LL Bean to Bath

We had to wait until 3pm for high tide to get out of the harbor and then headed towards Freeport.  As you can see the lobster pots keep getting more dense and the scenery more awe inspiring.  The crew REALLY wanted to visit the infamous LL Bean Store in Freeport so we headed into South Freeport Brewers yard and were lucky enough to pick up a $30 mooring for the night.  We also needed to re-provision and do laundry.  The marina has one washer and one dryer ($2.00 per load )so we got a load started, called a taxi and headed into Freeport.  After visiting LL Bean we stopped at The Corsican restaurant for dinner and walked to the Bow Street Market for groceries.  It is a great market but too far to walk back to the marina with many groceries so we called another taxi for a ride home.  I worked on a few more loads of laundry then headed back to Jay Sea Dee.

There was no room at the inn for a second night so we headed out towards the historically famous Kennebec River.  As you enter the river there is Fort Popham which was built in 1861 and used during the Civil War, Spanish American War and WWI.  Filming of “Message In A Bottle”  with Kevin Costnar occurred here and in Bath.  The mouth of the River is a bit daunting if you don’t time your entry.  The best time to enter is at slack water or on a rising tide.  You could fight anywhere between a 2 to 6 knot current if you are not careful.  Along our way in we saw seals, beautiful homes, churches, and the Air Force Thunderbirds were practicing for this weekends air show (see photo of trails).

Finally, 10 miles up river we found our destination, the Maine Maritime museum with mooring and docking available for visiting boats.  The mooring is $35 per night but includes passes to the museum, voted one of the top 5 Museums in the USA.  You can take the river all the way up to Maine’s Capital, Augusta if you can fit under the bridges.  The museum is technically in the town of Bath but you must either take the trolley ($1) or a taxi into town.  The Bath Iron Works is here and offers tours but we did not plan ahead and the tours are full until Monday (today is Friday).  They build all types of ships including naval vessels (including destroyers), commercial ships, schooners, and have built America’s Cup sloops.  The white steel structure represents the six-masted schooner named Wyoming, built on this spot in 1909.  It was the largest wooden schooner built in the States.  On site you can tour the Schooner Sherman Zwicker, a 142’ wooden cod fishing vessel from Nova Scotia, built in 1942. The diorama shows Bath in 1919 when there were three ship building yards here.