Casco Bay in Maine is a place that-all by itself-would take several summers to explore. Mainers in the area all seem to have some secret favorite place in Casco Bay, and we’ve explored a few of them over our three summers in Maine. This summer we found two new anchorages, thanks to advice from folks we became friends with in Portland.
The Basin in an amazing anchorage up the New Meadows River. It’s very well protected—really a nice little inland cove of sorts—and we sheltered there from tropical storm Elsa in early July, though Elsa was quite tame by the time she reached Maine. Once Elsa passed, we loved the Basin so much that we spent a week there, enjoying several really nice hikes close by.
As to hiking, we found that we could land the dinghy at Denny Reddy Pt, and walk a trail from there. It was slightly buggy, but was a very nice trail that led to a road that wasn’t too busy and the hike could be extended with fewer bugs. We also found that by taking the dinghy to the furthest eastern point in the cove, there was a beautiful little waterfall, and we could land the dinghy and walk up to the road. Once on the road, we walked a quarter mile to the Mica Mine Trailhead, which took us up over a couple hilltops and past several old mica mines. It might have been possible to make a several mile loop that would include some local roads, but we just went out and back.
We also spent time up at the top of Quahog Bay, which is the next “river” to the west of the New Meadows River. Quahog Bay is a favorite among locals in the area, and it’s easy to see why. The anchoring is excellent with good holding in reasonable depths. As with most anchorages in Maine, the scenery is stunning. Great Island Boat Yard has a great reputation as a place to get work done, and they have several mooring balls for rent in an extremely well protected little river. Really in nearly all directions the protection in Quahog Bay is outstanding.
We went ashore at Great Island, but there wasn’t a lot of walking there. We couldn’t identify anywhere else to go ashore to walk, so our time there ended after only a couple of days.
