Boothbay to Casco Bay

Boothbay to Casco Bay

Leaving the cozy villages of Penobscot Bay required a long run of 6 hours – long after weeks of short one to two hour hops.  Boothbay is a major tourist stop and provided us a nice break on our way to the Casco Bay area.  Boothbay Harbor is a well-protected anchorage and mooring field with easy access to the town of shops, restaurants, and provisions.  Our adventures included a visit to the library used book store and the local lobster wharf where we bought crab instead of lobster.

Between Boothbay Harbor and Casco Bay, we took a side trip up the Kennebec River to tour the Maine Maritime Museum.  The ten mile trip up river was swift since we got the tide in our favor, but it was shrouded in mystery since the dense fog did not lift until we rounded the last corner. The museum, however, was worth the trip.  The museum is housed on the grounds of the last wooden schooner shipyard.  This is where the six-masted Wyoming was built – one of the last giant wooden schooners. The massive size of this dinosaur is graphically represented by a sculpture on the grounds. It is easy to see that the ship would dwarf many vessels afloat today.  We also made a detour to see the remains of another wooden schooner – the Snow Squall – although only a small fraction of the hull has been salvaged, the beams hint at the stout construction needed to support this giant. The museum sits next to the Bath Iron Works where modern steel ships are still being fabricated. Sadly we missed the tour of the BIW although we snapped a few photos of the Zumwalt – a new stealth naval weapon as we dinked up to the Bath city dock.  It kind of reminded us of that civil war iron clad we saw back in Portsmouth, VA.

Freeport of LLBean fame was our next destination. Well we actually grabbed a mooring in South Freeport and caught a taxi into the village shopping mecca built around the LLBean campus.  The flagship store is open 24/7 and seemed to keep busy enough to warrant those hours.  The shops around LLBean were also worth a few stops so we finally returned – after a couple trips – poorer but heavily laden. The brand new boaters lounge at Brewer’s provided some US Open Tennis entertainment to round out our day.

Before leaving Casco Bay we scooted over to Portland for some big city fun nestled in with the cruise ships.  Visiting town with the big boys meant lots of foot traffic and extra stalls lining the harbor.  A trolley tour started us off with the big picture and a look at the famous Portland Head Lighthouse. On our leisure day off we toured the boyhood home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the ornate Italianate Victoria mansion after breakfast in the Porthole Café on the authentic fishing wharf. (The sights and smells were not canned for tourists, but the food was great.)  Steve’s mail finally showed up so he could change his oils and filters while the admiral polished the silver.