Maine to Massachusetts to New Hampshire?

Something peculiar happened while we were in a little shop in Northeast Harbor, Maine on Wednesday evening. I heard a man ask his wife while he was looking at post cards, "Honey, were we at Thunder Hole?" and she replied, "Yes, we did that yesterday" and then she said "oh, here's a picture of that footbridge we looked at yesterday as well". Then I realized, we spend a week in Somesville looking at her little footbridge from our quiet anchorage, and on this particular Wednesday, we spent the whole day riding our bikes on the side of the island where Thunder Hole is located. It made me realize how lucky we are, they had just a few days to see everything Acadia National Park had to offer and we had three weeks to see it in slow motion. We still saved some for the next time though, because we never got around to seeing the car museum or checking out Bass Harbor lighthouse, and although we did some hiking and biked around 100 miles while we were there, we certainly didn't hike and bike all there was.

But now we've left Maine and arrived in Massachusetts. Our original plan with the prevailing southwesterly winds was to leave on Wednesday at the latest and arrive in Salem on Friday morning; however, the large ocean swell predicted in the Gulf of Maine made us delay our plans further. Then the forecast completely changed giving us very desirable ESE winds of 10-15 knots for Thursday evening and Friday...with those winds we could make much better time, leaving on Thursday morning and arriving Friday afternoon. Of course, the forecast is not a guarantee and we ended up having rotten winds, either right on the nose or from directly behind and rarely anything to actually sail our course with; not that it was uncomfortable, because the winds were rarely over 7 knots. Nonetheless, this time I was the one affected by seasickness, or just plain queasiness, once we got out in the Gulf I felt pitiful for about 4 hours. A Dramamine fixed it right up though, and didn't even knock me out this time. It's a sailboat, so we can tack our course, but sailing in this light winds would have added another night to our route, so we fired up the iron genny and motor-sailed. The winds did freshen just as we came around Cape Ann, so we did get to sail towards the skyscrapers of Boston as we headed toward Salem Harbor. I just hope we get some nice sailing in when we make our big trip down to Annapolis next week, which should take 80-100 hours.

We arrived in Salem, MA on Friday afternoon. It's a huge harbor just packed with sailboats. We decided to pick up another mooring for 2 nights (2 x $35, we must stop this decadent behavior) at N42 31.148 W70 52.436. Salem is just packed full of fun witch inspired stuff to do, and we definitely get the idea we are here a month too early because it sounds like it's the place to be anytime close to Halloween...maybe we'll try it some year. Joanne Pezza along with her beautiful daughters Cassie and Allie came to visit us on the boat Saturday afternoon and then we went back to their place in Hudson, NH for dinner and to stay the night. We even stopped at Sam's on the way there and restocked some of our favorite provisions. It ended up being a blast at the Pezza resort; it's a real NH man's man place with a 4-wheeler, go cart, back-hoe, and fire pits on their wooded, hilly 2-acre property! The Pezza's have a lovely home and offered such wonderful hospitality; we just don't know how we'll ever pay them back. Joanne fixed us a wonderful dinner of crab legs and ribeyes (while our laundry spun around in the washer & dryer) and we had such a great time hanging out at the bonfire with Paul Pezza and several of their neighbors. This was our first night away from the boat in 8 weeks and it was a good time to be around such a fun group of people. I'm typing this on their computer bright and early on Sunday morning while the rest of the house sleeps (or wonders who is typing away on the computer).

We hope everyone is doing well and we hope to update you on the rest of our activities in Salem before we head south to Annapolis.