Browsing: Maine

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CCA Publishes New Digital Guide to Maine

The Cruising Club of America just launched its new digital Maine Cruising Guide, offering detailed information and local knowledge about more than 70 harbors and anchorages along the coast from the Isle of Shoals on the New Hampshire border up to Eastport on the Canadian border. You don’t have to be one of the CCA’s 1,400 members to access the guide; it’s free to everyone, and it builds on members’ experience with the first guide, written last year. It provides up-to-date local knowledge shared by 30 veteran CCA members who either homeport in Maine or have cruised there for decades.…

Destinations
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Lyman-Morse Develops Camden Waterfront

For the past 42 years, Lyman-Morse, based in Thomaston, Maine, has been building boats ranging from carbon-fiber racing sailboats to luxurious Down East powerboats, creating a mix of cutting-edge technology and traditional craftsmanship. Lately, Lyman-Morse has been expanding, building a boutique hotel in Rockland, for example, and edging into custom home design. Now, it’s almost ready to open its redevelopment along the Camden waterfront, with a mix of restaurants, retail shops and gallery spaces for local craftspeople. The Camden redevelopment is almost complete, and is scheduled to open in June. Lyman-Morse actually has owned the Camden waterfront property since 2015…

Cruising Life
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Maine: Summer of the Superyachts

Here’s a fun story from maineboats.com about the influx of superyachts this summer, largely because of the pandemic, but also because, well, Maine is simply one of the best cruising destinations in the world in any summer. MaineBoats Blog Not only did boat rentals and sales see a huge surge this summer as pandemic shutdowns sent more people out on the water. In addition more super-sized yachts than ever cruised along the Maine coast, visiting ports both big and small. Normally in the summer many of these boats head across the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. But when Europe shut the…

Cruising Life
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Cruising in Maine on an Outer Reef Yacht

Owners of Outer Reef Yachts are an adventuresome sort; they also know how to take some terrific pictures. Here’s a story, from Outer Reef, about what you can expect from a cruise to Maine.  If your summer cruising itinerary includes a visit to Maine, you’ll discover the true beating heart of this culturally fascinating, beautiful state. As the most northeastern state of the U.S., Maine is known for its dramatic, rocky coastline. Dubbed “The Pine Tree State,” the forests that cover much of the 400 km of coastline make for an impressive cruise. The dramatic landscape has been preserved in…

Cruising Life
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Maine Adopts New Protocols For Cruising There

Cruising in Maine will be a little different this summer, at least for the start of the summer. The state has a mandatory 14-day quarantine for people arriving from other states, while some Maine builders and marina operators have adopted new protocols of their own. “It’s important to understand that Maine is open,” said Stacey Keefer, executive director of the Maine Marine Trades Association. And Maine remains one of the most iconic and desirable cruising destinations in the United States, if not the world. But this year officials in Maine, just like officials in many other states and localities, have…

Cruising Life
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This Summer’s New Cruising Destination: The Maine Island Trail

If you’re looking for another reason to go cruising in Maine this summer, think about exploring the Maine Island Trail, a 375-mile water trail that connects more than 200 wild islands and mainland sites from New Hampshire to Canada. You can visit them individually, or plan a summer-long cruise to stop at them all, and enjoy the best of Down East cruising while you’re at it. Many people’s plans for long-distance cruising have been upset this summer, by a combination of COVID-19 problems and previously announced lock closures for long-delayed maintenance. People planning on cruising the Great Loop, for example,…

Cruising Life
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Maine Marinas: Operating in Uncharted Waters

Here’s a timely story from the Press Herald in Portland, Maine: YARMOUTH — Motorists whizzing across the Interstate 295 bridge over the Royal River at this time of year are accustomed to glancing at a harbinger of summer on the Maine coast – the daily progression of recreational boats being moored in the anchorage and docked at the three marinas lining the tidal shores. But in this pandemic spring, the scene is strikingly different. Few more than a handful of vessels were dockside early this week, an indicator of how the state’s 40 or so major marinas have been forced…

Cruising Life
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Maine Lobster Catch: More Money, Fewer Lobsters

There was good news and bad news in the annual report on the Maine lobster harvest earlier this month. The good news is that the catch brought in $485.4 million, the fourth highest amount ever. The bad news was that the catch itself was down 17 percent. According to the annual report from the Maine Department of Marine Resources, the state’s lobster fisherman hauled in 100.7 million pounds of lobster in 2019. That was the smallest catch since 2010, although it was the ninth year in a row that the catch was over 100 million pounds. But lobster fishermen ended…

Cruising Life
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Somes Sound: A Classic Down East Cruising Destination, and the Only Fjord on the East Coast

If you’re heading to Maine or even thinking about cruising in Maine this summer, there’s still plenty of time to go all the way Down East to Somes Sound, the only fjord on the east coast of the United States and one of the prettiest cruising destinations around. The sound, about four miles long and often 150 feet deep, basically cuts Mount Desert Island in half and has the iconic boating communities of Southwest Harbor and Northeast Harbor at its lower end. And we’re approaching the best time of the year for cruising there, since that part of Maine generally…

Cruising Life
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New Portraits of Women Running Maine Lobster Boats

Here’s something worth looking at – and thinking about: A new exhibit of portraits of women who run Maine lobster boats. It’s called “Lobstering Women of Maine,” and it’s at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport. As described in MaineBoats.com, the exhibit features paintings by Tobey White of Belfast, whose husband is a part-time lobsterman. It’s not a surprise that women make up a very small percentage of the Maine lobster fishing fleet. Indeed, only 215 of the 4,500 licenses for lobster fishing in the state are held by women. But another 305 women are students or apprentices in the…

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