July 2015 – Cruising along the East Coast and Bahamas

Both Hampton Beach and Salisbury Beach live up to their names in spades, with miles of walkable beach with hardly a speck of seaweed to smoosh your foot upon. No shells or sea glass either. Cottages line the beach and while Hampton Beach provides a mini Wildwood, NJ along the street, Salisbury offers the requisite cheesy liquor stores, fried dough and pizza joints.

The main drag by Hampton Beach

Remember this Coppertone sign?

Newburyport proved a lovely surprise and only a ten minute drive down Rte 1. Located on the Merrimack River, it is welcoming to boaters, walkers, shoppers and diners. The attractive waterfront is easy to enjoy; the younger set taking selfies and the older crowd wishing they could.

Well if that isn’t Not Your Average Joe’s across the street

On our must-do list was fried clams at Woodman’s of Essex, MA and lobster pizza at Atlantic Pizza Co. in Rockport, oh and find a beach with sea glass.

Bonus finds were the Essex Shipbuilding Museum, Russell Farms, Crane Beach, Halibut Point Park and great sea glass at Loblolly Cove in Rockport. On our way in to Rockport we’d scoped out two likely sea glass beaches; Pebble and Loblolly. Pebble lived up to the name; loaded with smooth multi-sized rocks and pebbles large and small. Nary a shard of glass nor an unbroken shell. But I knew I’d hit pay dirt, aka sea glass heaven, at Loblolly. A man about our age was walking the beach, head bent down and I figured he lived nearby and knew the beach offered something to beach combers.

Loblolly Cove, Rockport

He asked what I was looking for and his response was, “I beat you to it.” So you think. He told me that he’d “mined this beach” for years, using the glass to fill lamp bases and other containers to give as gifts. The corner would be the best spot. We started at the corner and worked our way around through the larger rocks with pockets of coarse sand nestled in between, every spot with sea glass. I added a new color to my collection; yellow.

On the site of former ship building company

Russ says, “we had one of those.” The old geezer!

101 yrs old- Woodman's is on the "list" of things to do b4 you die

101 yrs old- Woodman’s is on the “list” of things to do before you die

Russ and his farm

oh ya soooo good

careful now, rung by rung

This talented mother hen made her way slowly down the ladder. The farm offered PYO and the raspberries we picked tasted divine.
The day after our sojourn to Essex and Ipswich Massachusetts we visited Rockport. You can check the link above for why we loved it so much the first time. You won’t be surprised to hear we had to have another lobster pizza! Nor that one of us visited Beadles Bead Shop. 🙂

Lobster loaded pizza at Atlantic Pizza Company

A luscious lunch followed by irresistible ice cream didn’t pile on guilt because the next stop was Halibut Point Park, the site of a former granite quarry. The visitor center was closed for repairs so we didn’t get the full scoop on dates, process or volume. From the looks of it, the cut granite was hauled down to the water and loaded on a schooner or barge to be delivered throughout New England.

Granite quarry at Halibut Point Park. This is only one half of it.

Is she longing for the sea?

the arch has been invented!

Saturday the temp hit 87 and we joined hundreds of other escapees at, can you believe it?? The beach!! Yep, loaded with beach gear, what little we have, we spent 2 ½ hours at Salisbury State Beach. The state park campground there has 481 sites and is so popular that even 5 mos ago booking a week’s stay wasn’t possible. Luckily our site at Pines Camping less than two miles up the road is mostly moderate shade and that allows the air conditioning to take the morning off and work like crazy in the afternoon. Monday, Annie and crew would head NW away from the coast to…??

Our site 136A Pines Camping

Ease her in

Apologize for the over-used saying, but you know it; the one about the two happiest days in a boat owner’s life being the day of purchase and then, the day she is sold. One of us is happier now than the other and yet still sad. The vehicle that brought us safely to such wonderful places, that helped us meet so many people (many we still are in touch with); how can we ever forget her?

I don’t need to repeat the early days of excitement, nor will I lay the blame solely at Bob Bitchin’s seafaring feet for it was his first-ever East Coast Cruising Seminar held in Mystic, CT that spurred us on. But Bob does expect some blame from those who have cast off the lines and ventured out farther than the nearest sandbar. So Bob, you get to share the blame with Russ’s Mom and Dad who raised their three kids with boats, boating and more boating!

After a long winter’s nap which was really more like an important dermatologist visit, Ms Ortolan emerged from the Maine Cat cocoon on a beautiful June day (low winds too!).

two police, boat, trailer/mast, worker, us and others behind

The convoy: two police cars, boat, trailer/mast, worker, us and others behind

Within a week she was on deposit and with words like “immaculate” used to describe her, the new owners-to-be endeared themselves to us. As things worked out; hey life must go on even when you have a new toy, she was still ours until July 6 when we’d seal the deal with moolah and mushy hugging.

Russ desperately wanted to be aboard on Father’s Day (for more reasons than the obvious) for the start of a short (measured in miles) trip to South Freeport, ME tucked up into the northern corner of Casco Bay. After time on the mooring at Broad Cove to “take care of things”, we needed to get her closer to Portland for the arrival of her new “sail her like crazy” owners! “ 🙂

The logistics were staggering and I am not sure if you can stand to hear about it but I feel like I need to tell you so you can be amazed at how we pulled it off! The short version then: find marina with protected moorings near Portland and book a ball for a week, find nearby RV park for one night July 5 so Annie can be staged, confirm with Duck Puddle that they do have a place for Annie to be for two weeks while we are on Ms Ortolan (ohhh I can feel the jealous vibes now). When we first booked Duck Puddle we knew that July 2 would be the end for any site available to us, other than a spot to dry camp. Leaving the RV and moving onto the boat was the perfect solution and we could check on things once we got to the marina and our car.

Pretty field flowers and butterfly next to our site.

In the middle of all this, which took a few days, we had a few boat things to fix; you know, the stuff that craps out at the year five mark or decides to make your life tough once the boat goes on deposit. The UPS man got to know us really well and we got so tight that he even dropped off packages right at our site!

In between major nasty weather events we made our way from Bremen to South Freeport via Boothbay Harbor.

Windjammers sail in Boothbay Harbor

Looking across from our anchorage

S/v Bowdoin 88′- built in Castine 1920 for Arctic explorer Adm Donald MacMillan

A few hours south of Boothbay is Casco Bay where we’d spent the greater part of a week last August. Shortly past Eagle Island the engines took a break and we unfurled the screecher one last time for a slow 4kt sail up toward the Haraseekett River and South Freeport.

Our first mooring was right at the entrance, but then we moved in from the nosebleed section. The shot below is looking out toward the entrance to the protected mooring field.

Pound of Tea Island- second from left

With some time to kill before the big day we checked out the local donut shops, Cape Elizabeth, and got back to Dolphin Marina and Restaurant for a sumptuous dinner. Mr Fixit remained busy and once in a while needed a break.