August 1-14, 2025 Rockland, ME to Marblehead, MA
Friday August 1st
Rockland to Tenants Harbor
No wind initially, motored. Wind picked up to 3, tried code-0, then picked up more changed to S SW
sailed into Tenants Harbor. Beautiful. Never saw it last time due to fog. Saw multiple dolphins on our way out of Rockland.
Saturday August 2nd
Checked oil this am and it's down to 1/3 of the line. Will need to keep an eye on that and put more in. So far we have run the engine ~150 hours since she went in this May.
Motored a bit then wind picked up from SW SSW so sailed the rest of the way to Matinicus.
Tiny harbor, lots of rocks. Asked lobstermen where moorings are and on the other side. Low tide 7-8 ft of water.
Met Jim Sheppe who has a summer home on Matinicus. Walked to his home and walked all over this island that is 2 x 1 miles big. My Fitbit says we walked 5.8 miles
I felt like I was in a Robert McCloskey book. There is a "piwate" (pirate) lookout built on the small beach, made of things that have washed up from the sea Driftwood, lines, lobster buoys and crates. Some of the young boys who initially made it claimed it was a "piwate lookout". Emily's Mom, Eva, is the local baker, we have Anadama bread and ginger molasses cookies from her bakery. Honor system like Baily's. Met another woman, Peggy, who in her former life was a college professor and Dean of Graduate studies in Ohio, and sat on her porch with drinks and snacks and chatted. Some lively discussion. Jim offered to make some dinner, but it was getting late and we did not want to go back to the boat in the dark; we didn’t bring the bright light.
Sunday August 2nd
Laz forgot his sunglasses at Jim's and was getting the dinghy ready to go to the dock when a fisherman brought it over. He saw Jim standing at the dock and said he'd deliver it. Very kind of him.
Sailed out to Matinicus Rock but alas no puffins. Beautiful out there though. Great steady wind, used the jib as it was 30-45° angle
Tacked and went by the rock again. One long tack with good wind, on the jib as it remained strong. When it softened below 10kts we furled the jib and brought out the code-0. Coming up the St. George River we went wing. Sailed into Maple Juice Cove. Gorgeous. Anchor seemed to set well. Dolphin in the cove.
Monday August 4th
Slept in. Got the anchor up with care and no issues. Yay! Headed out of Maple Juice Cove and put up the main sail once in the St. George River proper. Motored a bit until we cleared some of the rocks and small islands, then pulled out the jib. We were able to sail most of the way to Boothbay.
The sky was so hazy due to the Canadian wildfires. Clearly not the fog we had last month, but it definitely dampened the details. Passed Pemiquid.
Laz saw a baby shark when we were passing Pemaquid! I couldn't quite make it out. We have seen many seals and dolphins on this trip as well as the guillemots, cormorant, black faced terns and gulls. Just no puffins. Next time! Most come and go so quickly I have no time to take a picture.
Found Tugboat Marina. Aft in portside tie, tight little fairway and not a big one either. Got in with help of bow thruster and judicious forward and backward. The guy in the motorboat to starboard was impressed. He called someone to tell them “this lady docked into the space next to me, backwards, like a professional!” There was minimal wind, which helped. The power has a breaker away from the plug and was not obvious. The dockhand did not stick around to help with that, so we had to go find him. Another oddity of this marina is you have to pay for showers, 25¢ for 5 min or something like that. Laundry was $5.50 a wash and 25¢ per 5 or 10 min of dry. Needed quarters.
Washed down baji-naji with the non skid soap and then made dinner. While it was in the oven, we defrosted the fridge and threw out anything we didn’t want since we are going to Hannaford for provisions tomorrow.
Dinner was a sort of breaded chicken (used the multigrain from Little Notch in SW) with thyme, oregano, s/p, olive oil and lemon juice. Roasted zucchini and shallots and added the last of the Wildgrain sourdough rolls.
Tuesday August 5th
Dance class this am! The wifi is a bit rough, so I got the whole class, but not all the music.
Breakfast at Kelly’s. Yum.
Back to Eventide Specialties. Got a pineapple white balsamic vinegar and a garlic olive oil as well as a foucette (mini foccacia) and some scones. Their stuff is so good!
Then off to Hannaford. This nice man who was cleaning his dinghy loaned us his car, an Infiniti, as he owns a parking space up by Ports of Italy. Apparently he owns the building as well, which he leases to the restaurant. We traded him a magic sponge for loaning us his car. A fair trade. Back to baji-naji to put away provisions and work on the log. The wifi was horribly slow to upload my photos into the log until ~5p when clearly someone stopped streaming or whatever and things went more quickly.
