Lobster boat races

We’ve now been here for three weeks and got ourselves a large mooring for the summer. Dave dived down to check the tackle and reported that the water temperature does not quite match the Caribbean, to say the least.
The weather is also more temperate but generally much dryer than England (not hard). When it’s hot it’s really hot – in the 80’s and 90’s - but we’ve had a fair few foggy days and spectacular thunderstorms.



We’ve been immersing ourselves into the American way of life – having Tom Turkey dinners at Dudley’s Diner, eating enormous ice creams at Scoops ice cream parlor and visiting the out-of-town shopping malls.
Katie’s survived her first round of immunizations without too much trauma. She’s been going to ‘lapsitter’s hour’ at the library for storytelling and doesn’t seem to be suffering too much from culture shock!



We expected the 4th July celebrations to be huge so took the boat a mile away to see the nearest fireworks in the small town of Searsport, but they turned out to be disappointingly tame.
They did however host a lobster boat race the following weekend which was great fun, with some of the 40-foot boats reaching speeds of 50 miles-an-hour! These boats come from all along the coast to participate and some are built just to race. One had a 1500hp V-8 engine with two exhaust pipes cut off in the cockpit about three feet long and a guy sitting four feet away to keep watch on the engine - with earmuffs on for some reason.… It sounded more like a racetrack than a fishing harbour…



For a small town, there seems to be a lot going on in Belfast. This weekend was ‘Celtic weekend’ with lots of stalls selling Irish and Scottish goods (including real Celtic fairy dust!) and a variety of live music – the sound of bagpipes drifted out to us over the water. Friends Robin and Jackie (also from the Exe) arrived in their boat ‘Blackthorn’ in time to listen to an Irish folk band, buy Welsh miners teacakes and watch an amazing fireworks display over the harbour. We got a great view from water level on the dinghy and amazingly, Katie slept through it all!

Belfast, Maine

On arrival in Newport we had to take the boat alongside a marina pontoon to clear Customs. Once the paperwork was done, the dockmaster kindly let us stay on for a few days so we were able to step on and off, had the luxury of on-board wi-fi (internet) and the use of a swimming pool.

Clare had hoped to join us for some of the coastal trip towards Maine but we had strong NE winds (on the nose) for nearly a week and then she ran out of time.
Instead we spent a couple of days taking in the sights of Newport – the mansions along the Cliff Walk, a harbour full of classic boats and expensive racing yachts, restaurants galore offering fresh seafood…
We also caught up with our good friends Bonnie & Earl who had spent the winter in Newport on their charter boat, the ‘Bonnie Lynn’. (www.bonnielynn.com)



It wasn’t long before we waved Clare off at the bus station, the wind changed, and we started heading ‘down east’. We did the trip in six easy day sails, stopping in some of the same places as last year (Marion, Plymouth, Gloucester) and catching up with old friends along the way.

We tried two new anchorages. Kittery Point, in the entrance to Portsmouth harbour was wide open but sheltered, and overlooked by an old fort (built to keep out the Brits!). The view from the fort was quite spectacular as thunderstorms blackened the sky on an otherwise sunny day.
Jewell Island was a secluded anchorage between two small islands, no facilities but a picture postcard setting, which we shared with just four other boats.

Jewell Island

We had a steaming sail (5-6 knots) from there to Rockland harbour at the mouth of Penobscot Bay, then a gentle afternoon sail up to Belfast, where we are now anchored. We plan to base ourselves here for the summer and just sail locally while Katie gets used to a more settled routine on board. She now sleeps through the night and is mostly a pretty happy bunny.