Cruising Coastal Maine.... Where's Waldo ???

The American Eagle enables lovers of the Maine coast to see it from the water. This is Curtis Lighthouse at the entrance to Camden Harbor.

By Walter & Patricia Brooks

Someone once said that the Interstate Highway System was designed to allow us to travel from one end of the country to the other without seeing anything.

he phrase about the Interstate Highway System above is even truer for New Englanders who seldom get to see the ocean because the shorefront is packed with private beaches and trophy homes, so we travel all over the world looking for spectacular seascapes when there is perhaps the world's finest one an hour north of Boston.

But glimpses of even the magnificant, rocky Maine coast are few and far between unless you own your own yacht, or you were lucky enough to read this story about the American Cruise Lines which harbor-hops all along that spectacular coastline from Portland to Bar Harbor and back while visiting seven ports of call during a week of smooth sailing.

These photos only give a dim representation of the endless beauty and charm of this pristine, craggy coast east of Bath. I guess you might say the geography is like the people, because these folks are like no other Americans. They say a "Mainer's" worst nightmare is to wake up some morning and see a car with Massachusetts plates parked next door.  And to think this area was once a part of the Bay State !! We gave them their independence, and I guess "no good deed goes unpunished".

You’ll find a complete itinerary with web addresses, etc. along with those of all other references in this story at the end of this article.

Indescribable Vistas from a Mile Offshore

We visit Maine every year. I’ve sailed a small sloop along the mid-coast region, but alway knew the best was around the next headland, and I was determined to find a way to see it all.

Then we discovered a new and smaller cruise line which answered our dream. The Haddam CT based American Cruise line’s coastal cruiser “The American Eagle” spends July and August making weekly trips from Portland to either Belfast or Castine, then on to Bar Harbor and the Acadia National Park and back to Portland which is an easy drive from anywhere in the Northeast.

In fact, it’s a little more than an hour’s drive north of Boston.

Use Brains or Trains, Not Planes

You can fly into Portland Airport, or take Amtrak’s new service from Boston. We simply got into the family car and drove two and a half hours from Cape Cod. And as long as we were in the Pinetree State, we decided to find some portion of the coastline which has not been overrun by travelers like ourselves while we waited for our boat to sail. We hoped to discover the Maine of our youth before tourism changed the character of so many of our favorite seaports. Hey, we remember Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia when you could find a parking place.

We had received press releases from Geiger Associates extolling the unspoilt beauty of Waldo County which is just east of Camdem on the western shore of Penobscot Bay. Geiger insisted that towns like Belfast and Searsport were undiscovered gems from the Maine of yesterday.

PIT STOPS: You take I-95 north until Brunswick, then Route 1 East.  If you are hungry now you can't go wrong at the Miss Brunswick Diner. It's best to plan a whole day for the drive to Waldo County because it's about 270 miles from Cape Cod. It's 155 miles from the New Hampshire border, but that's the good news because we suggest you make one of these detours for a unique, downeast lunch;

• Swing north from Rt. 1 (from the west take Rt. 201 at Brunswick, from the east take Rt. 27 out of Wiscasset) towards the state capital of Augusta. But stop in Gardiner for the A-1 Diner, then continue north five miles, and visit Hallowell five miles south for a real "Antique Experience". The whole town is nothing BUT antique stores (not just shoppes).
• Drive south fom Rt. 1 at Newcastle to Pemaquid Point Lighthouse (photo on right) and lunch at the Lighthouse Restaurant. You may see whales swim pass. If it's too early for lunch, visit this magnificent lighthouse and  continue back NORTH turning right at New Harbor on Rt. 32 (where you'll pass Shaw's Fish & Lobster Wharf , another favorite) and drive up the east shore of this peninsula.
• If it's too early for lunch, continue on to Moody's Diner in Waldoboro on Rt. 1. about an hour west of Waldo County.
• If you last until Waldo County, there are a dozen great eateries in that area including Chase's Daily in Belfast and Angler's Restaurant in Searsport.

We had passed by Belfast many times on our way to Castine and Acadia National Park or Bar Harbor as well as on several trips to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. The town was bypassed by Route 1 a decade ago when a new bridge was built across Belfast Bay, so unlike all the other Maine towns along Route 1, travelers do not go through the downtown area, and we had never taken the time to drive the one mile from Route 1 to see the town. What a mistake that had been!

The Belfast Bears

Before the Interstate Highway system changed the face of America forever, vacationers traveled by coastal steamer, and Belfast was a major port lieing a few miles south of Bangor.

The area was famous for shipbuilding, and later a giant chicken factory supported the town’s workforce, but when all that ended, Belfast decided to pull itself up by its bootstraps, and reinvent itself, but as “what”?

That’s when Belfast, Searsport and the rest of bucolic Waldo County did something which no other hidebound, Yankee town I know of ever did before; they sought outside, even out-of-state, expert help.

And luckily chose Geiger Associates from of all places, Tallahassee, FL.

   Tourism With a Twist

Tourism was an obvious choice, and Belfast had the option of learning from their neighbors errors.

In a few years Belfast turned itself into a charming, upscale seaport with a unique character all its own. The Belfast Bears are just one example.

Each year local businesses sponsor the creation of four dozen, lifesized bears, use them as a focal point all summer, then auction them off in the Fall for the benfit of charities. Each is unique, and all are trribly funny as these two examples illustrate.

Check out their web site here to see all the Belfast Bears, past and present.

