Island Hopping the Penobscot

This past week, I had the great pleasure of exploring Penobscot Bay on my friend's beautiful wooden power boat. We started out of Rockport on a hot September morning and made the 7 mile passage across the bay to North Haven in under an hour. Our first stop was Pulpit Harbor, an absolute gem of a place that is located on the north end of North Haven. The Harbor and surrounding area is famous for its reserved and wealthy summer residents. Old money families with names like Cabot, Saltonstall, Watson and Rockefeller have called the island home in the summer for over 100 years. Pulpit is also home to an array of gorgeous yachts and sailboats that play around the Fox Islands and the outer Penobscot Bay from May to October. After swimming for a good hour, we left Pulpit and swung around the eastern side of North Haven, shooting through the little thoroughfare and dropping anchor off Calderwood Island, where we found a very inviting anchorage. With refreshing turquoise water and soft white sand below our feet, we swam and lay about in the sun for another hour, savoring the feeling of being out in the middle of our own ocean playground. After Leaving Calderwood, we made our way down through Seal Bay and Winter Harbor, both stunning cruising grounds off the backside of Vinalhaven Island. In Seal Bay, we swam in the warm waters of a lagoon and lay on the hot rocks of the granite crusted shoreline. As the afternoon came to a close, Mark expertly guided us through a few narrow passages, and shot us up to the open waters of the Fox Islands thoroughfare. I have seen few more beautiful places than the Fox Island thoroughfare. Acting as a water highway between North Haven and Vinalhaven, this glorious stretch of saltwater is home to an amazing amount of old farmhouses and cottages that sit on bluffs and cliffs that seem to fall into the sea. Along with the summer cottages, there are the boats! From wooden and fiberglass, to lobster and sail, any kind of boat you want, it can probably be found in the thoroughfare. After shooting our final gap past Stand-In Point, under a setting September sun, we made our final run across the Bay to Rockport. Drinks and a Burger at the Waterfront with the capatin followed. On a day like this, one wonders why anybody would live anywhere else!