We arrived in Boothbay with plenty of day left for exploring. While we had anchored here on our last visits, we wanted to do everything possible to ensure low movement for Mark's seasickness, so this time we grabbed a mooring closer in to the harbor. We dinghy'ed to shore, along with the crew of InQuest, and spent the afternoon exploring the town. When David and I were here before, it was the height of Covid, so most places were closed. This time, we enjoyed an afternoon at the brewery, and then walked over the bridge to the other side of the bay to the Lobster Wharf where we ate our first Maine lobstah! We walked back across the bridge and had amazing ice-cream waffle sandwiches before waddling back to the boat for the evening.

The work week started, and David and I settled in to our daily calls. Mark and Robin enjoyed relaxing on the boat. Russ and Jax even offered to dinghy them to shore while we were working and I picked them up after I wrapped up work in the evening. Such lovely friends! The predicted weather rolled in and we did have a little rain, followed by an amazing rainbow.

Later in the week, the weather was nice enough to allow us to cruise again and we headed to North Haven where we dropped anchor. David and I worked while Robin, Mark, Russ, and Jax all explored the tiny town.

On Friday (Robin's birthday!), we finally made it to Bar Harbor. David and I finished up the work week while the retired folks headed into town. I finished up in time to dinghy in to join Happy Hour before we returned to the boat and got fancy for a lovely dinner birthday celebration for Robin.

On Saturday, we went back into town and took the free bus into Acadia National Park (there's an amazing free bus system that covers Mount Desert Island and all through the Park). We did a hike which was on mostly paved or gravel path where we could walk holding hands, so Mark was very happy!

We enjoyed having Mark and Robin on the boat for the week, but had to say goodbye on Sunday morning as they began their marathon home from Bar Harbor via airport shuttle, rental car, and flight.

We were invited to join Russ and Jax on a whale watching tour for the morning. Though I had no expectations of the trip, it was actually a lot of fun and I learned a bunch from the naturalist who was narrating the experience. We ended up going 50 miles off shore, and did actually end up seeing whales - a group of 4, 3 adults and a baby. This was apparently the first sighting of so many whales at once for the season, so the naturalist was pretty stoked. Several of them did tail flips as they dove and she was able to identify two of them as known individuals.

In the afternoon, we rented an electric golf cart for a tour of Acadia National Park. It was fun driving around and the views in the park are spectacular.