Waldo County is smack dab in the middle of coastal Maine, and perfectly located for wide-ranging day trips. 

One day we visited the Union County Fair a forty-five minute drive from Belfast. You have never seen a real county fair until you're seen a downeast Maine county fair. The sausage, pepper and onion "grinders" are will cure any cholesterol deficiency, the livestock exhibits are pungent, and the trotters are cheap fun on a hot, August afternoon.

Even the Knox County Republicans on the left were very nice to us, but I don't think we fooled them for a minute.

And there is plenty to do in these two towns. Belfast has wonderful, unique shops, a first-rate summer theatre, a scenic old railroad, and a waterfront made for walking and biking. The seaside park is a quiet place to read and watch the sailors on Belfast Bay, and there are really good ice cream shops in every block. Hey. "first things first"!

Searsport boasts the Penobscot Marine Museum which is worth a day-long visit. It's affiliated with and the equal to the Mystic Seaport in Connecticut.

Another day we headed east from Searsport and visited Castine and Deer Island, about two hours away if you drive slow and do it right.

We spent two nights in a four-poster bed at the Thos. Pitcher House at the top of Main Street in Belfast, then another two nights at Watchtide by the Sea in Searsport with views of upper Penobscot Bay. Both served trully memorable breakfasts. The web addresses for both of these lovely inns is at the bottom.

On With Our Coastal Cruise

The drive from Waldo County to Portland on Saturday morning to catch our boat takes under 1-1/2 hours if you are in a hurry, or three hours through typically rustic Maine vistas along Route 1. We urge the latter.

The commercial wharf area in Portland is clean and beautiful. It even incudes a seaside walking path through its heart which takes you past real, working docks and fisherpeople. On board the American Eagle around noon you find a buffet lunch waiting, and the ship casts off exactly on time from the Portland ferry wharf.

Our first stop was Boothbay. It’s become too "touristy" or our tastes, but the shops still can amuse. While The American Eagle is a small, coastal ship (we had about 70 aboard with us) it is still too large for the local dock here, so we moored in the midst of a hundred huge yachts, and Captain Andy Howes ferried us a shore in the ship's tender.

The next day we sailed past Pemaquid Point and a half dozen other lighthouses. We fetched up in Camdem which is always a delight with its fleet of windjammers and harbor crowded with luxury yachts. Again, the town dock could not accommodate us, and we moored just outside the harbor where we had a much more beautiful vista with the Curtis Island Lighthouse a few yards off our starboard beam.

Most port layovers include days trips provided at no extra cost. In Camden we had a tour of local attractions including nearby Rockport and a drive to the top of the Camdem Hills.

There is no adequite way to descibe the excitment of arriving at a port aborad a ship. Everything about it is different. You view of the village is changed, and local folks really get excited about your appearance.

A Different Port Every Day

Every dawn bring a new view of the rugged Maine coastline. From Camden we sail to Belfast, then on to Bar Harbor, and back through the offshore islands to Rockland and up the Kennebec River to Bath with its formidable ironworks. Because the American Cruise Line bulids shallow draft ships, we can navigate narrow rivers like this and often spend hours passing gorgeous scenery literally a stone's throw away.

Each port of call is completely different from the other. If we had a favorites they would be Rockland, Belfast and Portland although docking at the Maritime Museum in Bath on the Kennebec River and biking into that blue collor town was special as well.

Local Info Sources

Below is a list of the folks who helped us on our voyage. They were warm and friendly to a man (or woman). If you haven’t seen Maine from a coastal steamer, you simply haven’t really seen Maine.

And we insist the people here are "different". Fishing, mostly lobstering, is still the main support of most families, and that life, in this climate, breeds a special kind of character.

But please get off the "beaten path". Drive on that grey line off the black line off the red line on your map. In Maine it's best to head east as far as you are able. It doesn't get really "interesting" until you are long past Bath, although the gentleman on the left was at the bar at Shaw's in New Harbor near Pemoquid Point. Yes, that's the same "Shaw's" that is at the Bourne Rotary.

• Waldo County, Maine, Waldo County Marketing Association P.O. Box 139, Searsport, ME 04974 Toll-Free 1 (800) 870-9934 http://www.waldocountymaine.com
• Belfast Chamber; http://www.belfastmaine.org
• Belfast Bearfest; http://www.belfastbearfest.com.
• Thomas Pitcher House (shown on right), Hosts; Ron & Fran Kresge, 19 Franklin Street, Belfast, Maine 04915 207/338-6454 http://www.thomaspitcherhouse.com Searsport, http://www.acadia.net/searsport
• Penobscot Marine Museum, Church Street at US Route 1, P.O. Box 498, Searsport, Maine 04974-0498 
  www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org
• 1794 Watchtide by the Sea, Hosts; Nancy Linn (that's her on the right) & Jack Elliott, 190 West Main Street (Route 1), Searsport, Maine 04974 207/548-6575 http://www.watchtide.com
• American Cruise Lines, 1 Marine Park, Haddam, CT, 06438 800-814-6880 / 860-345-3311 http://www.americancruiselines.com 
• Coastal Maine cruise, http://www.americancruiselines.com/mecoast.htm
• Maine Maritime Museum, 243 Washington Street, Bath, ME 04530, (207) 443-1316 Maritime@BathMaine.com http://www.mainemaritimemuseum.org
• Geiger & Assocaites, Public Relations, 1846 Junwin Court, Tallahassee, Florida 32308 (850) 942-6685 http://www.geigerpr.com