Dawn Watch on America's Great Loop Adventure

 Second time with visitors. Tim and Lisa Allen came up, meeting us in Portland Maine. They wanted some nature, not necessarily city tours. So, the day after they arrived we shoved off to explore some of Maine's Casco Bay between Portland and Boothbay Harbor. The run to Boothbay was about six hours and pretty lumpy with swells still from Hurricane Earl. The new crew did not have their sea-legs yet so they had some adjusting to do. We arrived in the beautiful Maine town of Boothbay Harbor. It is still a working fishing town. It seems that every fishing town has this slogan: "___, a drinking town with a fishing problem".  But, beyond fishing the town is all tourist. But not in a bad way. Very pretty houses, lanes, hills. The trees haven't yet started to turn color but it is coming. Tour busses and small cruise ships fill up the town during the day. very friendly people. Our original plan was only one night there but a very strong NW wind kept us tied up for two days. Her...

  We pulled into Plymouth after running the boat up on plane to miss a very ominous storm. Turns out the storm just skirted Plymouth. The next day was rainy all day so we just relaxed on the boat. Wednesday and Thursday we tourist days. We saw a few local sites including Plymouth Rock and the recreation Mayflower II. Very nicely done. Then we went to the Plymouth Patuxet living history recreation of the original Pilgrim village. The staff acting in character did a great job demonstrating life in the 1600’s. Had a couple very expensive and disappointing lobster rolls. Hope things get better on that front in Maine. We were still trying to push up to Portland ME to see Tim and Lisa. So, a one night visit to Boston. We will definitely go back to Boston, but possibly not on the boat. Next run up to Gloucester MA. Another one night stay. Went on a mooring ball right in the center of the busy harbor. Had a drink at the Crow’s Nest Bar. That was were the fishermen hung out, and still h...

  True story. If too long, glance at the Tips at least. Part One, Why do I make bad decisions when I’m tired? After a long day touring around Newport Rhode Island we were looking forward to a nice evening sundowner rest before an early departure. Since we were leaving early I did an engine room check: Oil, coolant, general overview, and check/cleaned the four strainers. All good. Fired up the gen and hoped to relax. After 15 minutes or so the generator abruptly stopped. I was pretty sure the intake clogged with something floating in the harbor, which turned out true. This is where clear thinking started to breakdown after two nice but tiring days in town. I tried to back flush the generator water intake to no success, wasting a bunch of our low water supply. With the strainer open and valve open, no water flowed. I looked around the boat for something like stiff wire to push down the pipe from strainer to seacock finding only an unused coax cable. But could not get it very far,...

  Teaching Dawn to drive the boat. We left Port Jefferson NY 8/29/22 headed on a long run up to Noank CT. Long in the boating world is 66 miles for 8 hours. The reason for Noank was to stay three nights and see: The Mystic Seaport Museum Mystic Seaport Museum   and the US Submarine Museum Submarine Museum . Both very well done. Especially the Seaport. I had been there back when I was around 16 or so. Excellent visits. We also got a really nice pizza at  Mystic Pizza . Remember  the movie ? Really good pizza, very different than NY style. Next stop the famous Newport RI. Famous for Gilded Age mansions and yachting. The place was amazing. While I don't mind wealth, the uber wealth of those bygone days, as well as today has a ring of serious problems. I agree with  Mark Twain . The Breakers Mansion made me laugh at the gaudy classless excess of Vanderbilt.  Before leaving there was an issue with the generator. See the separate blog post about that. It was writ...