Eastport ME USA

Approaching Eastport, Maine

So having spent the morning at the Roosevelt Campobello International Park, by 1415 on Wednesday 12 September we had the engine on and the anchor up and were moving the short distance across the channel to Eastport, Maine.  We needed to visit Eastport to check back into the USA and to have our passports stamped to allow us a further 6 months in the country.  This far east in Maine there are only a few places where it is possible to check in, so it was worth doing your homework on ports of entry ahead of schedule.  For lots of reasons, Eastport is not a terribly convenient place to check in but the next nearest places further south are Bar Harbour and Northeast Harbour (each almost next-door to each other) and more than a day’s journey distant.  With the whole coast booby-trapped with lobster pots we didn’t want to be sailing at night so we needed to check in a Eastport so that we could day-hop down the coast.

BV on the right and Seahawk, a Cambrai 44, on the left

At certain stages of the tide the tidal flow through Eastport is pretty strong.  Not knowing how strong ‘pretty strong’ really is or how busy the mooring area would be, we had decided to make our approach at slack water, high tide in this case.  Everything worked out well and we came alongside one of the Harbourmaster’s pontoons without any problems.  We found the Customs and Border Protection Office and went through the check in process (fingerprints, paperwork, passport stamps, $12 payment).  On the other pontoon was a Cambrai 44 called Seahawk(almost a sister ship to Bill and Lydia’s Dragon Run) which, the CBP officer told us as he came down to inspect BV, had a technical problem.  BV needed to be inspected for the formalities but the CBP officer also seemed to enjoy the ‘visiting the yachts’ part of his duties. He liked BV a lot and was very complementary plus, after his inspection, he agreed that we had no contraband or firearms on board, so that was good!

Eastport Chowder House fuel dock and restaurant viewed from our mooring

We enquired about staying on the Harbourmaster’s pontoon for the night but they wanted $2 per foot plus tax so we moved over to a mooring run by the Eastport Chowder House restaurant (cost $25 per night inc tax; much more like it!).  We had been told we could go on the dock but there was insufficient water there for BV at low water so we took one of the buoys instead and reinflated the dinghy to get ashore.

Eastport sights

Murder in Small Town X was amurder-mystery TV
 show, which was shot in Eastport in 2001.  It didn’t
 last past its first season but the fiberglass fisherman
 statue that was made to bring it to life has long
out-lived it.  The statue was cut from the show’s
 budget but its sculptor, Jeff Poss, decided to make
 it anyway and it has gone on to become an Eastport
 favourite.  In 2004, a local committee was formed to
 restore and preserve the statue and, at the same
 time they installed a plaque to commemorate Ángel
 Juarbe, Jr., the winner of that one series of Murder in
 Small Town X and a Bronx firefighter who was killed
in the World Trade Centre collapse on 9/11, one
week after the series finale

We had a wander around ashore.  It was late in the afternoon and very quiet with most of the shops closed or closing.  We grabbed a tourist map and some directions to a local viewpoint from the library….

BV at the mooring just off the Eastport Chowder House restaurant

….but it was too far to walk there and back in the time left before sunset so we lazily opted for an early meal at the restaurant instead.

Seahawk

Seahawkin the morning

Unsurprisingly, the crew of Seahawkhad also made the same decision about moving onto a buoy by the restaurant and also decided to eat in the restaurant.  Martha and Peter joined us at our table for dinner and we heard how they had decided to do the same as us but were currently in the process of building up their sailing skills, sailing in their home area of Maine.  What a fabulous cruising ground for doing just that!  They also talked about their technical problem – Seahawk’s alternator had failed so they hadn’t been able to charge their batteries and had just bought a small petrol generator to allow them to keep their batteries topped up whilst they waited for a replacement part to be shipped to them.

The next morning we joined Martha and Peter for early morning coffee, sticky buns and a spot of re-rigging work on board Seahawk.  During our discussions over dinner they had said that they were having some difficulties with the reefing system on their mainsail and wondered if we might have any ideas to help them.  So, we worked with them for an hour or so to run the system in a more user friendly and safer way.  It was an early start and we couldn’t stay for long as we needed to head off on tide at 0900 but we achieved the aim in the time available and hope to see Martha and Peter again later on our travels.

Eastport, ME, USA