On to Portland, Maine

We left Gloucester at 6 am in the calm grey; no waves, no sun, no wind.

 Thatcher and Milk Islands along the way

The greatest moment and one of the greatest ever sailing was seeing huge, like really huge splashes near the horizon.  Whales!  Too far away for my crummy camera to capture but huge in the eyes of the binoculars.  Wow!  Breaches high above the water, about 4 or more whales.  Really a once in a lifetime kind of sight.  They kept going for about 20 minutes.
Wish I could draw a picture.  Really the kind of thing you need to see in person.  They are so big.  I think they were Right Whales or Humpbacks.

The rest of the 12 hours up to Portland was a view of heavy and light fog.  We came closer to Cape Elizabeth where I lived for almost 10 years. The first lighthouses we almost see are known as 2 lights that usually have a significant fog horn, but strangely not today.  On the land side there is 2 Lights State Park.  Cape Elizabeth has the most parks and greatest public access to the water of any of the Portland suburbs.  Then famous Portland Head, a lighthouse that was commissioned by George Washington and one of the most visited lighthouses because it is easily accessible located in beautiful Fort Williams Park.
We motored out of the fog into the sun and put our sails up to sail into town.

We head down the channel with House, Little Diamond, Cushing and Peaks Islands to the north and South Portland on the south into the busy port with ferries, cruise liners, tankers, cargo ships, sail and motor boats, schooners, a real working harbor.

The next light is Spring Point Light

Next is Bug Light off Thompson Park where they often have kite festivals. Also a great viewing spot for 4th of July fireworks that are set off Eastern Prom.

Continuing into Portland Harbor, Casco Bay we head toward the draw bridge, 2nd largest in the world seeing a lot of boats along the way.

One large German cruise ship was on its way out with no tug boats, all bow thrusters to push away from the dock and head out to sea.  Portland Harbor is also one of the deepest natural harbors north of Boston.

You can see the size of the yellow ferry compared to the cruise ship.

We passed tourist filled schooner ships that give sunset cruises in the summer with Portland Head Light in the background.

Constant ferry service through the Calendar islands.   As you can see this is one of the best sailing areas in the world with picturesque views everywhere and little harbors and anchorages tucked into all the islands.

We motored into the South Port Marine slip at 6 pm southportmarine.com , the marina most protected and closest to the drawbridge with a view of Portland.   It's nice because it is near good restaurants, a market and cafes.  The down side is it is in the flight path for the airport and has planes fly overhead as they land.  We had dinner with 4 friends at the nearby Snow Squall Restaurant.
  Mid October we will take the boat over to Maine Yacht Center maineyacht.com to be hauled out and stored in the large shed.
Until we sail again, Ciao.

Marblehead to Gloucester, MA on our way to Portland, ME

After a pretty horrendous summer of sickness, as we're calling it, we hopped aboard Shawnee to motor/sail up to Portland, Maine near Maine Yacht Center.  maineyacht.com   Maine Yacht Center has by far the best maintenance and repair operation on the east coast.  We've visited quite a few and this place is great. Brian Harris runs a good shop for indoor and outdoor storage.  We took 2 days for the 14 hour run.  First night in Gloucester, 2 hours from Marblehead.
   Drew at the helm.

  We started from our Marblehead mooring on Friday, Sept. 14th in the afternoon and had  patchy fog.  Sometimes it was pea soup.

Just wanted you to hear an authentic fog horn...kind of a soothing sound.  This is when buoy bells or horns are helpful.  At times visibility was about 30 yards.  That's when you follow your instruments and watch the radar screen in case something big is up ahead.
On the Ipad Navionics we are the red arrow.  It shows our projected course; the red line is our track and the blue is the course we set.  The Garmin 547 has the true course that we follow exactly with radar overlay.  It feeds the autopilot and is another screen at the helm.

It was very patchy and then some moments it would lift completely so we could see.  Other times we were floating on grey sky and sea.  The sea temp was about 64 and the air was 77.

 A lobster boat and the wind turbines on shore.

We motored into Gloucester's Eastern Point Yacht Club inside the breakwater and picked up an empty mooring ball about 5:15 in the sun.  They take reservations through the app Dockwa -- $50 for our size boat.

The launch came around at it's last delivery of the day, stopped just long enough to say, "Pay through Dockwa." and sped off.  No welcome or description of services.  Later we looked on the website and saw that they have dinner in a nice clubhouse and other facilities.
Here's a nice typical New England summer home with dock and fishing boat just off our bow.

And at the end of the easy windless, sunless, calm day always the sunset over Gloucester.

 We had a nice dinner on the boat.  The next morning we were up at dawn for the 12 hours to Portland, 6 to 6.
          sunrise Saturday, Sept 15th.

Eased out of the breakwater area passed the lighthouse and many flag buoys that so many cruisers complain about. 

It is so easy for boats with deep keels to get caught on these lobster buoy lines.  You may have auto pilot but you must watch constantly for these.  We have a full keel and protection over to the rudder so it doesn't affect us.  We have run over these.
  Again you can see the sunless, waveless, windless weather.  Again we had periods of No Service on our phones and no visibility because of patchy fog. Still temperature was mid 70s.