This week, we continued our cruise up the coast of Maine, port-hopping as we headed north. We started the week in Kennebunkport, stopped in Portland and Boothbay Harbor, and ended in Camden. In all, we cruised 124 miles this week. We’ve had great weather when traveling, rain and hail when in port! We visited Trolls in the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, and Puffins on Eastern Egg Island!
This week was all about coming home to New Hampshire, the 13th state on our trip. We had a great time visiting with family and friends and exploring what had changed in one of our favorite towns, Portsmouth. We stayed put for the week, so only traveled 25 miles. Brenda took a bit of a tumble when she slipped on a wet dock, our first injury of the trip.
From Plymouth, we went to Boston! Another must-visit town on our return to New England. While we were in Boston, my Nephew David and his family visited us! We hope to see more of our family and old friends while we are in the area. We had a weather delay while in Boston, with 7-foot waves and 30-mph winds just offshore, but made up the time and ended the week in Newburyport after spending a few days in Gloucester, MA. We traveled 105 miles this week but didn’t add any more states to our list.
This week we cruised 112 miles and ticked off two more states, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. We caught up with our friend and our Outback’s Founder, Andrew Cilla, in Newport, RI. Brenda met one of her favorite glass perfume bottle designers, Matthew Buechner. We cruised through the Cape Cod Canal, then, like the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
We traveled quite a way this week, 291 miles! We made it through Hell Gate on the East River in Manhattan and entered Long Island Sound. We reached our 10th state, Connecticut, which is also the first NEW state for us on the trip! From now on, it’s all new territory for us. We spent the weekend at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, which was one of the “must-stay” sites on our trip list, and had friends from our neighborhood at home visit us.
It was a successful week. We got the vibration in our port engine taken care of and were relieved that it wasn’t something major. We missed the bad weather that hit many areas around Annapolis and Baltimore, and have made it to New Jersey, our 8th state!
This week, the boat was hauled out to see if we could figure out the wiggle in the port propeller shaft. It turns out that there were multiple issues: a bad cutlass bearing and a slight misalignment in the propeller. Between the heat, every day was over 100°, and the July 4th holiday, what should have been a three-day job stretched through the week. We spent most of the time just trying to keep cool!
This week, we passed through 3 states: North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. Aside from Monday, when we were in port anyway, we had decent weather while cruising. We passed through Norfolk and made it to Hampton without anything going wrong with the boat, unlike last time! We’ve entered the Chesapeake and did a one-day cruise about halfway up to Solomons Island, where we caught up with more friends.
This week was all about catching up with old friends in South and North Carolina. After a visit to our old home port, Murrells Inlet, we made stops in Holden Beach and an unplanned stop in Southport due to weather. It was great to catch up with our friend Michael, the team at Wacca Wache, Frank, our old neighbor, Robert & Diane, our cruising buddies, and having Porchtails with the Creech’s!