Our strategy for getting to Boothbay Harbor on time

Well we made it all the way to Boothbay Harbor, Maine in probably one of the quickest trips up the coast. From Oxford, Md to Boothbay Harbor is close to 600 miles. We left Summit North Marina on the C&D Canal last Sunday morning and made it into Boothbay Harbor and on our mooring before noon Thursday. A distance of over 500 miles. We spent a night in Cape May, Block Island and stopped for fuel in Sandwich, MA. We beat the bad weather which was our intent but as it turned out up here the storms weren't so bad. But as I understand they were ferocious elsewhere and I didn't want to get caught offshore in a violent thunderstorm or massive fog. So we pressed on and made the trip quickly and safely.

Boothbay Harbor is quite the quintessential coastal Maine town. A beautiful deep-water harbor full of boats with lots of quaint stores, inns and of course restaurants featuring Maine's star attraction-lopsta.  On our first night here we had to go to the Lobster Deck for dinner of a full cooked lobster, corn on the cob and a dinner roll. Not the kind of food we usually eat but we celebrated our arrival after dodging lobster pots for the past 300 miles.

The weather reminds me of the Florida Keys in January. Daytime highs have been in the low 80's, nighttime about 60 (or less) and the water is about 62 degrees. We plan to be here through Tuesday which will give us a chance to update our blog for all that has happened and plan our adventure wehn we leave here.

Our trip here from Block Island was unplanned. Our plan was to travel from Block Island to Sandwich, MA on the Cape Cod Canal and spend the night covering about 70 miles. Then we would leave there Thursday and do an overnight up to Boothbay Harbor covering about 130 miles arriving on Friday. But Tuesday night while we were on Block Island severe weather hit the coast and we were glad where we were. The forecast for Thursday night looked ominous with a cold front coming through. Predictions were that it would not be that severe further north but would result in morning fog. The reports were continuing to report worsening conditions.

Sunset over Boston. We were about 20 miles east just entering the shipping approaches to Boston harbor.

We had left Block Island about 0700 and were approaching the Cape Cod Canal about 1500. We figured that we could get through the canal before 1700 and have benign conditions all night and be in secured in Boothbay Harbor before noon before any storms hit. As a plan B we thought we could stop in Sandwich and get an early start but only go part way and get secured in a harbor before the storms hit and still make it by Friday afternoon to Boothbay Harbor. But, not knowing the area and what we would find in any of the harbors we didn't want to risk getting caught in an exposed location so we opted to enjoy the benign conditions and move forward.

Sunrise off the coast of Maine to totally placid water.

Next blog about the trip and then another one on our adventure in Delaware.  But I thought for other sailors they might want to understand how we got here.

Linda by the harbor with Amekaya in the background after a nap and exploring this wonderful port of call.