Apparently we have a fan only setting on the heat/AC unit. Who knew? It wouldn't turn off when we tried so had to power off.
Headed to Maine Oyster at 1730 for grilled oysters, lobster stuffed mushrooms, bacon wrapped scallops and a rainbow roll . Their California roll has Maine crabmeat, not crabstick. Yum. Laz had a chicken quesadilla. Also yum.
Headed over to Harbor Treats. I've been eyeing their pastries since our last visit. Got a rose for Laz, profiterole for me and some croissants for later. And an espresso muffin. Back to baji-naji for more log work and dessert. A chilly night, down to 60° when we went to bed so I asked for heat in our aft cabin.
Wednesday August 6th
So cold at 0200 I put the heat on in the main cabin. Slept in past 0900. Don't think we will stay at this marina again. While the location was great, the additional costs were not, if you wanted them. The other marinas cost the same and didn't charge for showers.
Chocolate croissant, lemon blueberry scone and lemon yogurt with blueberries (such a lovely abundance) plus coffee for breakfast. Headed out to a lovely E SE wind and able to sail after clearing Spruce Point. Jib first due to 60-75° angle. We were able to pull out the code-0 when we passed Squirrel Island heading towards the Cuckolds. After passing the Cuckolds we saw a pair of dolphin. Sadly we saw a dead seal 😭 sailing in and past Sheepscot Bay. It looked to have caught a propeller on its tail. Very sad. There was a larger dolphin later sailing past Cape Small, as well as some healthy curious seals. We heard the chuffing sound of a dolphin coming up for air behind us and turned to see a couple of dolphin. The wind softened to less than 5kts after rounding Cape Small, so we turned the engine on. Wind came back to 9kts, so we pulled out the code-0 , turned off the engine and made our way past Ragged Island and up Quahog Bay. Looked at anchoring just north of Yarmouth Island, but no notes in the guidebook about holding, so made our way passinf Pole Island to our port side, to just south of Snow Island. Found a large cabin cruiser anchored here already, so we anchored a little closer to a cove and upwind of them. Some lobstermen came by, set up their gill net to catch bait fish for their pots. Fascinating to watch. It sounded like a seal was sniffing around their net from what I could hear. They used a paddle and a gentle engine to scare it away. They were nice enough to talk to us as they drifted closer. Apparently bait fish go for $240 a barrel, when they used to cost $80 a barrel. With that and the price of diesel, I think they should charge more for lobster. They got only one bucket from the area near us, which, for them, was not a lot. There were so many fish jumping around us I told them I felt badly anchoring in their fishing spot. They told us not to worry, there were more. They motored off to another area after getting all the fish from their net.
We continued to see lots of little fish jumping, cormorants fishing, common eider ducks fishing and the seal, who popped his head up an hour or so after the fisherman left. Heard a bald eagle but did not see it.
That's not a lobster pot. It's the seal saying hello.
Made the maple pork loin and asparagus dinner we bought at Hannaford and heated up some ciabatta from Hannadord and mini focaccia from Eventide. Tried the garlic olive oil with dipping spices…pretty garlicky in a good way.
We could hear great blue heron or herons talking and fishing after we went below for the evening. Another beautiful day and evening in Maine!
Thursday August 7th
Leisurely morning as we didn't have far to fo. I made Anadama bread French toast and bacon. We saw the bald eagle that we heard yesterday while we were having breakfast. We also saw a duck boat that went into a passage we had not seen before.
Left at 1300...very late for us, after brunch. We got a message from Paul's Marina that they did have a mooring ball available after we had been waitlisted previously. Yay!
We put up our main sail up right away. Passed Saddleback and brought out code-0 as wind was from the S and 6-8 kts
Little Mark Island Federal Daybeacon looks kind of like a bell tower
Wind built to 13-14 kts stayed on code-0. Turned NW up Broad sound then gybed around Whaleboat Island and the Geese (passed the goslings as well, saw mooring balls in there with a couple of sailboats) Took the sails down between Mere Point and Upper Goose. Arrived at the South/East end of the mooring field at Paul's Marina around 1700. They were sorting out which ball we could use. Judy (the owner) and one of the kids working the launch showed us to our mooring ball made sure we were OK before they left. Settled by 1720. Took the launch to the store to get dinner.
Guitar practice after dinner. For the first time this summer.
