If you think of quiet little fishing harbors, pine forests ending in seaweed-covered rocky shores, and pitch black nights as quintessential Maine, you need to visit Pulpit Harbor. Tucked away on the west side of North Haven, the entrance is hidden by Pulpit Rock, topped by an osprey nest that’s over 150 years old and still inhabited. A Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast says, “If you want an anchorage to yourself, this is not it. But if you want one of the best sunsets on the coast of Maine in a setting you will never forget, here’s a contender,” and we agree. (If you’re ever planning to cruise Maine, the Guide is an indispensable reference – we never would have found Pulpit without it). Schooners often make this a stop on their extended cruises, and we shared the anchorage with four of them over the course of our time here.
We headed ashore before work and found the beautiful Mill Stream hiking trail, maintained by the North Haven Conservation Partners. The trail is an easy loop trail that takes you through diverse habitat including pine forest, meadow and shoreline, and we enjoyed soaking in the sights and smells of the forest. We didn’t see many birds, but we could hear their song all around us, accompanied by the occasional cricket or heat bug.
The remains of Tropical Storm Debby blew through on Friday night into this morning. While we were only forecast to see sustained winds into the low-mid 20s with occasional gusts to 40, we decided to maintain an active anchor watch. Certainly not one of the worst storms we’ve seen this season, but given how many boats had come in, the anchorage was pretty tight and there wasn’t a lot of space if someone ahead of us started dragging. We were glad to see that we seemed to be among experienced company – everyone spent time preparing Friday afternoon and as the wind started to build, people came on deck to check on their boats and those around them. All through the night, headlamps and flashlights could be seen throughout the anchorage. During my watch, the schooner J&E Riggin started to drag. They’d been maintaining a watch and the crew had the situation in hand in no time, but I did wake Chris just in case – after watching the tall ship struggle in Portsmouth, I figured it was prudent to be ready to take fast action if something went wrong. Fortunately that wasn’t the case, and aside from some wild rains where the only way I could confirm we were holding was by looking at the mooring behind us, the rest of the night passed uneventfully and I was able to get some sleep around 0400.
Today started out foggy but turned beautiful, and we took full advantage. Chris got a chance to play his guitar, and I broke out my paints for the first time. My only goal was to get a feel for them – before I bought them, I’d never even heard of gouache, so I wanted to see how they looked both full strength and with a wetter brush and play with mixing them. I’d been putting it off, if I’m being honest, because I don’t know how to draw or paint, so I knew anything I did would be “bad”. But I’m also trying to use this as an exercise to let go of trying to make things to be judged/rated – there’s nothing wrong with just playing, nor should I expect things to look good while I’m learning. I won’t be sharing regular updates on my artistic journey, but I did want to share these photos of my early experimentation in hopes that they inspire you to do something badly too.
Following on the “doing things badly” theme, I also took the paddleboard out – I haven’t quite gotten to the “stand up” part, but I managed to paddle around and get back to Windara without swimming, so I consider that a success. I also finally got to break out my hammock and read.
Later in the day, we wandered into North Haven proper, such as it is, and on our way, a local offered us a ride. Town is made up of a couple art galleries, a gift shop, two restaurants (a cafe/ice cream shop and a pizza place), North Haven Brewing and the ferry terminal. If you blink, you’ll miss it – but it’s exactly that small town charm we were expecting. They were having their Community Days celebration (we apparently missed the parade and some other events like cod racing, which I SO wish we’d been there to see!) and were having live music. We got some pizza and beer and hung out for a while before we had to walk back to Windara, just in time to enjoy sunset. I’ve really enjoyed having a laid-back few days here, and I see why this is such a popular spot.
One reply on “Pulpit Harbor”
We loved our two nights in Pulpit Harbor. One night we got invited to cocktails at someone’s house and another we got invited to cocktails on someone’s boat. The local store was not a bad walk and was pretty well stocked by small store standards.