Day 5 - Boothbay harbor to Camden

Today was a record for wildlife sightings and for wind speed. We saw a total of 11 dolphins and a harbor seal. Now when I say we, I mean eagle eye Yolande. She sees them, and points them out to me. However, I had a major victory today as I saw one of the dolphins first.

We set off promptly from Boothbay harbor marina at 9:20am. Judy the owner of the marina told us that winds in the marina don’t normally pickup until 1pm, therefore since we had 10 kts of wind when we disembarked we had cause to be optimistic. As we motored out we brought out the sails. However, our hopes were dashed as the wind dropped as soon as we left the harbor.

Prairie Gold in Boothbay harbor marina

Judy’s red hut where she spends her day. When approaching the marina she says "look for the red hut".

Some pictures leaving Boothbay

We had several discussions on board about where to go. We were considering Tenants Harbor as there is a boat building company there and we would arrive promptly and might be able to see important things such as sailboats. Also this would give us buffer time to sail in low winds. However, Yolande suggested we head on to Camden. It turned out to be a great suggestion as we kept motoring and while doing so saw dolphins and lots of lobster pots.

This is our newest model washing machine – its eco friendly as it uses natural wave motion to agitate the clothes.

The wind grew as we entered Mussel Ridge Channel. We had 20 knots of wind from the stern. This is a narrow snaking path with thousands of lobster pots to avoid (we nearly renamed it lobster pot alley) . However, since we had been starved of sailing today, we brought the sails out and went on a wing-on-wing run. We really let the boom out to prevent an accidental gybe as we moved around the pots. We were flying, well sailing. The fastest this boat will do is 7.4 knots – it’s a physics law based on this being a displacement vessel and the hull length. We were at hull speed and we could feel the boat shake. This is when sailing is really fun, on the edge. We rapidly approached Camden and needed to bring our sails in too soon.

Wing-on-wing sailing along Mussel Ridge channel

As we were entering Camden harbor we saw a parasurfer and a paddle boarder

As we arrived we tied up at the town docks and turned on our personal hotspots on our phones and started to get the day of work done on our computers connected through phones to the internet– about an hour. I could work like this all year.

Here is some of the local Camden scenery