Archive for October 2025

Sept 3-4, 2025 As soon as we were officially checked into St. Pierre, the crew, led by Denise, went in search of pastries. Armed with a recommendation from Rockport neighbors and sailors Tom and Mary Amory, we did not have far to go. The nearest pâtisserie was less than a ten-minute walk away. With a…

Sept 2, 2025 As we approached from the southwest, the western side  of the island was dark except for the slight illumination from a setting  moon and a few navigational beacons off the coast. St Pierre is only 4 nautical miles, north-to-south, and 3 miles, east-to-west. The west coast is a wall  of  rocky bluffs…

August/Sept 2025 It would take us 128 hours (5.3 days) to travel  the 620 km (715 statute miles)  from Rockport, ME to St.  Pierre, France. We  left Rockport around three in the afternoon on Thursday, August 28th and arrived in  St. Pierre at 11 PM, Tuesday, September 2, clocking  an average speed of 4.8 kts…

Summer 2025 The date of departure for St. Pierre was set for Thursday, August 28th. The crew was set as Denise and Burke Munger, Rockport ME neighbors; William Hill Harmon, Riverside California; Brimmer Sherman, Huntsville AL neighbor; and I.  That date was selected based on multiple, sometimes competing, objectives.   I wanted to delay the trip…

February 2025 In considering  whether sailing to St. Pierre was a reasonable exception to my commitment to coastal cruising, I’d forgotten how far away St. Pierre actually is. According to Google Earth, it’s 623 nautical miles (717  Statute miles) from Rockport Harbor to St. Pierre. That’s about the same distance as from Rockport to Bermuda.…

Fall 2024 As planned, in the Summers of 2023 and 2024 Lillian stayed near home, taking  week-long cruises along the coast of Maine. Meanwhile, Willian Hill Harmon  (Hill) had been working on midlife dreams of ocean voyages. In 2022, Hill had joined for the last leg of the Atlantic circumnavigation, sailing from Bermuda to Rockport…

On June 25th, 2022, the Lillian B sailed back into Rockport Harbor, Maine, completing her year-long circumnavigation of the North Atlantic. It was to be the last  of her over 30,000 miles  of blue-water  voyages. Travelling around the Atlantic I’d compiled a mental list of repairs and upgrades: new sails, engine maintenance, a refrigerator/freezer that…