Americas

Saturday 14 July: Maine. Visit the fishing village of Stonington and the upmarket touristy Camden.
Last evening when we anchored right off the Stonington town next to the fishing boat fleets, we anticipated that we will be woken up very early by the slapping on our stern due to the wake of the fishing boats as they go out. Which proved to be correct, slapping started at 3.30am!
After a leisurely morning we go ashore to see the quaint fishing village of Stonington. It has the feel of a living town, not just a touristy place, with summer houses. We walk it back and forth, admiring the houses, the very colorful gardens, and the view over the harbor. We even visit few arty and souvenirs shops, all very interesting and mostly rustically presented in old fishing huts on wooden piling over the water.
At midday we stop for a coffee at the Harbor Inn, where a very friendly lady makes us a great latte, which comes with a pasta stick instead of the usual stirring straw. What an ingenious idea. We sip the coffee on the inn’s terrace, enjoying the view and the warm sun. Beautifully warm. The inn is fully booked, yet none of the guests is enjoying this great terrace. How odd. When we leave, we ask the lady if there is a market where we could buy yogurt as we couldn’t find any earlier, and she quickly comes back from the kitchen with a large tub of yogurt which she wants to give us at no charge. We leave a very generous tip for the coffee so that we can feel even, and we walk away smiling. Such friendly and helpful people.
Back at Cloudy Bay, we decide to up-anchor and move on, to Camden, the next highlight in the area. Needless to say there’s not enough wind for sailing, and we have to motor. Soon after we leave, the sun disappears behind dark clouds and it suddenly feels cold. And we add another layer to our clothing.
We motor through thousands of fishing floats, again. One eye on the chart to stay within the various channel boundaries, and one eye on the floats. Well, 2 sets of eyes on the floats most times, and even so we had some floats going under our hull. Luckily, none caught around the prop or the rudder.
We pass Vinalheaven (Fox Thoroughfare), with hard edges of granite, and pretty rolling hills where few houses are scattered. After it, we turn right to have a look at North Haven, which looks gentle and pastoral, with a small quaint village. There are quite a few little wooden boats racing outside the yachting club (in the very little wind). Brrr, they look cold, in full sailing gear. We don’t stop here, as we aim to anchor in Camden before dark.
Well, it is already kind of dark. The weather is gloomy, with overcast sky and very cold. Feels like we are sailing in The North Sea. Temperature is 19 Celsius only, and we feel really cold in the cockpit even if we wear multiple layers. Glen jokes that once we anchor in Camden, he will retire into the engine room in the warmth.
We are yet to see for ourselves why Maine is a sailing paradise. As of now, we didn’t exactly sail. In fact, we motored 90% of the time we have been on the move since we arrived here. And added to the frustration of not having enough wind for sailing, is an even bigger frustration, fending the tens of thousands of fishing floats. Today we didn’t have the sails up even for a minute.
Late afternoon we arrive in Camden Harbour, which looks like a busy place, lots of sailing yachts playing out at sea and many more on mooring buoys. Our original plan was to anchor, but as usual with such places, as soon as it gets to anchoring depth, they lay the area with mooring buoys. No space to anchor safely, so we call in the dock master and pick up a buoy for US$42. Hm, popular town, higher rates on mooring. But at least they have a launch service to take us ashore.
We have a late lunch onboard as we are trying to get through our freezer stock as much as we can before we leave in 4 days. After lunch, we get the launch boat ashore to have a look at the town before the night sets in.
It’s a very pretty town, touristy as expected, with lots of souvenirs shops. The buildings are very quaint, they all look picture perfect. Few bars and restaurants, and they are all very lively. We nose in at the sailing club, where there was a club party for members. All very upmarket, with posh attendance. We felt very out of place in our plain outfits off the boat, so few minutes later we made a sharp exit. Hopefully we will revisit mid-August when the Ocean Cruising Club lunch party takes place on 12-August.
We continue to walk through the town looking for an inviting warm pub to have a beer. We definitely needed warmth, especially after having some ice-cream which certainly added to the chilly feeling. We do find one which was quite busy, but we realize it’s almost 8pm and the last launch boat runs at 8.30pm. Hm, launch service is certainly a nice touch, but ends its service way too early for the ones who would like to spend the evening in town.
So, reluctantly, we return to the harbor office and then to Cloudy Bay, determined to lower our dinghy and get back to town with our own reliable mean of transport. Our determination gradually vanished as the wind chill off the water gets us both very cold by the time we are back on Cloudy Bay. We try to convince ourselves that with thicker jackets we’ll be warm on the dinghy trip back, but the heater on Cloudy Bay made our salon so very cozy, and we can’t face going back into the cold night.
A bit of frustration trying to connect to the marina internet, which remained unsuccessful. So we settle ourselves for reading and watching a movie. A quiet and warm rest of the evening onboard.