This was my first backpacking trip, my first time visiting Maine, and my first overnight trip on Mashnee! It was a fantastic break from the day-to-day work. I took a bus from Boston up to Camden, where Mashnee was moored. Over the next couple of days we sailed around Penobscot Bay, and visited North Haven and Hurricane Island. In North Haven we stopped by Calderwood Hall for some pizza, and I picked up a peach and prosciutto pizza - I’d never seen this before, but it was quite good. Overall, the weather was quite pleasant, and several of us slept out on deck to fully enjoy the stars and morning sunrise. It was really cloudy around Hurricane Island which was a bit uncomfortable to navigate without a radar, but it mostly cleared as we headed out.
After getting back to Camden, I met up with my friend Kyle and we drove up to Baxter State Park to go backpacking. We really wanted to hike up to the summit of Katahdin and hike along knife’s edge, but since our planning was a bit last-minute it was quite the game of “logistics Tetris” to find an itinerary that worked. Thankfully, we were able to find a route that worked - we ended up booking the a lean-to at Martin Pond, Wassatoquoik Stream, and Davis Pond. I was surprised by how uncrowded Baxter was - it was a welcome change, especially compared to the growing crowds typical at the national parks. The park rangers we ran into all seemed to know our itinerary too!
On our way back to Camden we stopped by Acadia, which was - in stark contrast to Baxter - very crowded. We only had a half-day to spend there and were exhausted from the long hike the day before, so we took a leisurely drive up the Cadillac Summit Road and stopped at the pullouts along the way. Kyle’s been getting more into outdoor rock climbing, so we stopped to watch some folks climb. It looked like a lot of fun, especially with the view of the ocean right behind them, we’ll have to come back to try that sometime.
Originally, I’d planned to sail back to Boston on Mashnee, but we ended up only sailing to Portland after a stop in Boothbay Harbor. I heard from my shipmates that there was some really excellent sailing into Boothbay while I was off-watch - I’m a bit bummed I wasn’t on deck for that, but I’m sure there’ll be a “next time!”