We are just south of Penbscot Bay, having left it yesterday. We stopped and tied up at the town's dock in Castine. It is the spot where the U.S. suffered it's biggest naval defeat before Pearl Harbour. It took place in 1779 when the British and the Americans were fighting. I am sitting on the remainder of Fort George (I love that it is now a soccer field) , the British were defending it and had a small force. The Americans had overwhelming naval power but the Commodore would not send the ships in because it was a difficult place to attack. He dithered about unable to make up his mind to attack until the British fleet showed up and rather than fight and be captured they sailed up the river and burnt all the boats rather than risk having them being captured by the enemy. Paul Revere was in charge of the artillery in this skirmish and apparently had to go to court to defend his behaviour. I read a book about this and it was very interesting to see the exact place that it happened! The skirmish was called the Penobscot Expedition.
We met a very nice couple on the dock. He was from Minnesota and she is from Hong Kong. They are touring around the U.S. in their car, after meeting and being married in Hong Kong. They are on a limited budget so they introduced us to www.couchsurfing.com which is a website where you can go and people offer up their homes for no fee for you to stay. An interesting concept. We may have to try it one day, they said they have had no bad experiences.
It has not been very warm so we are now into layering big time. I brought out the heavy duty gear and Barry has on my down jacket under his fleece in this shot; and that is just for inside the boat!!! He also put on some socks for the first time aboard this year, he was saving on laundry costs.
