The Outliers

We left Camden with a decided turn towards the southwest and Boston to a rendezvous with family at the end of July. The moment is bittersweet as we are working toward leaving Maine, a place we have truly enjoyed cruising while looking forward to family holiday in Boston, yet another city we have never been too.

The weather has been very settled with a nice SW flow generating 5-10 knot winds. While these are all headwinds for us going back down the coast, the upside was the ability to visit some of the more remote islands of Maine. We started with a stop in Muscle pass at Home Harbor, then on to Matinicus, from there Monhegan. Both Matinicus and Monhegan have about 40 year round residents, with Matinicus being the farthest offshore inhabited island in Maine. The islands have developed quite differently though with Matinicus clinging to a fishery economy while Monhegan has embraced tourism.

Matinicus lacks for even a store and although there was a Post Office on our trip to shore we noted it was completely burned down. Other than a provision for moorings in the rather tight and rocky harbor there are very few facilities. Landing by dinghy was against the wharf requiring all to scramble up a 10 foot ladder. We hiked to the south of the island seeing our first sand beach in Maine, which we had all to ourselves even though this was Sunday on the 4th of July weekend.

Monhegan has several more services, though not necessarily for the cruising sailor. They welcome 5-6 tourist boats a day and cater to them with shops and restaurants. Hiking Monhegan took us to an old tug boat wreck along a very rocky coast which Jake had a blast climbing. Both islands were beautiful, remote and rewarding. We were lucky to have settled weather allowing us to anchor at these rather exposed islands and take in all they had to offer.

From Monhegan we worked our way into the Boothbay harbor region and into Sheepscot bay picking our way among offshore and tight inter-island passages to make way in the headwinds. From Sheepscot we took a nice pasting trying to round Cape Small putting Jake over the lee rail green with seasickness. Nikita was found in Sebasco Harbor Resort where 2 days of a salt water swimming pool and lobster feasts allowed the captain to recover credibility with the crew.

With Sebasco we enter Casco bay, the last of Maine’s great sailing regions, which ends in Portland. Weather permitting we will spend the next week exploring Casco before heading for Boston via the Isle of Shoals.