Castine

We added a day at Castine to allow time to visit the town after the weather settled. It is a small town but very interesting. It is home to the Maine Maritime Academy and the campus occupies a large portion of the town. On the waterfront is the State of Maine, a training ship used by the MMA. We also found the Wilson Museum, which has an incredible collection of artifacts to show the antiquity of man and his cultural stages from the earliest geologic times. On leaving Castine we encountered a tug boat with barge in tow which kept changing direction. We always give wide berth to working boats so we were a little confused. They called us on the radio to explain. It was the tug Pentagoet, also part of MMA doing figure eight training exercises around some markers. Once we knew that we were able to set our course accordingly. Thursday evening we took a free mooring at Warren Island State Park. Anyone that likes tent camping in more isolated locations would love this place. Touring the park we met a couple from Marthas Vineyard that comes back to camp there each year. They showed us their campsite and the interesting aspect is that the firewood is provided, and also provided is a large bags of fine wood chips to put under the tent. Some sites were set up with lean to shelters for those that prefer that. Getting to the island is a challenge, requiring a ferry ride to Islesboro Island and then finding a boat ride to Warren Island, which is what the couple we met did.