Friday August 8th
For breakfast biscuits from Judy's General Store. She really loved my moon picture and asked me to email them to her. Some excellent raspberry coffeecake in the store, plus decent coffee. Bought a pint of Judy's chicken salad and took it all back to baji-naji. We set off and had a great sail to Portland. Some tacking but wind built from 6 to 13/14 and as much as 17 kts. Got to Maine Yacht Center by 1600. Lots of cross wind trying to back her in heading down the gangway. Dock crew able to fend off the boat to our starboard. Much easier when we did a bat turn and was able to stern in.
Dinner at Veranda Thai
Did the calculations to see how much oil we should be burning, since we seem to be using more than we have in the past. The numbers are all OK, within the 0.25-0.5% range, so less worried. We will check it in the AM and put more in if needed.
Saturday August 9th
Up at 0840. Laz filled the aft water tank and we checked the oil as it seemed to be running low before. Today it is almost at 1/2, which is what we are used to. We must not have put the stick all the way back in when we did it before. Whew! I'm glad it's all as it should be. We enjoyed the coffee chocolate chip muffin from Harbor Treats in Boothbay Harbor and Judy's raspberry coffee cake, along with my usual yogurt, blueberries (the Maine ones are so good!) and granola.
Put up sails just after we cleared the marka indicating the narrow spot leaving Maine Yacht Center. Got the jib out shortly thereafter. Apparently we were sailing into some regatta! J22s, smaller boats, everyone all over tacking etc. Plus three big schooners, the ferry boats and the lobstermen. A proper weekend morning in Maine! Multiple tacks required to exit Portland Harbor due to aforementioned boats plus the rocks and islands all around. As we went out we heard some drama on the Coast Guard channel 16. Person in the water! No good when it's 59° water. Seems like a kayaker maybe? Fishing boat assisting, named All’s Well, of all things. Apparently all was well, and some kind of rescue effected as we listened.
Excellent sail to Biddleford Pool with wind mostly S or E of S. On our first tack the jib sheet hooked the Vberth hatch handle and flipped it open. Crazy!
Biddeford Pool is a cute snug harbor. Did not realize the moorings are on Dockwa. The Biddeford Pool Yacht club answered the VHF, but unfortunately no moorings are available. She was able to direct us to good anchorage.
Unexpected bonus there were fireworks, likely in OOB
Sadly, I had developed a UTI. Good thing I have meds on board!
Sunday August 10th
Up @0840 out by 0930, took a short cut to go out, then put up the main. Tacked out for a while then tacked back but we had zero VMG. Motored most of the way.
York Harbor entrance is as rocky and tricky as I remember. Well marked so the only issue is jerks on power boats creating wake, although most are pretty good. Here at 1445. Hunted for TR 2, found it. Big cat next to us left for Isle of Shoals.
Boji ride to the town dock around the corner. Walked to the local ice cream store where I got another ice cream float/soda. Laz had a waffle cone with Milky Way ice cream. Then walked the Fisherman's Walk to the beach.
Dinner at Dockside outside. Tried to get into the restaurant but they are fully booked. Had fried green beans which were pretty good despite the thicker coating. I had a great fried haddock sandwich and Laz had a bacon cheddar fries onion ring burger. Dessert is a crazy rocky road made with Chex, marshmallows and peanuts.
View of baji-naji from the Dockside deck.
Sunset views from baji-naji
Monday August 11th
Casual morning as we were hoping to leave when the currents were not quite as active. High tide is at 1300 and the incoming current is not quite as active as the outgoing.
Watched us tack and sail past the mooring ball in the currents. Left at 1030 with about 2 kts of current against us.
Minimal wind, but we were hopeful so we put up the main sail and tried to be patient. Ended up motoring to Isles of Shoals, to check it out.
As we approached the wind built to 8-11 kts from the SE. We were able sail with the code-0. The wind died as it was changing direction. On any other day, we might have waited out, but we headed into Safe Harbor Wentworth by the Sea in New Castle, NH as we had dinner plans with our friends Bill and Susan. Uneventful docking to C7. Interesting experience with a difficult docking by the Island Packet that came in just after us in the next slip. It came in and was completely cattywumpus in a 2 boat slip. The guy at the helm was not communicative and seemed to expect the woman on board and the dockhand to intuit what he was trying to do. Got it straightened out between the dockhand, Laz, myself and another mariner who used to be a dockhand. The next boat in, a 36’ Beneteau, came in perfectly, with the woman at the helm, which Laz was happy about. Met the couple aboard, Selina and Bill who have their boat at Safe Harbor Greenport. Turns out they live in NJ but they like the marina in Greenport. We agreed to chat more tomorrow as we had our evening engagement. We agreed to chat more tomorrow. Grabbed showers and headed to Bill and Susan’s. A delightful evening (we were there til MN!) with Bill, Susan, and our friend Lisa, who drove from Boston to join us. Bill is an excellent chef!
