Maine Sailing

After our day of discomfort, we awoke to beautiful sunshine. After morning tea up on deck, we hopped into the dinghy and headed to shore for a hike around the island. Along the way we explored tide pools, looking for crabs and fish, climbed up big granite boulders, hiked through thick forest with trees down everywhere. The boys pulled their pant legs up as high as they would go and crossed a narrow channel to the islands on the other side. As we came back around the other side of the island near our boat, we came to a door standing alone in the middle of the forest across the trail, with the word "REALITY" written in large letters with an arrow. In fine print above it said, "Last one out, please remember to turn out the lights. Thx. Management." Maine rocks. We spent the rest of the gorgeous day sailing in light winds and glorious sunshine to Buck's Harbor. I must say that this type of sailing suits me much better than the hurky kind.

We awoke to rain the next morning with a sick Aaron and set sail for Castine, an old New England village settled in the late 1600's where many battles took place, including the U.S.'s worst naval defeat before Pearl Harbor. We lost 16 ships to a very small British force and our hero Paul Revere was court martialed and dismissed from service for just being present at the battle. As we sailed toward Castine a huge, 100 foot, old schooner glided up from behind and sailed side-by-side with us through the rain for the afternoon. We explored the village the next morning, with fever-y Aaron riding on my back, checking out all the cute New England architecture and reading the signs throughout town about the battles that took place before we set out for Pulpit Harbor where a 150-year-old osprey nest sits perched upon a rocky outcropping that greets you at the mouth of the harbor. Here we got our first taste of fog and it was pretty cool. Since there was a lack of wind, we motored through patches of fog. At one point Jason cut the engine and we just drifted through the fog. It felt like we floating through the open ocean, it was so quiet and we couldn't see anything, but the sun was shining above making us super warm. By afternoon, Aaron was feeling much better and the boys enjoyed much rock-throwing on land. As we were walking up the hill to the grocery store an old Model-T came putting down the road, turned around, and a few moments later pulled up behind us and offered us a ride. We all hopped in to the 1929 Model-T that had belonged to family of the wife of Charles Lindberg and away we went. Along the way he pointed out the house of the late brain surgeon that had instructed the surgery on JFK over the phone. After we stopped in front of the cute little grocery store he turned off the engine and the boys both jumped when it let out a loud back-fire.

Click here for way too many photos.