Casco Bay Maine and it's Friday!!!

We have been in Maine for nearly a week and have settled in on Pandora.  We are particularly enjoying our new cockpit cushions and updated fabric in down below.  Work has been going well and I put in a full week working aboard.  It's certainly not as easy as working in an office but the view is certainly better.   The cell phone booster is also coming in handy as it makes a weak cell signal a lot better.  I do have to be mindful of where we are anchored to be sure that I can get my e-mail and make calls that sound clear.

While working aboard can be tough, a decided benefit is to finish up at the end of the day, jump in the dink with Brenda and head out on an evening cocktail cruise around the harbor.

For much of the week we remained in Falmouth, just north of Portland, where we had made landfall last weekend.  Our friends Frank and Gail have been terrific hosts even going as far as lending us their car so that we could run our car up to Rockland so that it would be accessible at a location that was at the mid point of where we expect to spend time cruising for the rest of the summer.

We ran our car up to Rockland late on Wednesday afternoon and left it near town boat ramp, a place where we had parked several times over the years.  This year I wasn't certain if it was a good place to park as there weren't any other cars in the area.  In past years we have left a car on the grass just off the parking lot along with others that had done the same thing.  However, this year there wasn't a sign of anyone parking there and I just wasn't comfortable in leaving it there.  The thought of leaving a car for more than a month and coming back only to find that the car is gone wasn't appealing.  However, after speaking to a number of folks that happened by I found someone who was friends with the Rockland Harbor Master and made a call for me to see if it was OK to park there.  Happily, she put me on the phone, I explained my plan and happily, he said yes that it was just fine to leave a car there.  I guess that makes him my new favorite harbor master of the week.

What a relief to have that part of our cruise logistics solved.  Well, back in the car for the 90min run back to Falmouth and Pandora.   As luck would have it, the picture perfect sunny Maine afternoon deteriorated as a massive storm cell rolled over the area complete with wind, heavy rain and impressive lightning.  By the time we dropped off our friend's car and I hoofed it back to the town landing, the rain had not let up much.   I was a little damp, for sure.

Earlier in the week I had decided to move Pandora off of the club mooring to save $$ and had moved her waaaaaay over to the other side of the harbor in the lee of a very pretty island.   That was the good news.  The bad news was that we were now looking at a mile plus run in the rain, with no rain gear, to get back to Pandora.  To make it even more fun, it was nearly dark, except for the constant lightning in the distance lighting up the sky.  That did make it a bit easier to see where we were going when it flashed. The positive side is that the storm had mostly passed and it was perfectly calm.

As you can imagine, a mile is a long way in a dink when you have to go really slow.   However, in spite of the fading light and thankfully, calm conditions we were soon zipping along on a plane with the dink and in about 10 minutes,were safely aboard Pandora.

I have to say that Brenda was a champ about the whole adventure.  In spite of being soaked, a glass of wine made everything about right.

Fast forward to Friday morning as I write this post and the weather is wonderful. It's not too cool and though the sky is somewhat overcast, it's clearly going to be a great day.  With good weather in the forecast for the coming weekend, we are looking forward to the next few days.

Not a bad view to see first thing in the morning.  This is the early morning view as I write this post.

The light in the early morning is just so warm and a great welcome to a new day.

One particularly nice thing about cruising is that you can get the best views and there is always a water view.

You can often see delightful and unexpected things on the water such as this group of Opti sailors being towed out for a day of sailing lessons. These little folks were just so cute and looked like a bunch of moths skipping across the water.

For the big kids it's always nice to fly over the water in an ultra light.  The pilot and his passenger took off from a nearby field and buzzed just over the water, around a small island, and headed off into the distance or should I say, off into the sunset.  I hope that they had life preservers on board.

All and all, a very nice first week aboard.  And did I mention the wonderful roasted pork dinner with onions and carrots that we enjoyed last night as the sun was setting?  Very nice indeed.