Day 3 heading to Portland

This log of the day will be updated during the day - return later for more information. (You will be able to tell how good sailing conditions are by the frequency of entries - poor wind means Phil is bored and so he will log in more often)

Predicted winds for today are low and from the wrong direction so we will undoubtedly have to use the engine all day. Although we are intent on heading a significant distance to the northeast, today is not the day to make that trip. Instead we called a marina at Portland and will spend the night there. Its about 50nm from Portsmouth to Portland so under engine power at 6knots it wont be too bad. We will just try to find things to keep our minds busy during the monotony of engine power. Wind predictions look favorable for tomorrow - 15 kts from the SW - so they will be great to get as along the Maine coast (for a wind prediction site checkout passageweather.com)

So far we have ended up at a different destination each day than we had originally planned. With enough time, this is one of the appealing things about sailing - so different than normal office life where all is planned and scheduled well in advance.

Here is Prairie Gold in the Wentworth by the sea marina just before we disembark. On the finger pier is a nice mat. Unfortunately at the wrong end for us.

A picture looking back at the harbor and marina as we departed

10:00am - we disembarked at 7:45am and have been motoring since. The wind forecast is correct, little of it and right on our nose. However, it made cooking breakfast at sea much easier than when under sail and having a significant heel angle.

12 noon – The wind picked up at 11am and we switched over to sails. For the past hour we have been making about 5.5 kts. Its great not to hear the motor, just the ripples of the water. The wind forecast has been correct so far: it started to build straight off our bow and has slowly moved to the NE so that we can sail initially on a close haul, and now on a close reach. I just hope the wind stays as it is (about 11kts apparent) and doesn’t follow the rest of the prediction which is for it to die to 0kts.

1:30pm: We have been sailing for two and a half hours. The wind is shifting further to starboard and are now on a beam reach making 6.5kts. Here is a little shot of our cockpit - charts, computers, phone modem connection, ipad.


At 5:15 pm we arrived at DaMillo's Marina in Portland. As we reversed into our slip with a strong crosswind, the staff congratulated us on a great job and said "I have never seen anyone able to do that in a sailboat before". I guess we did something right.

As we approached the marina this magnificent tall ship sailed past us.