43:45.2N 70:11.3W

Saturday 20^th July

Well, we now know why the locals refer to this anchorage in Portland as the ‘washing machine’.  We were buffeted for most of the night by the wind and short chop, but more directly by the stream of thoughtless speedboats (by which I mean very powerful race boats), big trip boats with VERY loud music, endless ferries running to the various islands, and a whole host of other smaller craft for whom a breaking wash is something they strive to achieve rather than avoid!

In the morning, Nimue moved off the buoy they were on, to go alongside the floating pontoon in the boatyard and they kindly offered to lend us their dinghy as it was already launched and ready to go and they would not be using it today and it would save us launching and setting up our own.

James and I headed off to the nearby Hamilton Marine where the helpful staff failed to find the bulk of what we were hoping to buy. Suitably frustrated we head off to the nearby ‘Shipyard Brewery’ for a tour and sampling session. Here we were fortunate enough to arrive in time to watch only the final few minutes of the video and were then ushered straight into the bar to sample all the different brews.

This was rather more of a chore than we had envisaged as although we got to sample some really surprisingly good beers, we also had our taste buds assaulted by some very American speciality beers. Apricot, melon, and the pumpkin seed were interesting variations, but the chocolate and blueberry concoction was a combination too far.

With the forecast of a cold front arriving with thunderstorms and 25 to 30 knot winds, we opted to move on from Portland in the late afternoon and so we headed off north and east to meet up with Iain and Fiona on Ruffian who had found a nice empty bay with perfect protection and were offering us dinner! It might have helped that we had found in Boston, a free used copy of the Taft guide to Maine which we were handing over to them. So we left Nimue in Portland and made our way to Wildwood Park where we anchored in acres of space, in perfectly flat water with a sandy beach and perfect protection from the forecast weather.

We had a wonderful evening aboard Ruffian and retired back to Serafina rather later than planned and had a very peaceful night as the thunderstorms and winds never materialised.