Anchorages
If the weather is settled, and there’s room, this is a very special anchorage. Pristine, private with a gentle sea breeze wafting through the anchorage, it’s a memorable destination. If there’s significant wind forecast from the southwest, northwest or north, or there are more than three or four boats already present, it would be advisable to come back another time.
Bartlett’s Narrows is a short but lovely passage between Pretty Marsh on Mount Desert and Bartlett’s Island (a Rockefeller retreat).
For years, Biddeford Pool has been a popular harbor on Maine’s southern coast, where the options are much more limited than north of Cape Elizabeth. The somewhat shallow channel and anchorage areas will limit boats drawing more than 7 feet at low tide.
Nestled on the western side of Jericho Bay at the eastern end of York Narrows just off Swan’s Island, this unobtrusive but delightful small anchorage is easy to miss. The island is privately owned, one of the original three islands of the Maine Island Trail. As such, you may encounter camping kayakers on the island. Cruisers are welcome to land and hike the island (though not the adjoining Spruce Island), with the understanding that nothing is left behind.
Burnt Coat Harbor on Swan's Island is a safe hidey-hole in bad weather, and a delightful stop anytime. This is primarily a fishing village with few resident cruising boats. Enter past the lighthouse on Hockamock Head. There are lovely walks here, a pink sand beach in Sand Cove (west of Toothacher Cove) and a swimming […]
Cliff Island, shaped like an H, is not very far from Portland but feels like a different world. The community is small - the smallest year-round island in Casco Bay - and welcoming.
This is a beautiful, secluded anchorage that is easily accessed and well protected in most conditions. Incredibly, one can look directly out to the ocean, but there is virtually no surge.
Anchoring in the Cranberries offers one of the most majestic sights in Maine – a view of sunsets over the Acadia National Park mountains from your own boat.
Uninhabited Cross Island, along with Scotch, Outer Double Head Shot, Inner Double Head Shot, Mink, and Old Man Islands that surround it, is a National Wildlife Refuge (one of five Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuges) encompassing approximately 1700 acres. A few acres around the abandoned Coast Guard boathouse and house were given to the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School. It makes a great stop while Down East to go hiking and soak in the views or just relax in a place where you'll likely be the only boat.
One of Maine’s most scenic estuaries, the Damariscotta River is also a place of peaceful beauty, especially on a day with fog or stormy conditions on the ocean just outside. Anchorages like Christmas Cove exist here.
Damariscove Harbor is among Maine’s most attractive. It provides access to a preserved Island inhabited in summer only by two caretakers and a stunning mixture of common and rare creatures.
Near the eastern end of Merchant's Row and adjacent to the Deer Island Thorofare, this is an easily accessed and convenient stopping point. It is also a lovely, quiet, and calm anchorage with wonderful views to the east, including the mountains of Mount Desert Island, often with windjammers reaching by. It is an excellent spot for exploring by dinghy/kayak, swimming, and lazing.
This anchorage offers a beautiful and historic setting snuggled between High and Birch islands and has excellent protection from SE-S-SW-W-NW-N.
Duck Harbor is a small anchorage on the west side of Isle au Haut, which is what cruising in Maine is all about; isolated, quiet, no services, and often no other boats.
10 miles west of Jonesport, the closest large town. Eastern Harbor is a commercial fishing port dominated by a large fleet of lobster boats -- it is the best natural harbor east of Schoodic Point and west of Jonesport.
Sailing down Eggemoggin Reach is one of those quintessential experiences we have treasured for years. There is flat water, beautiful scenery, a parade of boats under sail, and almost no lobster gear, usually fog-free. What else could one ask for?
If you have gotten as far east as Eastport and are looking for remoteness and solitude -- a place where you'll be entirely on your own (and if you'd prefer not to clear into Canada) -- Federal Harbor is the place for you. It's also a great place to weather a storm!
The small, tenacious community of Frenchboro is a long standing and constantly evolving tribute to the working people who settled and call home the remote outer perimeter of the three thousand islands along the Maine coastline. From cockpit level your eyes appreciate the small prim well-cared-for houses of the village that line the road. The […]
West of Vinalhaven lies fabled Hurricane Island. Once the industrial site of the Hurricane Island Granite Company, where hundreds of stonecutters and their families engaged in the granite trade, Hurricane re-emerged in the 1960s as the Outward Bound School hub. Since 2009, Hurricane Island has been the seasonal home of the Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership.