Maine is now behind me and I am in NH. Well, just barely. On the other side of the river is Kittery, ME. I had been here before when Kristin went to UNH. I decided to look a little harder to find a spot to pull in that was not as far away as Rockport, MA and read about this place. It is a little out of my way, but a beautiful place, complete with a nice beach that I plan to take the boys to tomorrow morning before I pull out and head to Gloucester. Also picked up a free mooring here in Little Harbor. The state maintains many moorings that are leased to people and if it is vacant when you pull in, you can have it. The caveat is you have to move if the rightful lease holder wants it. The one I picked up was covered in slime and seaweed and doesn't look like it has been used in months, so doubt I will get the boot here. Kind of like the nautical version of squatting.

Waited until this morning to make the call on leaving today or not as the forecast was for scattered thunderstorms. The weather map looked like just showers where I was headed, so took off, as I wanted to take advantage of the forecasted NW winds. It rained quite a bit for a couple of hours, and then I got what I was looking for at about 1100. The cold front passed (see the photo) when I was down below (of course) and when the winds went from SW @ 10 kts to N @ 25 kts in an instant, the boat heeled over hard and took off like a rocket. Well, maybe not a rocket. After all this is a sailboat, but in an instant we were moving along at 7.5 kts. Sustained 7 kts on a beam reach for the next 3 hours. I actually had to take in a little sail to straighten the boat up a little as the wind was overpowering. What a treat! Made better time than I planned and arrived here at 1600 as opposed to 1700 as expected under normal conditions.

A few things that were not put away properly down below (shame on me) went flying to the sole of the salon. When the front hit, one of those things was my waterway guide for the northeast. It is invaluable for all kinds of things like info on towns, anchorages, marinas, moorings, things to do, etc. In a matter of minutes, the boys shredded the pages on Portsmouth, so I will have to get the info the old fashioned way - Google it.

I saw a fish from a distance through the binoculars absolutely flying out of the water. It was big (guessing 5 - 6 feet) and even looked like a possible sword or sail fish. Does anyone on the list have any idea what they may have been? I could not get a close enough look to tell.

I tried the panorama thing on today's picture but the boat was moving around a lot in the confused seas so it did not turn out as well as I had hoped. And no, the boom is not bent like that. The camera apparently curves the edges of the photos like that.