an hour. At times they were surprisingly close to the boats and even made me quite nervous. There was one, possibly a male looking for a mate, which breached several times and continued slapping his fins on the water. It was very hard to get good pictures of these coy giants, sometimes they surface visibly and the next time they are just under the water, only once in a while do they show off those beautiful tail fins. Even after we departed the scene we still saw many whales on the horizon in every direction. I’m not sure if this is something the people of Cape Cod and Boston are used to; but for us, this was a once in a lifetime (or at least, first in a lifetime) experience….truly unforgettable.

We arrived in Cape Porpoise, ME at 9 am on Monday morning and threw out an anchor in this busy, mooring filled working harbor (N43 21.634 W70 25.830). It’s a beautiful spot, but we can’t get a good wireless signal (hence this late entry). We immediately met Paul O’Connor and went to visit with he and his extended family at his brother’s vacation home on Goose Rocks Beach…another place just packed with that northeast elegant charm we’ve fallen in love with. After we were here a couple of days we again decided we must stay for several days, so we’ll be here at least through the weekend. Cape Porpoise and its surrounding communities are really gorgeous, and we need some time to explore this Kennebunkport area. There is so much history here and it’s been preserved gracefully.

We would like to post some pictures but we have had problems with that lately. We'll try to figure out what the problem is and post some later.