Maine Boat Show

We returned to Rockland for the Maine Boats, Homes and Harbors Show. Our primary motivation was to meet friends we have known since graduate school at Berkeley (40 years ago).

We have become tired of most boat shows where one sees the same production boats and array of products. However, the Maine Boat show is unique in our experience. It has none of the mass market boats, instead names like Sabre, Hinkley, Morris, and other custom builders.

In some respects the photo to the left looks like any boat show, until you notice that the first boat on the right is a well kept wooden Concordia yawl. The boat ahead (hard to see) is a Morris sailing yacht, and the one to the left is a custom wood powerboat by a Maine builder.


The boat in the photo to the left is a small powerboat built by Richard Pulsifer. He cuts the wood from his own land, saws and mills it himself and turns out these great little inboard launches (Yanmar 4-cyl diesel). He is a friend of our friends, so later we got a ride around the harbor in this boat.









There are displays of historic boats such as this Downeast Peapod built around 1935.











The Aprenticeshop "a school for traditional boat building" put on a demonstration spiling and fitting a plank on a cedar lapstrake hull fastened with copper rivets.









The local passenger schooner fleet put on a "Parade of Sail". The photo is the AMERICAN EAGLE, Capt. John Foss.










Even the entertainment is unique. The Univ. of Maine at Machais, Ukelele Band played all afternoon from a book of several hundred songs covering virtually all genres.

Rockland to MDI and Back

This summer Rockland has become somewhat of a "base" for us. For several reasons we keep returning every week or ten days. There are prettier and better protected harbors, but Rockland stands out for having convenient stores and marine services as well as good connections to the big city (Portland) which we have needed. It also has some good restaurants and an excellent art museum.

In other harbors the sunsets are spectacular. In Rockland it is the sunrises over the breakwater and Penobscot bay to the east that are the most beautiful. Of course, one has to get up very early to see the sunrise at its best (before 5 AM).










Since the last post, we spent several days in Seal Bay on Vinalhaven Island with friends on their boats. (There really are a lot of seals there, see photo to left.)










S/V TROPICBIRD anchored in Seal Bay.













Goose Rocks Light (Photo to left) is in the Fox Island Thorofare, a narrow waterway between Vinalhaven and Northhaven Islands on the way to Seal Bay.










After Seal Bay and a brief return to Rockland, we went further east to Mt. Desert Island.

Bass Harbor Bar Light (photo to left) is the "landfall" on Mt. Desert Island coming from from the west.









We anchored in Cranberry Harbor (adjacent to MDI) the first night, and then spent several days on a mooring at Northeast Harbor.

(Photo to left, view of the mountains on MDI from Cranberry Harbor with our friends Block Island 40 sailing.)





There is a free bus service that provides good connections around Acadia National Park and other locations Mt. Desert Island. We took one day to go to Jordan Pond and hike the trail there. (Photo to left, Jordan Pond and the "Bubbles")

Another day we took the bus to Bar Harbor.















After a few days at Northeast we moved a couple of miles to a Hinkley mooring in Southwest Harbor where we met friends who stay there for the season. Hinkley has very nice facilities and surprisingly is not particularly expensive.

(Photo to left, view up Southwest Harbor from Hinkley Moorings.)





We stopped in Buckle Harbor and Pupit Harbor on the return to Rockland. A line of heavy thunderstorms came across Penobscot bay and over Pulpit Harbor just before sunset. Just as the storm passed, the sky to the northwest over the Camden Hills cleared for another spectacular sunset.