June 30 – July 22, 2024; 14848 nm and 1950 days after departure from La Rochelle

Meanwhile we made it up to Maine. Our declared goal for the trip up the East Coast. Roughly 4300nm since we left San Blas last year, end of October. Quite a trip! Some of my attentive readers may remember our excitement about the upcoming different climate and culture change. They may even remember me writing about looking forward to cuddle underneath warm cozy blankets and me wondering how long I would cope with the cold. Well, I can assure it is nice not to sweat like crazy anymore! You wake up in the morning feeling nice and sleepy-fresh (what ever that might mean), in any case your pillow still dry and comfy. Not damp or even soaked from your own transpiration of the past night. Oh and sleeping underneath a cozy bed cover definitely has its benefits! The only downside is, it makes you want to stay in bed ’cause it’s sooo damn cuddly. But of course there were much more goodies which we appreciated sailing up the east coast. The variety of so many different colourful flowers, the pretty houses, the changing nature, the westerly world amenities, the great cities, plentiful groceries…

Here in Maine the climate seemed different. First, it was much colder than we had expected! The average day temperature was about 20° Celsius. Too cold for my taste! I mean, it was/is summer time! July and August were supposed to be the best months of the year to visit Maine (at least by boat). And here we were, sitting on Altimate a bit too often with sweatpants, socks and sweaters. Well, I guess that’s the way it is in such “high” latitudes. But the real unpleasant surprise was the sudden fog which appeared frequently out of the blue (and which was then the reason for our winter outfit). And boy, I’m talking about real dense fog. Visibility close to zero, ok a little bit more, but not much! The moist air was also not only annoying because it made sailing either impossible or a nightmare (the other day we left an anchorage in beautiful sunshine and just like that within minutes the fog was there, crazy!) it also covers the beautiful landscape. It stops you from seeing and doing anything outside and off the boat. Altimate was wet and humid and even inside everything felt damp. Nobody had told me!!! At the moment I’m not sure if I want to explore higher latitudes at all. I don’t know if I had mentioned our future ideas before but we had thought eventually maybe to explore Alaska with Altimate. I can’t imagine real cold weather if I am freezing already at 20°C. Well, I guess the future will tell.

On the other hand if the weather was fine, Maine was absolutely gorgeous! Without fog the temperature rose to a comfortable warmth and some impressively brave locals even dared to have a little dip in the water. Unbelievable for us!!! Yet, one day the weather was great, the sun was shining and El Capitano decided to give it a go to clean the bottom of Altimate. She desperately needed a cleaning. (Since we left the Bahamas we haven’t been into the water and therefore haven’t been able to take care of the rapidly growing barnacles.) Courageous and greatly admired by me, Norbert found his 5,5 mm wetsuit deep in Altimate’s belly, squeezed himself in it and dauntlessly let himself into the almost freezing cold water. A hero – my hero!!! Fearlessly fighting against the severe cold just to free Altimate of the evil -slowing us down- barnacles. Oooookaaaayyy, writing the last two sentences probably took longer than my hero actually stayed in the water. For his defence, he might have stayed a minute longer but when he realised, he anyhow couldn’t get the barnacles off… why should he have stayed longer? I am so glad I do not possess a wetsuit😜! Just a pity I didn’t take any fotos.
But coming back to lovely Maine. It has many islands and inlets which provide stunning anchorages. Sometimes we felt like being in a mountain lake in Switzerland, surrounded by deep fir forest. Only the seals made sure we didn’t forget where we were. Unfortunately a lot of those pretty anchorages were covered with moorings (US Americans seemed to love and use moorings) and an incredibly amount of crab pots. The latter annoyingly were spread everywhere which made sailing rather stressful than fun. You couldn’t leave the helm if you didn’t want to get tangled in an -at least often colourful- crab pot. Continuously watching the sea in front of us was a must do to avoid pots. Zigzag course was the new preferred sailing or better to say motoring route. Fortunately we managed these obstacles with only one tangled incident and found some beautiful places without pots and moorings. The reward afterwards was particularly stunning. Coming into an inlet with small islets covered in dense wood, seals sunbathing on rocks and the air deliciously smelling of forest was just magical. And when the wafts of mist appeared hovering over the lake like waters (but didn’t turn into dense fog!) it created a mystical magnificent atmosphere. Then we knew it was worth coming all the way up here!

The most beautiful place was the east side of Vinalhaven. A very secluded and protected bay with its gorgeous scenery, many nooks and divers wildlife. We had found a stunning cozy spot to drop the hook in the inner harbour at Seal Bay. Such a lovely place where we felt transported once again to a mountain lake in the Alps. Luckily the weather and the shore (we found a place to leave the dinghy) permitted us to go ashore where we finally also could enjoy the beauty of the forest. We loved to inhale the forest scent and were happy to see mushrooms and other forest plants for a change (not just rocks or palm trees).I was just thinking about wether there would be deer in the woods when we bumped into another sailor (American/French) couple. They, like us, were just enjoying the woods and very happy to chat. We talked for more than 30 min standing in the middle of the forest about anchorages and food in the States. They were both chefs and said that there were no good restaurants in the US apart from NY. I do agree, but please don’t tell anyone.

We spent 4 days in that pretty lake like anchorage before we had to go to Rockland. Rockland was located on Maine’s coastline, about 110 nm from Boston. A small town though big enough to get provisions and laundry done and easy to reach by car from Boston. Why was that important? Because we would get our next visitors!!! Yeah our friends Anja and Stephan from Dortmund had finally decided to visit us. To have enough time to get the usual stuff done we arrived 5 days earlier than our friends. Like that we could explore Rockland and also get Altimate clean, provisioned and ready for visitors. Rockland was a pretty small village with amazingly many art galleries, many boats, cafés, bars, very friendly people and every weekend seemed to happen an event. A nice place to hang out and wait for our friends.