44:09.52N 68:53.22W

Monday 20^th August

Well it is day one of the informal OCC rally and it started with Sarah and me popping over to ‘Matador’, an British flagged yacht (Rival 42) where Steph and Stu showed us their spare 240v heavy duty sewing machine which they were thinking about selling….. So we are now the proud owners of a machine capable of repairing canvas and sails.

I went ashore to take advantage of the high speed internet in the library to download some work stuff whilst Sarah ran a load through our washing machine and rustled up a salmon and spinach quiche for the rally drinks party that was happening later – and magically discovered a storage space for the new machine.  (this might be more impressive if we had found somewhere for the displaced items!)

We then said goodbye to James, the skipper on ‘Contrarium’ (Halberg Rassy 62) and raised the anchor and headed off for Pulpit Harbour, North Haven Island. This was a short sail of some 10 miles which included threading our way through some small islands and rocks along the way. There was a 12 knot breeze almost on the nose, but we were able to sail the way under just our foresail. Admittedly this meant we were making barely 3.5 knots but we also needed to run our water maker for a couple of hours so it all worked out very well.

Pulpit Harbor is a lovely creek with several inlets and there was plenty of room for all the rally boats to anchor, and in order to host the drinks party, 5 committee boats had rafted up together to provide a large venue. We all brought along “heavy hors d’oeuvres” and our own drinks and three hours slipped quickly by as we chatted to old and new friends alike. Not sure the brain can quite keep up with learning so many new names, but fortunately we mostly have cards to exchange to help us put it all together the next morning!

It was a beautiful day, the sunset was stunning and it is at these moments that we can begin to see that Maine is perhaps as good as the hype. Certainly we are very much sold on the idea of returning up here again next summer and would hope to spend more time in Maine to explore a good deal further than we have been able to manage in a few short weeks this year.