Tuesday August 12th
Slept in til almost 1000. Went to get breakfast at The Islander Cafe.
Crullers there are really good and the breakfast sandwich is on a house made biscuit or house made English muffin. Sadly, they were out of biscuits. Excellent mochas. I picked up a scone and more crullers and a couple of raspberry oat bars. Then we headed to the Beach Pea for more breakfast pastries. We went across the street to the Terra Cotta Pasta Co. We picked up a sandwich for lunch with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil on a ciabatta roll. We also got a square of regular and veggie lasagna for the freezer. We walked over to Byrne and Carlson for more delicious dark chocolate fruit and nut bars. At that point we needed to go back to baji-naji to store the cold things before heading out to West Marine for more magic sponges and then to Hannaford for milk/OJ and a few other provisions.
Some boat chores done, including filling the forward water tank and cleanin the rust from the stepladder off the port side. Frustrating trying to get wifi to work. Wanted to make my Premier League Fantasy team but the site is being weird.
Off to dinner with cousin Stacie and her husband Mark at Salt. Yum. Tomorrow we are off to Newburyport.
Wednesday August 13th
Checked oil , between 1/3 and 1/2 closer to 1/3. sea strainers mostly empty, washer AC vents, put sail tape on the bottom batten which popped out when we dropped the main coming in to Portsmouth. Crullers and yogurt for breakfast. Left at 1050
Wind 11-14kts from SSE main up starboard tack, then port
Fast Sail to Newburyport.
Arrived 1500
Thursday August 14th
Decent wind but from the wrong direction so we tacked out then back in. Wind softened with direction change and anticipation storm coming in so motored a bit until past Gloucester, when wind was 11 from a good direction. Sailed into Marblehead Harbor and up a ways before taking sails down and finding our mooring H5
Arrived 1640
Friday August 15th
Slept in, breakfast in the cockpit. Launch to town for OJ and FL Woods's CBYC 1/4 zip for Laz. Line at fuel dock so went on. Wind 11-15 kts from NNE with big waves. Had to tack out as wind was shifty enough that we couldn't quite dodge the rocks on one tack. Went way out so we could tack back in towards Gloucester. Big wind, big waves, big fun.
On mooring at 1605
Dinner with Keith and Agnes Miller at Oak and Ember in Gloucester
Saturday August 16th
Lay day Gloucester
Croissants and yogurt
Refueled and filled forward water tank at Brown's Yacht Yard
Into town to Source Bakery, Mark Adrian, Bishco for lunch, Turtle Alley!
Back to baji-naji and saw another Dufour 382 on a mooring a few away from us. Boji'd over to meet Jeff and Susie on Painted Kite. Fun to compare notes! They were missing and wanted the wine rack in the floor by the stairs so we Boji'd back and brought it to them! Brought them to baji-naji to show and then Laz took them to shore to meet their kids.
Apps: cheese board and Dinner of leftovers
Excellent band tonight on land. Boomsoss
Sunday August 17th
Up at 0730 and off the mooring at 0810 to go to Provincetown! Didn’t get past Ten Pound Island when the engine alarm started screaming. Overheating, so we limped back at forward idle to IH-14 mooring ball.
Turns out the alternator belt shredded and fell off. Laz and I read the manual, undid the correct screws, and once the metal cooled a bit could move the alternator almost enough to put the new belt on. Yes, we have spares. We pulled, tugged, gently tried a crowbar and need just a few more millimeters. So frustrating. The new alternator for the lithium battery is just a wee bit bigger than the old one and those millimeters matter. We can see where it ‘should’ pivot to, we just can’t get it there.
Meanwhile, even if we could get it on, the weather for tonight in P-town is storms. So we decided to stay in Gloucester and see if we can get help tomorrow and then set out on Tuesday. I had to do a round of changing all the bookings on Dockwa. Most people were very kind, and able to do that right away. Gloucester harbormaster was very kind and able to extend our booking til Tuesday. Good news is that my college roommate, Lydia, and her husband David, who live in Lexington, will be able to come out tomorrow and meet for dinner. Something nice out of all of it.
And yes, it was Arsenal v. Manchester United today, and Arsenal won.
