Summer Comes again! First sailing season together.

“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention” – Mary Oliver

The weather is warm, the winds are pleasant, and it’s time for SUMMER once more.
Selkie’s new home is in the sheltered inner harbor of Casco Bay, Maine. Home to Portland (the original Portland, thank you) and the Fore river, Casco bay is home also to SO. MANY. ISLANDS.

Municipality islands, private islands, small community islands, seal and bird covered islands, nature conservancy islands, the list goes on and on!

Selkie and I plan to explore the lot! And take some friends along for the ride.

I love sailing, and I love just being on boats, but I also love getting to explore the places you can only get to by boat. One of those places, just around the corner from Portland, is Richmond Island.

Now, Richmond is a privately owned island, the property of the Sprague family, who are wealthy oil people. (Also, distant cousins. Mom’s mother was a Sprague, just… not close enough to get to go to the parties)
A lot of people own islands, and frankly I’ve got some issue with that, but a lot of those people put up big “NO TRESPASSING” signs and get crappy with you if you even walk on the beach.

Not the Spragues. It’s like they actually revived the concept of Noblese Oblige, because the deal with Richmond is:
– Stay off the dune grass, it’s delicate
– If you want to camp, go pick up a permit from the Sprague office
– Pick up your trash, and keep the dogs away from the birds and the sheep(!) that live on the island
– Stay on the trails around the outside and leave the family’s cottage alone

… that is frickin it. It’s very excellent. Lovely swimming off the sand beach, gorgeous trails, 2 lovely campsites, and about a hundred sheep just wandering the island and growing wool.

I spent a lot of time this summer wandering Richmond. Had Eliska come join me for a stretch of it, and it’s a lovely anchorage to boot.

Clapboard Island is a dual example of Good folks, annnnd Other Folks. It’s just off the main mooring field in Falmouth and has a lovely little harbor and trails maintained by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust. You can swim, picnic, sometimes forage for mushrooms, birdwatch, it’s lovely. There is a private cabin in the middle of that end of the island which they just ask you give space.
The OTHER end of the island has some dude with a giant house… like big enough that he has a landing craft to bring his off road golf carts on and off the island, and he’s been known to go yell at people for anchoring too close to his beach. (spoiler, that’s like standing on your front porch yelling at people to get away from YOUR sidewalk.)

Jewell island, is the outermost in Casco Bay, and has the remains of WW2 ship and submarine spotting towers and anti-ship artillery batteries. You can even explore the tunnels where the artillery used to store munitions. (bring a headlamp)

The weekend I had Nick and Clayton, friends from Boston, with me for a boy’s weekend, the seas were too rough to make it to Jewell. (Sorry again, Clayton… have some saltines)

Instead, we went to the CLOSEST of the islands in Casco Bay, and visited Fort Gorges.

Fort Gorges was built around the US Civil war, to command the inner harbor and prevent naval bombardment (which had happened during the way of 1812)
It was built to house several dozen of the workhorse short range cannon, and work in conjunction with shore mounted batteries nearby.

….. just in time for long range canons to be invented.

SOO, Fort Gorges was never fuly manned. The US Navy stored aquatic mines there during the first world war, but it never really saw much use. Today it’s preserved as a self serve park, with access by boat or rental kayak. You can go through the old dark bits too (bring a headlamp for this bit as well)

And with that, it’s time to bring Selkie back to shore again. There are soooo many project for this winter that I’ve thought of, and I can’t wait to have a bunch of them done and get back on the water next spring!!!