Maine Part 1 Kittery and Portsmouth, NH. One Year On The Boat.

Spectacular! New Hampshire and Massachusetts have a beautiful coast line but Maine is truly spectacular by boat. Riding through all of the islands, the inlets, passing fabulous lighthouses, the greenery like Evergreens growing on the islands directly to the water and surrounded by massive rocks, seals, and birds is breath taking. I imagine the upper West coast to be similar from what photos I have seen. We will see that next year but not by boat.

I am not sure what I want to focus on when writing about Maine.

Marinas? I have not spent a lot of time writing about them. And they are a big part of our trip. Scenery? Maine is in it’s own catagory when it come to that. Weather? This area is very unpredictable and can be challenging. Food? I have spend a lot of time on that in my other blogs. But people like to eat. Activities? Maine offers so many activities. Not any thing different from any other state but the surroudings are amazing. The waters, inlets, sea creatures like lobsters, whales, and seals. Tough choices.

Let’s start with scenery, which I already mentioned a bit above, and location including water and land... If you have not gone to Maine, just go! I have friends who have been trying to get us up there for years and we have never been able to work it out. I am sorry it took so long to get there. We loved it!!! We weren’t able stop at all of the quaint little towns the state offers. Not enough time. We have one year on the boat and we still have to do our southern journey from Annapolis to the Bahamas and be home by May of 2025. As of today, Aug. 17th, 2024, we are on day 109 staying in Vineyard Haven, MA. and we still need to get home for the Fall. My photos will not do Portsmouth/Kittery any justice but I think you will get the idea. The pictures get better as we go north.

When we left Gloucester it was incredibly foggy. the waters were calm and serene and a bit eery. But beautiful in it’s own way. We could only see about 10-20 yards ahead of us. Thank goodness for radar. We left early along with some lobster boats heading out to work. This is when we started to experience the lobster pots. We are familiar with having to watch for crab pots in Maryland but lobster pots are different. I will get into more details about that later. There are a few differences i want to mention now. The lobster pots’ buoys are bigger and brighter and most of them have sticks sticking out of them. They stand out in good weather and in the fog. Heading to Portsmouth, NH/Kittery, ME. was amazing even through the fog. It cleared up after a few hours and we were finally able to see the shore line. The water was calm and you could then see for miles.

The coast line started to have more character on the shore. Coming into Portsmouth/Kittery through Piscataqua River has a mix of beauty and commercial. We passed several lighthouses (I will blog about all the lighthouses we passed on this journey later), a Naval Shipyard including a Naval Prison, moored pleasure and working boats, islands and bridges. We docked at the Piscataqua River Marina. The reason I am putting Portsmouth/Kittery together is that this river separates this part of these states, New Hampshire and Maine. We were docked on the Kittery side and just under the Memorial Bridge. The bridge is about 1200 feet long so it was easy to get over to Portsmouth.

This marina is interesting. The current in Piscataqua can be very strong. It can run 10-12 knots with churning through out. There are several areas of waters that connect which is part of what causes the current. The tidal swing can go up/down 9 feet. The dock master at the marina was insistent on us arriving at slack tide (where there was no movement in the river) to dock. He was right. It made docking so much easier. But another problem with this marina is that there are no “no wake zones” nearby. So, all boats from dinghies to 17’ boats to lobster boats to yachts never slow down. We were placed at the t-head and rocked the entire time. So much so I had to batten down the hatches as if we were traveling. It was a bit crazy!! The river is interesting to watch from the land. You can watch all of the boats I mentioned plus Tankers/Freighters carrying salt and fuel, nuclear submarines, ferries, Coast Guard, Tug boats and more. The Memorial bridge is a lift bridge. Which means the center of the bridge is lifted to allow the large tankers and freighters to pass through. It was pretty cool to see but a bit nerve racking to watch the tankers go through especially after what happened in Baltimore a few months earlier.

Portsmouth reminds us of Annapolis, MD. Home. But on a larger scale. It has everything Annapolis has; historical architecture, great restaurants, boating, museums, etc. It also has a large park for festivals. This year they are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Prescott park featuring live theatre performances and live music all summer. We got a chance to see Allen Stone there during out return trip. The tickets are reasonable if not cheap! Ours were $15 each for general admission. We brought our chairs, sat on the grass and enjoyed the show.

This town is somewhat bike friendly. We rode to Wentworth by the Sea resort. It’s lovely. We had a drink at their restaurant near the marina. What? A Safe Harbor Marina? We tried to get a slip there but they were sold out but put us on a waiting list. We never did get in but will stay there next time we come up. We did some research and found another Safe Harbor marina in Kittery. We should have done more research to begin with…live and learn. This marina was in Piscataqua River but on the other side of Jamaica Island. We were more protected and we used our dingy, mini venture, to go to the concert. Riding back was a bit tricky with not too much light from the shore or the moonlight. But, we made it. Adversity!

One of the highlights was a surprise get together with friends who happened to be there at the same time.. We met for coffee at before they left. It was so fun to catch up. We look forward to seeing them when we head south in the winter.