Camden Windjammer Festival…

I have a confession to make of sorts… when we first decided that we were going to go to Maine we decided that we wanted to go to Bar Harbor and see Acadia National Park. So I got on the web and went to the Maine State Park website and booked us a spot at Lamoine State Park just a short drive from Bar Harbor. Perfect, right? Wrong!

A few weeks went by and I looked at our reservation only to discover that I had booked a site at Camden Hills State Park instead. Back online to see where the heck this place was only to discover it was quite south of where we wanted to be… Bar Harbor’s area. However, further internet searching revealed what a wonderful spot Camden would be and there was even going to be a festival in town while we were there… the Camden Windjammer Festival! So off to Camden it was!!!

The three day Windjammer Festival is a community-led celebration of Camden’s maritime heritage and living traditions. The festival ended Sunday and it was a total blast to attend various parts of it while we were nearby Camden. The first day of festivities had the arrival of the windjammers along with a Maritime Heritage Fair with booths and displays of maritime history, traditions and skills. The first day ended at dark with the sky full of pyrotechnics as fireworks lit up the sky.

Saturday’s festival highlights for us were the Lobster Crate Race and the Schooner Open House in Camden Harbor. The Lobster Crate Race is an event where lobster traps are strapped together end to end in the sea and children get the opportunity to run across them as fast as they can without falling into the water. Lots of fun was had by all watching these kids try their best to beat their rivals. A few even made it across several times without falling in the cold North Sea waters of Camden Harbor.

The Schooner open house was held on both Saturday and Sunday as festival goers were allowed the opportunity to board the schooners and windjammers. Once on board you could tour and explore the ships to better get a feel for what it is like to journey on these vessels. There are some really nice ships here that have been restored and are now active commercial cruise liners of sorts. They take 3-6 day sailing tours of coastal Maine. Pricing varies but seemed to be about $150 per day per person and the sleeping quarters are near as luxurious as the less than $100 per day price of commercial cruises on lines such as Royal Caribbean, Princess, and Celebrity.

    

Other Sunday highlights were the Sea Dog Show (which we missed as we were visiting a local winery), the Build-a-Boat race (where contestants built a boat and tried to race to the finish without sinking – not all were successful), and the Boat Parade. The Boat Parade marked the end of the three day festival and what fun it was as the boats sailed by one at a time while the harbor master told us details about each one of them. What a fun festival it was!!

We finished out our Sunday night scrambling online to find a web site that would allow us to watch the fighting Texas A&M Aggies battle the SMU Mustangs in collegiate football. We finally found a link and were able to watch on our computer the Aggies and their victory over the Mustangs. With football being played it must be almost fall… yikes where did the summer go…

   

Now we must get ready to slowly head south as the leaves are beginning to change colors signaling to us it will be cold here soon…Tomorrow it will be off to Salisbury, Massachusetts where we hope to visit Boston and the surrounding area for about a week or so…