Rockland, Maine


Next stop...
Rockland, Maine has a large harbor with ample space for anchoring outside the mooring fields (our kind of place!). We spend 5 days exploring Rockland and completing errands to the supermarket, bank, Home Depot, Harbor Freight, and Hamilton Marine. Interesting trips were made on our folding bikes as we had to figure out how to transport our various purchases back to the boat! 

The Brompton folding bikes are great!

Rockland is an eclectic mix of industry, art, and food. There are boatyards, lobster pounds, restaurants, galleries, and museums spread across the broad shoreline surrounding a wide and comfortable bay. We enjoy wandering the old downtown streets and peeking into the shops.

Downtown Rockland.

We love the unique detail on the side of this building.

The Rockland Yacht Club and the Rockland Harbor Master share this building.

Creativity spills out into the streets. Sculpture and sidewalk chalk art adorn a gallery courtyard. An electric transformer station becomes a community-created mosaic. Sculpture and neon lights pop out of the top of the Farnsworth Museum. Colorful lobster buoys adorn a sidewalk café. Even the back of the Hamilton Marine store building is painted with a mural.

Streetside Maine atmosphere.

In some cities kids put locks on chain link fences, in other cities it's
chewing gum on walls, in Rockland it's stickers on transformers.

Center for Maine Contemporary Art.

Ah, love is in the air!

You betcha!

Farnsworth Art Museum.

Mural on back of the Hamilton Marine Store.

We also discover a wooden boat school, “The Apprenticeship”, and are given a personal tour of the facility and their work building and restoring antique wooden boats.

Beautiful craftsmanship.

All of the students are required to build this type of boat as their first project.

This boat practically touches the ceiling. Should be interesting to
see how they move the boat out of the building when finished.

Nora finds a fabric store and purchases material to make two tablecloths for the main salon.

One of the patterns is created and laid out for cutting.

Rockland is getting ready for their annual Lobster Fest complete with huge tents and mega-size lobster cookers! Unfortunately, we will miss the festival because we are heading north to Mt. Desert Island.

The Lobster Fest is a really huge event for the town of Rockland.

Multiple large tents for diners are being set up on the waterfront.

These cookers can cook 1600 pounds of lobster in 15 minutes. They'll cook
20,000 pounds of lobster during the 5 day Lobster Fest! Wow & yum!

Mt. Desert Island, Southwest Harbor, ME
We leave Rockland and weave our way in-between Vinalhaven and North Haven Islands and lots of lobster pots heading towards Mt. Desert island.

This looks like a miniature Noah's ark!

Cruising the back waterways of Maine.

 We tried numerous times to photograph the insane number of lobster pots/buoys in Maine, but pictures just don't show the intensity of the sheer numbers. And they are everywhere! ...Offshore ...mooring fields ...middle of channels, etc!

It's truly a challenge to dodge the lobster buoy's.

Our urgency to move north is accelerated by Karl’s increasing tooth pain. Yes... these things happen even when you live on a boat! After numerous phone calls, bus rides, and rental car, we find a terrific endodontist in Bangor, ME. Two days later, and three hours in the dentist chair... problem solved!

A root canal is not my idea of fun, but very glad it's fixed.

With Karl’s dental emergency solved, Nora heads to the west coast for a preplanned trip to her niece’s wedding in Manhattan Beach, CA. Our son, Eric, also flew in from Japan to attend Julie and Simon’s wedding. Nora’s 5 sisters and all the cousins had a mini-reunion! Eric and Nora squeezed in a trip to the beach. Lots of fun and dancing. A great time was had by all!

Our son Eric in traditional Japanese clothing dances with
Nora's sister Maggie.

And being a jewish wedding, the bride and groom are hoisted up in their chairs
during the traditional "Hora" dance.

Eric and Nora soak up some sun at the beach.

After a quick 4-day visit, Eric returned to Japan and Nora flew from LA to Bellingham to get her braces off. Finally, brace-free after 18 months!

Happy to be brace-free!

Back in Southwest Harbor, Bravo will be hauled out for bottom painting at Hinckley Yacht Services. The Hinckley crew has the time, and Worknot has space available for us to stay with them while Bravo is out of the water for a couple of days. More details in next blog.


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