We spent Friday night tied up to someone’s mooring on Cow Island, about a half hour motorboat ride from Portland. We figured it wouldn’t be a problem. There were lots of empty moorings so we just took one. As the evening went on a number of small power boats came in and took most of the other empty moorings. We were worried there was going to be loud partying but all the boats were gone before it was too dark and they weren’t very loud.

The next morning we took our time and motored over to Portland. We picked a spot to anchor on the edge of the mooring field, debating on whether we should be closer to the dinghy dock or more out of the way of all the traffic. We ended up picking being closer to the dinghy dock which turned out to be a fortuitous decision as you will see later. We were also right in front of the Narrow Gauge Railroad which Bill had already decided we should take a ride on. We took the dinghy to the dock where they charge $10 to leave your dinghy for a day. We walked around town and then took our train ride. It was a nice ride along the waterfront. We had heard when we were in the marine store early in the day that the lobster boat races were on Sunday. No one had too much information on them, but we decided we would definitely stay to watch them. We had gone through Portland when they had the races last year about this time but hadn’t stopped at all. We finished Saturday up by having dinner with Chris, one of the Midshipmen we sponsored from the Naval Academy another lifetime ago.

This morning we got up early and walked more than a mile to go to a breakfast restaurant that Bill had found online, Becky’s Diner. We were there by 7:45am! It was a great breakfast. I actually could not even finish my meal, and that never ever happens. We walked back to the dinghy and got back to the boat before all the excitement started happening in Portland Harbor. As it turns out we were anchored right at the finish line of the race! The Coast Guard Auxiliary came over and told us to move back a bit but Bill convinced them that it would do no good, we would just swing back with the wind. Other boats started coming and anchoring near us, other boats rafted to them, and some boats just drifted around. Finally the races started. They were a bit disorganized but it was a lot of fun to watch as the different classes of boats competed. There were about fifteen different races with the last ones having the winners of all the other races competing against each other. The picture above is from one of the races. Finally when the lobster boats finished racing five big tug boats drove up the race course and they raced each other. The wake they threw was very exciting. The boat jumped up and down. We did have a casualty, the anchor float Bill had set to mark our anchor got pulled off the line by the wake and floated away. We got it back but it is deflated now, no good anymore. The tug boat that won the race came back up and did a 360 degree spin. It was a wonderful thing to watch. Even funnier was that they did the race again and this time the tug boat that won the first race ran this race going backwards! Check out the video that Bill shot during the races.