Day 8 – Camden to Boothbay

This sailing day was the second with great winds. The low pressure system had come through the day before and we still had the tail end of the winds. We headed out of Camden towards the east – winds were SSE – and tacked with the goal of heading south out of Penobscot bay and then west to a destination unknown. Sailing was great with lots of spray because we had 6 foot swells from the preceding day’s storm. The winds started to slowly move westward that allowed is to have a long tack south that was slowly changing to SW. We used the winds to our advantage as much as possible but they eventually turned to the west, our destination path.

We had decided to get to Boothbay harbor where we knew oysters would be waiting. We estimated that to sail there with all the tacking would take until at least midnight. So eventually we turned on the engine. For about 2 hours we took a pounding heading straight into the wind and the waves, spray everywhere and our bodies feeling bruised.

On my radar app I was following some storms with great interest. There was one to the south in which a waterspout was observed. We calculated that we were heading away from its path, then a thunderstom storm popped up just north, but is was heading NE. Today we were lucky as we managed to find a path between the cells.

We had called ahead to Judy at Boothbay harbor marina, and she told us which slip to use as we would be arriving after she left. At 7:30pm, 10 hours after our departure we arrived and had completed about 57nm of a great journey.

At times we were getting internet connections on our phones and read of the high temperatures on the mainland. In contrast we were sailing with 59 degrees Fahrenheit and we were wearing layers to keep warm. It was still 59 F as we were entering the channel leading to Boothbay harbor, about 1nm from our destination. By the time we docked we were unlayering as the temps rose to over 80F.