Month: July 2026

Boothbay

See Above

“That’s not belt dust,” says the mechanic. Turns out I had a cracked pipe between the exhaust manifold and the muffler (not an exhausted crack-pipe, alas). Ick-tastic. So I’m hanging in Boothbay while it is fixed. 

Boothbay is fine, the library is good, there is a good hardware store within walking distance of the boat. I’d rather be anchored in a remote hole somewhere but that will have to wait. Plus tonight and tomorrow, tons of rain. May as well be getting work done.

Boothbay, Linekin Bay

I got to the mooring in Boothbay around 3pm. After a ten-minute sigh of relief, I rowed over to the dock and then took the longest, best, coolest shower I can remember. I could feel the anxiety abating and my basal temperature getting close at last, after three long days in the sun. Even after being covered head-to-toe and drinking about two gallons of water a day, I was still feeling very cooked, in both the Webster’s sense of the word and the current teen-slang sense.

Best thing was Kathleen arrived. She drove up to spend a few days cruising around Boothbay. A shower, Kathleen, dinner out with someone else cooking? Fabulous.

Next day we unmoored and did some of that sailing. Out around Squirrel (didn’t see any) and Damariscove Islands then into Linekin Bay where we picked up a mooring for the night. Absolutely great sail, like the reason for being-here-at-all kind of sail.

Stops: Isle of Shoals, Biddeford Pond, Boothbay Harbor

After getting rejected for a great fitting (IMO!) job I decided it was time to sail, before it was too late. Too late meaning I would have to find a source of income that would tie me to home. So I did my normal and obsessively started reading about cruising the coast of Maine. I had to be in Boothbay anyway as part of some race committee help, so why not sail there? 

I’ll tell you why not. Three long days, no autopilot and not much wind. An alternator belt slowly sacrificing itself in the form of black dust. Dust that makes a lot of the boat kind of gross to interact with. I spent a lot of time those days sitting at the wheel, listening to a History of Rome podcast, and then on a mooring at each stop each night, wiping down parts of the boat to get rid of the grime. 

Plus, just rowing out to the boat in the dingy to load up before leaving I thought I might puke. Just so stressed and 10,000 10,000-item lists racing through my head. Also thinking of all the ways I might die along the way.

It was all worth it, of course.