Day 168 - Fri 11 Sep 2015
Docked – Camden, ME

[photo: some of the Castine waterfront. It was too cloudy today to take photos at Camden.]

As forecast, the wind piped up and the rain continued in the early morning hours. We had a slow start for that reason and didn’t get underway until almost 0900. Leaving the harbor was easy, despite the limited visibility in the rain, but the NW course to get to the W side of Islesboro Island had the nasty chop rolling us a bit more than we like. I adjusted course to take it more off the bow until we could turn 30 minutes later to put the wind and waves off our stern.

The rest of the run was comfortable, except that the following seas giving us a speed boost also made the autopilot wander quite a bit. One second you were sure you would miss the lobster buoy, and a few seconds later, the boat was heading right towards it. I wound up hand-steering for a while. We saw one commercial lobster boat and one ferry and that was it.

Our first stop in Camden Harbor was for fuel at Wayfarer’s. It was the cheapest fuel we have bought in ages at only $2.31 per gal. They certainly pack the boats into this place. The outer harbor has many moorings where the seas today were rocking those boats a lot, and the inner harbor had dozens of those floats (rectangular docks moored in the harbor) spaced pretty close together. After fueling, we moved a few hundred yards to the Camden Public Landing where there was enough room for us on the dock to have electric and water for the next 2 days.

An amazing thing happened at the fuel dock. Just before we cast off, our friends from our home town of Punta Gorda, Pat and Bob, walked down the dock to surprise us. They have rented a house up here for the past several years and just happened to be taking a walk when they saw our boat. It is a rather unique boat and Bob said it almost had to be us. They cast us off and walked over to join us once we docked for the day. It was great catching up with them, for we don’t see them all that often at home like you might think.

After they left, we had a late lunch and then Diane got started on her chores and I got started using up a bunch of canned products and fresh ingredients to make a large batch of spaghetti sauce. It also helped warm the boat on this rather cold, blustery day. Our location is right at the heart of the downtown and there were many passers-by and onlookers. Most of them were wearing lots of clothing like it was winter. I got a lot of looks walking up to pay at the harbormaster’s shack in my shorts and short-sleeved fishing shirt.

After a nap and some chores, we got cleaned up and walked into the town near the waterfront. It was nearing 1700 and many stores were closing, but we just wanted to stretch our legs and get a feel for it before our major exploration tomorrow. Diane noted that the closest place to buy liquor was in the pharmacy. We joked about how often a toast with an alcoholic beverage is “Here’s to your health.” I guess a pharmacy makes a great outlet for a healthy beverage, right?

At the end of our walk, we stopped at Cappy’s for a light supper. Diane had some really good calamari and I had a very tasty pulled pork sandwich. I was tired of having seafood and this was a nice change. We strolled back to the boat and I took Clyde for a walk on the dock. He had several admirers and before we knew it, it was getting dark about 1900.

We’ll be here all day tomorrow and then probably head to Rockland on Sun.