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Left Gloucester at 7:00 and headed south at 102 degrees. After 34 nm we broke the 400+ miles for this trip.

Sandra loves to shop in Scituate, so you know where we went after arrival… The day was sunny with very light winds out of the south-south west.  No whales, seals or sharks…

This is Wendy’s Dream’s home port so the fleet will be down to one tomorrow. We will have traveled the farthest to be on the CANE Maine Cruise.

Portsmouth was fogged in this morning. We had planned on sailing out around 9:00 but one of the CANE group left early and gave a report of about 50 foot visability. We all agreed to sit tight and wait it out. Around 11:20, there was enough of a break, that we made a run for it. Near the Isle of Shoals it had burned off. We arrived at the Annisquam River near high tide, which was a good thing as another member that had left two days ago bottomed out twice during his passage (He has a 5’6" draft and we are 5’4"  We were the two biggest boats on the cruise.)

 In the Annisquam River the first bridge is fixed with a 65’ clearance (we are 56’ high), no problem. The second bridge is a railroad draw bridge and was going down for a commuter train as we approached. We all held position for about ten minutes and then it opened. This is not easy due to the strong current and wind. The last bridge is at Blyman Canal and is another draw bridge for automobiles with about an 18 foot width. The current really flows through this area.

We are at 369 total nautical miles for this trip to date.

Up by 4:30 and sailing by 5:30, Mom needed two cups of coffee before casting off. The fleet  covered 59 nm today arriving at Wentworth by the Sea Marina by 3:00 PM. Another day of motor sailing with the wind directly on us. A fairly uneventful sail, a few harbor seals, until we arrived at Portsmouth. Solemates headed directly into the wind and Sandra started to pull in on the inhaul…the main would not roll into the mast. I went to the mast to see what the problem was…where the sail is tacked to the furler, the bolt had come out and jammed against the mast. As Sandra headed into the wind, avoiding the many lobster traps, I managed to let the main down and tied it to the boom. Did I mention it was raining during this exercise…The picture at the slip show the sail on the boom.

Tommorrow, I will try to fix this problem with lock-tight.. The fleet plans to stay in port Thursday as the storm passes.

The revised plan for Solemates is to sail Wednesday to Portsmouth,NH – Wentworth Marina for the night and Thursday night, then on to Gloucester for Friday and on to Scituate for Saturday.

This is another resort area that is attempting to be a Wentworth By the Sea, but doesn’t do it as well.  We are able to get WiFi here, which we haven’t been able to do elsewhere, however, so we won’t complain.  Dad and I walked into the spa area as they said at check in that there was a hot tub, etc.  We could have gotten the "royal treatment" for only $170.00, for 50 minutes, with their Reiki Master.  (You can imagine Dad’s response . . . he offered to rub my back – with diesel oil if I wanted, or he offered to give me my own private mud bath – using the gunk left on the anchor from our last little venture at Snow Island)  HaHa.

We are going to assume that our blog is caught up now.  The group we are with are getting a bit uncomfortable with the weather reports and many have their own ideas about how we should rearrange our trip.  We are all in agreement that we won’t be doing the Saco River Yacht Club, which was to be our next stop, but many are dispersing and going in groups of two or three to confront what they feel will be challenging weather.  Dad and I haven’t made up our mind, yet, but be assured that our gear and provisions will more than suffice through whatever the next adventure turns out to be. 

Snow Island is actually amongst a group of islands, some of which appear to be private, which weren’t even located on one of our charts.  Since we have already used the word secluded, perhaps we can describe the experience better if we attempt to make you use your imagination. Imagine owning your own mooring in a body of water that won’t have another mooring out for at least another nm or so (and Brent, we took a picture of that mooring for you, especially.  It has a catamaran on a solitary mooring and not a soul in sight.)  We anchored in mud that held so well that it sucked our anchor in and covered 3/4 of the shank, as well.

The pictures of the mother seal and her baby, and the attempt at catching shots of the osprey tell it all.

This harbor is similar, but on a smaller scale, to Provincetown.  We viewed almost every shop available, participated in a group meal at the TugBoat Inn (which was our marina), did a little laundry, and had to replenish the scotch supply.  This is the life!

Quaint fishing village with little town or city activity.  We saw porpoise, seal and sharks on the way here and and hosted a small party for the higher-functioning animal life on Sole Mates III, which you will see in the pictures.

We only had to sail 23.3 miles to arrive at this harbor and we broke the over 200 nm mark for this cruise today.

To date, this has been our favorite place on this cruise.  It was 36.7 nm from Portland, and well worth every one of them.  To say it is secluded is probably an understatement. It was nice to enjoy the quiet and the wildlife was spectacular.

The pictures that we are providing show the osprey nest with babies that took over one of the daymarkers. You should also pay attention to the steepness of the walkways and the fact that much of the cove (at least the water part) disappears at low tide.  You really don’t want to make a mistake navigating this area.

Explored South Portland today. It seems to be a growing community as they are building many condos. 

We attended a cruise dinner at 5:30 with 30+ members; tommorow, the two week cruise group goes to Chrismas Cove, and the one week cruise group is off to Boothbay Harbor. Fourteen boat will form a circle tommorow in front of the marina to form up prior to leaving the harbor. The weather seems to be cooperating.